Give the Hippo What He Wants

In the baseball league of the future, losing the World Series will get you the death penalty.  Nobody cares if anti-MVP Thal Simoleon choked because of an opera-singing pink hippo that only he can see.  Angry fans hunt him down in murderous mobs, dying to get a piece of him.  And that damn pink hippo taunts him every step of the way, always making things worse.  But the sins of the past that set the death hunt in motion might also point the way to salvation.  Will the pink hippo's terrible secret be the key that leads Thal back to some kind of glory?  Or will he die in extra innings of the bloodiest high-tech basebrawl of all time?  Only the hippo knows.