The Sighting Of A Mythic Figure

Moises is a figure in North American folklore said to inhabit remote ballparks, mainly in the United States and the Canadian province of Quebec. Moises is one of the more famous examples of cryptoballogy, a subject that mainstream researchers tend to dismiss as pseudoscience because of unreliable eyewitness accounts and a lack of solid physical evidence. Most experts on the matter consider the Moises legend to be a combination of folklore and hoaxes, but there are a number of authors and researchers who do believe that the stories could be true.

According to most accounts, Moises is a powerfully built left fielder creature between 5 and 7 feet tall, and covered on top of his head in dark brown hair. The head seems to sit directly on the shoulders, with no apparent healthy muscles. Alleged witnesses have described a number 18, a .318 batting average in 2007, and a large tendency to hit left handed pitchers; Moises has been said to have a .330 lifetime average against lefties.

Moises is one of the more famous creatures in cryptoballogy. But mainstream scientists generally dismiss the phenomena due to a lack of representative specimens. They attribute the numerous sightings to folklore, mythology, hoaxes, and the misidentification of healthy left fielders.

Mainstream scientists and baseball analysts overwhelmingly "discount the existence of Moises because the evidence supporting belief in the survival of a 40-year-old left fielder is scant". In addition to the lack of evidence, they cite the fact that while Moises is alleged to live in regions unusual for an old hitter, all other recognized left fielders are found in places like Cincinnati, Houston, and Colorado.

Although most managers find current evidence of Moises unpersuasive, a number of prominent experts have offered sympathetic opinions on the subject. In a 2002 interview on ESPN, Felipe Alou first publicly expressed his views on Moises, by remarking, "Well now, you'll be amazed when I tell you that I'm sure that he exists...I've talked to so many managers who all describe the same sounds, and my wife who has seen him."

There are times when a Moises sighting or footprint is a hoax. Willie Randolph argues that the "Brooklyn" affair, involving a rehab stint for the Cyclones was a hoax. Citing research by Edgar Alfonzo, who found that several contemporary New York newspapers regarded the boxscore as very dubious, Alfonzo notes that the New York Post wrote, "Absurdity is written on the face of it".

Alledged Moises sightings:

• 1992: An account by a Montreal hunter who claimed seeing Moises make his major league debut was printed in the Sporting News on July 26, 1992.
• 1994: An account by Tony Gwynn was aired on "The Baseball Network". Gwynn related a story which was told to him by "a beaten old pitcher, named Bere" living in Chicago, where Bere was beaten in the tenth inning of an All-Star Game.
• 1997: Jose Mesa and 24 friends claimed to have been attacked by Moises in Cleveland and Florida in October 1997 (this is the only known sighting of Moises in Florida). The Indians claimed that Moises steals world titles, and scattering his remains on his hands, had a strong smell.
• On October 14, 2003, a TV film crew from FOX pulled into Wrigley Field and filmed what they claimed to be Moises battling with an inferior creature near the ivy for a spherical stitched object. Moises was said to be jumping so hard after losing the battle for the object that he damaged his hamstrings.
• On November 20, 2006, Omar Minaya claimed that he saw and captured the broken down creature near the side of the Grand Central Parkway. Several men from the city drove down to the area and found footprints, which they tracked through the snow. They found a tuft of pine tar and took photographs of the tracks.
• On July 27th, 2007, Moises was seen in the high grass of Shea Stadium in the first Moises sighting in over two months. Witnesses claim they saw Moises angrily chuck a spherical object towards another mythic creature...a woolly mammoth known simply as Meat Hook, who has been known to have foot races with a Sasquatch named Castro which were timed with sundials.

(Editors note: Any similarities between this piece and Wikipedia's Bigfoot page were intended by the author. Just as any similarities between Mike Bacsik and an ex-Met who comes back to haunt the Mets is completely intended and mandatory...because what fun would it be if ex-Mets just laid down and rolled over as they were supposed to?)