Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for August 29, 2023

yeah, Vern appears to be a bit of a prick…

So everyone was “relieved” when he was killed?

Good morning™, all!

Yup. It looks like “a lot” of people might have preferred him to be dead.

Good morning™, dead ballplayers !

Sorry buddy. You you got cut, the hard way !

Nice to see Pop Fisher stayed in the game!

Slow story so far, but it’s still early.

Not sure I like the watercolor artwork.

In panel 1, why is the crime scene photographer taking pictures with the sheet covering the body?

Now Tracy has to check who was arrested by the victim.

So the clue or motive is that he’s a deputy?

As a furriner I had to look up Reliever, not a term I ever came across in my few attendances at Seattle baseball games back in the 90s. By a weird coincidence, I’ll be going to another game in DC next month as a “social” arranged during a business meeting.

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“And now he’s dead, and I’m the Reliever” (Sorry Monkees)!

To quote Daffy Duck: ‘Well, hes eliminated HIM as a suspect.’

“A Cancer? Perhaps they should have tried chemotherapy.”

Not many players have off season work these days. And a COP? Tracy better solve this quick!

“But Who’s on First?” “Naturally.”

“Is his bullet still in his pocket, Sam?” Tracy needs to check who shot the sheriff, because the guy did get the deputy as well…..

His cleats are squeaky clean. They look brand new. Probably means nothing.

The devil is in the details. Where’s the pitching mound?

I guess this is a minor league team, since he had an off-season job?

Now expecting a “Gil Thorpe” crossover from this lousy strip…

…….any minute now Joe Schlabotnik is liable to show……..

Who’s “A Lot”?……?!!!??….oh, never mind………

He doesn’t look like too nice of a guy, for sure.

A “Deputy” in the off season? Hmmm. I wonder if he ever arrested a team mate?

Background player looks like he wants to clock him with that bat.

It was Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick!

Well, no wonder they lost. He’s not pitching from the mound. Balked in the winning run.

From today’s Comics Curmudgeon:

“A real piece of [spit]. We all wanted him dead and whoever did this to him should get a medal. Frankly I’m pretty furious the coroner called you down here. Nobody in this locker room is going to testify at trial.”

And now we see a bat (the suspected blunt object / weapon) that wasn’t in the scene yesterday

MOVIE QUOTE

“You be a cop! Not a gangster with a badge!”

Ida Lupino to Robert Ryan—-ON DANGEROUS GROUND—1952

Okay, the dead man was both a ballplayer and a Sheriff deputy—which means he was hated from two different directions at once. Will probably make the job a little tougher.

The former 198.23.5.11 explaining his new NOM DE PLUME—-one of my absolute favorites was the 1954-55 Rughead story.

Rughead’s pal Happy Larson and his sawed off was probably the most fearsome second banana Gould evercreated.

One of Murder Incorporated’es chief killers was Happy Maione—-they called him that out of sarcasm because he never smiled.

Not even when he went to the electric chair

I contributed the art for this Minit Mystery. Thought I’d drop in and say “Hi.”

1-DT: Was he a good player? MANAGER: Well, he was dedicated. I mean look – he’s still trying to crawl to the mound…

2-…And he filled the stands with his favorite pitch – the beanball. Unfortunately though…

3-…that pitch – while filling the stands – also filled the bases. We’ve lost every game he relieved as a result and that didn’t make him popular with the players. He was so unpopular that when one of his bean balls brought out every player from the other team’s dugout, our players stayed seated.

DT: So you’re saying… MANAGER: YEAH! WE MIGHT WIN A FEW NOW!

Well obviously it’s the guy coming at him with a scowl and ready to swing his bat in P3. Case solved. Next!

He was “A Closer” but couldn’t “Save” himself, so he’s been DFA’d..permanently

Everyone hated him? Then what’s the problem?

911 OT: Ever try to find a local police substation # when they only give you 911 in the phone book? Today, I found a 5’ watering trough with the merchant codes still in place hidden behind the fence of the house next door. This seems to be a drop point for stolen goods, so I had n officer out earlier.

This is becoming an ongoing issue in our neighborhood.

The days when professional bal players, especially in the major leagues, (which I assume the Knights are) had to work jobs in the off-season to supplement their income are long gone, still, the fact he was a deputy may be a clue he was killed because of his work in law enforcement, not baseball.

So, as our manager says, the victim, Vernon Simpson, was a reliever (not a first-line starter), roundly disliked, and a deputy-something (deputy sheriff?) in the off-season. He was killed by “blunt force trauma,” and all the details of where the blows hit him and how he fell point to a left-handed perpetrator. The crime scene is the locker room in the clubhouse, i.e., with access restricted to the team and a few “behind the scenes” workers. Tracy and Catchem ought to able to make short work of this case (and they have only through next week to do so)….

A Cancer? He looks like a Libra to me.