Kennedy Loser/IF-69.726

=== Captain and Dad ===
Kennedy Loser co-captains the Baltimore Crabs alongside Forrest Best and Brock Forbes. The general triumverate of co-captaining is that Kennedy and Forrest are the emotional pillars, here to support the team on a personal level, Kennedy and Brock are representative pillars, handling most of the on-paper team management, and Forrest and Brock are the protective pillars, doing the hands-on work against literal hostile forces that threaten the team. Combs Duende was the sole team captain up until their incineration, and Kennedy quickly and sloppily took the role, biting off way more than he could chew. The others stepped up after the Crabs had been spiralling for much of that season.
Kennedy Loser compulsively copes with stress by externalizing his focus to caring for others, especially so now that he holds teamwide responsibilities. He has become "everyone's dad" in a way that is both endearing but also exhausting, but he loves his fellow and former Crabs so much that he couldn't imagine it being any other way for the longest time. Much of his responsibilities as a captain involve micromanaging the Crabs to maximize having all of their needs met and comforts accounted for through a series of complex nested juggling acts. This process became significantly easier and more streamlined once Tillman Henderson was incinerated, to the point where Kennedy felt empty inside, because so much of his daily energy had been dedicated toward herding him around to minimize damage.
After repeatedly getting tageted by blood drain in season 10, both he and the rest of the Crabs realized that he was pushing himself too hard. As the team prepared for ascension, he tried to reconnect with the Crabs in a way that doesn't feel so one-sided, but had a profoundly difficult time not being seen as a surrogate father. This twelveish-person coming of age experience for the other Crabs has been difficult, as all coming of ages are and at any age they may happen, but, nevertheless, there is progress. Since ascension, there have been no reports back from the team, so nobody knows if they're all a little more comfortable with each other yet or not.
===Ghosts from the Past===
Upon returning to the field after ascension, Loser was hit with a number of difficult events one after another. Losing co-captains Forrest Best and Brock Forbes, as well as Silvaire Roadhouse, the necromancy of York Silk and Chorby Soul, the redaction of Nagomi Mcdaniel and Alyssa Harrell, and the loss of Luis Acevedo all took their toll on the now lone captain. In all of this chaos, Loser was inflicted with another curse, to be haunted by the spirits of the dead. At this point longtime teammate Pedro Davids stepped in to convince Loser to take some time off. Davids took charge of the team alongside some of their new players, leaving Loser time and space to start trying to pick up the pieces.
An unexpected visitor from the hall was the Crab’s first incineration, Nora Perez. Nora had been dead longer than she had ever been alive, and as such she presented an interesting perspective on the whole ordeal. While she and Loser had not been particularly close, she did appreciate getting to stop by and check in. She asked about how Pedro’s research was going, and if York ever managed to take those night classes on marine biology that he was talking about. She told Loser all about her new job in the trench, and how she was keeping an eye on the new arrivals and getting everyone acclimatized. Most importantly though, she seemed happy, competent, and flourishing.
Perez had gotten out of the splort earlier than most and found her own way in the world with no captain, no guidance, and no parental figures in the depths of the trench. Maybe giving the team some space could be good for all of them.
===Reading the Cards===
While the Expansion Era brought tarot to blaseball with both the earlsiesta readings and The Reader themselves, Loser was reportedly not a huge fan of either. As a practitioner of Tarot himself, he found the actions ascribed to The Reader to be both reductive and misleading. In an interview he admitted that “Anyone who wants to find a single meaning in the cards is going to find that meaning - its about keeping an open mind and searching for guidance, not taking its word as law”. When Lorcan Smaaht was targeted to be an undertaker, and many members of the team were targeted for Alternation, Loser’s feelings on the matter only strengthened. 
===An Alternate: Blocked Caller===
In season 22 Baltimore was shaken by the death of their former pitcher Brock Forbes in Boston, one of the most affected by his loss was The Olde One herself. Facing what seemed like an uncertain end, and having lost her last prophet, she made a decision either out of self preservation, a lingering instinct of protection, or just a desperate attempt at control, and reached out to the ones she was closest to in Baltimore. 
Kennedy Loser had carcinized decades ago, but found himself changing in a way that he had not experienced since his youth. It was unexpected but did not feel unwelcome as his chiton shifted and his body changed. When he awoke he was different - faster, with a harder carapace, but still shaken from the experience. He knew at once this was a direct interference from the Olde One, but did not take action right away. As the final season of the expansion era came about Loser saw the Kansas City Breath Mints be incinerated, followed by his old friend and teammate Adalberto Tosser. Finally on Day 11(12?) The Crabs played against the Hawai’i Fridays when they were incinerated, losing Sutton Dreamy in the process, and were chained to the instability. While their ash was still warm Loser considered moving to confront the Olde One. With all of that power it was clear to him that she was just as desperate for control as anyone.
It was in this moment more than any other that Loser realized all the ways in which they had always been better than her. She could never imagine a world without herself in it, and a time beyond her, so now she clutches to what she has left. Loser always knew time would outlive him so he simply used that finality to build himself and his loved ones an ending.
===An Unlikely Savior===
In season 24, Niq Nyong'o was loose in the league, inflicting Observation on players across Mild High, leading to their eventual redaction. On Day 16 Loser found himself in their sights, and was Observed before making it on base, and sure enough, he disappeared into the secret base before anyone knew what was happening. Or at least a part of him was. At the start of the at-bat Loser found himself inhabited by Dimi Blather, a long dead player for the Maryland Squirrels. As a result, Blathers took both the initial Observation and eventual Redaction, while Loser remained safely on the Crabs. 
The event was one of many mysteries among fans and for Loser himself. Blather’s part in this was minimal and unknown, and yet many people had questions. Was this an intentional save for a beloved player? An unwilling sacrifice on a poorly timed inhabitation? A clever ploy to be brought back to life? It was impossible to know for sure, and Loser himself dwelled on this thought right up to the end of the season, keeping an eye out for sightings of Blathers, and accepting that in this, like in many things, we may just never know what happened. 
==Towards the Event Horizon==
As the Black Hole opened up and teams were given the ability to steer themselves to their final destination, Kennedy Loser had a choice to make. In his long years as captain, and surviving the first Crab Reckoning as well as Day X, he had many thoughts about what it meant to fight a God. There were sacrifices that would have to be made, and he had made them. In fact several members of the team had. He got together with the longest serving members of the team, Pedro Davids and Finn James, and the three of them had a long, occasionally heated, discussion on what to do. In the end it was decided that they would not put their uninitiated teammates through the same struggles they had faced. They did not need to sacrifice themselves for this case, so they chose not to. James was unhappy with this outcome, Loser was uncharacteristically firm in this decision, not leaving much room for debate, but as the team packed up and headed for the new Horizon they did it together, and awaited the end of the word.