Just Hoffa top of my head...

Friends of mine, fans of the Jets and the Giants, have been joking (I think) that they want Zombie Jimmy Hoffa to rise from his burial ground under the old Giants Stadium to play QB for their respective teams this year. In fact, they're willing to get into a bidding war over him. They think his almost-fifty-year-old corpse will show more life and resilience than they've seen from the live players.

But some cold-case hobbyists think they have a better fix on the location of Jimmy's remains. The one-time Teamster boss, who disappeared in 1975, is now said to have been planted by his Mafioso pals under third base in the old Milwaukee County Stadium. 

Best seat in the house?

The Giants Stadium myth was the claim of gangster Donald Frankos, who said in 1989 that Hoffa had been buried under Section 107 during construction. The story was so widespread in the 90's in the NY/NJ metro area that one could hear game promotions like: "In 1975, the mob buried Jimmy Hoffa in Giants Stadium. This Sunday, the Giants will bury the Eagles there." A 2004 episode of MythBusters was given over in part to disproving the story, with Jamie and Adam at the stadium, helped by then-Giants head coach Jim Fassel. 

But the new theory makes more sense on one level, or at least more sense than the Giants Stadium story -- Hoffa disappeared in a parking lot in Detroit, which is 225 miles closer to Milwaukee than it is to the Meadowlands. The mob doesn't get away with its hits by playing Weekend at Bernie's with the corpses; they dump them fast. Closer is faster.

But Giants Stadium was under construction when Hoffa vanished, and Milwaukee County Stadium opened in 1953. So why go to all that trouble to plant Hoffa in an extant structure? Plus, Hoffa vanished on July 30, right in the middle of baseball season. I can't think of a worse way to get rid of a body than bury it in a stadium that's always going to have someone on duty at the time. Furthermore, the Brewers were playing a long homestand from July 26 to August 5 that year. "Gee, third base seems a little -- elevated tonight, doesn't it?" is something infielder Jack Heidemann did not say.

To be fair, the cold-case group thinks that Hoffa was not buried there during the 1975 season, but for some reason was moved there in 1995. Which doesn't really make it any less crazy. Why move a body that had been tucked away safely for twenty years? Because the site had become risky? What could be riskier than the middle of a major league ballpark? 

But Richard III was found buried in a parking lot, wasn't he? Is it so crazy?

Yes. It is. For one thing, Richard's plot was not a busy car park in 1485. 

If by chance Hoffa turns out to have been entombed under what is now a parking lot, the Brewers might want to take an option on Zombie Hoffa. Sure, they had a good season, going 92-70 and finishing first in the NL Central, but they got swept by Arizona in the first round of the playoffs. 

If Zombie Hoffa's got a decent changeup, he might put the Brewers over the top. After all, he's kept more people guessing in death than he even did in life.