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| From this still image taken from security camera footage, Ballers personnel identified Dave Goodrow as the intruder who broke into Mojo D's home on Christmas Eve. |
By Ariel Mutha-Tafoya
FSN Sports
Did three spirits really visit Mojo D on Christmas Eve?
That’s a question league insiders have been investigating for most of the past month — ever since the owner of the Pie Town Ballers awoke on Christmas morning drenched in sweat, asked “Am I still in this world?” and then announced to colleagues that he was making “major changes.”
Until now, the story of D’s visitation — or was it just hallucination? — has remained a closely guarded secret. But FSN Sports has been piecing together details from people in the Ballers’ organization. (Attempts to reach Mojo D himself have been unsuccessful; team officials say he is leading a medical mission trip to Haiti and is currently unreachable.)
According to sources, Mojo D claims to have been haunted by three spirits during the pre-dawn hours of Christmas morning. They identified themselves to him, he said, as the Ghost of Fantasy Football Past, the Ghost of Fantasy Football Present and the Ghost of Fantasy Football Future.
The first spirit transported Mr. D to the halcyon days when his franchise was celebrating league championships at The Palm restaurant, where a drawing of him hung prominently on the wall.
The second spirit took him to the fabled Integrity Dinner in London, where he overheard former president Barack Obama say, “It’s a shame that Mojo couldn’t stop looking at free agent stats and tweaking his lineup for just one night to come be with his friends.” Then, sources said, D claimed that he was allowed to listen in on conversations in “the Garment Factory,” as the Ballers’ famed research department is known to employees, where staff routinely work 23-hour days during football season and Warren Zevon’s “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” blares constantly through the McIntosh XR100 floor-standing stereo speakers.
Finally, D claimed to have been visited by the Ghost of Fantasy Football Future, who showed him a nearly empty “Roofie” and pointed a bony finger at official NFFA statistics from 2039 indicating that the Village Green had won 20 consecutive league titles while the Ballers had finished dead last in every season since 2018.
When he awoke, sources said, D announced that he would never again violate the league’s 160-hour rule and would stop reneging on promises of free avocado toast at Whole Foods for fans if his team scored more than 160 points in a game.
“He kept repeating, ‘I want to go to the Integrity Dinner, I want to go to the Integrity Dinner,’” according to one team insider who asked to remain anonymous.
Most hauntingly, sources said, Mojo D told them that each of the three spirits bore an uncanny resemblance to Green owner and archrival Dave Goodrow. They said they tried to reassure their boss that it was only a dream, and that his vision probably originated in something he had smoked before retiring to bed that night. “No,” D reportedly insisted. “It was him. I know it was him.”
The story prompted Ballers’ Chief of Security Ray Lewis to order a secret investigation. When they reviewed security camera footage from Mojo D’s home, they saw someone raise an extension ladder to the rear of the house and enter through a second-floor window outside the master bedroom. Time-stamp data showed the break-in began at precisely 4 a.m., and that the intruder left at 4:45 carrying what appeared to be a trophy.
Officials also allowed a reporter to see a still image from the video. The intruder, who is captured looking toward the camera, appears to be Goodrow.
Sources say the findings from the investigation have not been shared with Mojo D. “Frankly,” said one, “we don’t want to ruin the opportunity to get more than one hour of sleep per night.”
Officials from the Village Green did not return phone calls seeking comment.
