Welcome to The Opener, where every weekday morning during the regular season you’ll get a fresh, topical story to start your day from one of SI.com’s MLB writers.
On the northern shores of the Sea of Cortez in the Mexican town of Puerto Peñasco, a beachfront condo sits as empty as a dream deferred. The water still laps the dune-backed sandy beach, the temperature still averages 85 degrees this month with not a drop of rain, the fishing boats still unload their catches of snapper and halibut and the craftspeople still sell their trinkets of shell jewelry and carved ironwood. But the condo owner, Brent Strom, is not there to enjoy any of it. At 73 years old, he would rather be trying to fix the worst team in baseball.
“It was intriguing to me,” he says. “I wanted the challenge.”
