Routine Day Off in Milwaukee--minus the body!

I must admit having travelled with professional sports teams for so long...starting in the NBA nearly thirty years ago and then with the Texas Rangers and now Houston Astros I would much rather have a day off at home than on the road. Having a day off on the road is usually just a way to spend more money on unnecessary things and try to kill the time with extra walking, reading or watching television.

Some people like golf. I don't since it not only takes all day to play, but is on my list of things in the unnecessary spending category.

I must admit Thursday's off day included a first for me. It was far out of the ordinary.

While taking my second long walk of the day I was going east on St. Paul toward the historic Third Ward area. Before I got to the bridge that crosses the Milwaukee River I heard sirens. Suddenly EMS vans, fire rescue, police and other emergency vehicles were gathering on the bridge. Something obviously was going on in the river.

I couldn't cross so I walked over to a nearby gas station parking lot, looked into the river and saw what the commotion was about.

What looked like it might be a human head was sticking out of the water. It was not moving and there was no apparent body attached. The view was from the back so being sure it was a human head was not certain. It was a very dark gray color. It also appeared to have blood coming from what may have been a hole in the back of the skull.

Was I looking at a murder victim, a hoax or something other than a human head?

Once the divers went into the water and got to the object it was evident. It was a human head and attached to a body. When the diver pulled the body, the arms, both very emaciated, stuck up through the wake. The body could only be visible from the river side from the chest and up. But it did have a sports type solid color shirt and appeared to have male pattern baldness.

Police officials started moving spectators away as they pulled the full body out of the water and put it in a body bag. So that was the end of my macabre afternoon interlude.

Was the dead man a victim of organized crime? Had he been weighted down but finally surfaced? Were the weights why he was in the water in a perpendicular position and not floating horizontally?

That will all be gist for one of those CSI shows. Time for me to get back to sports.