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Adding fan lore for Herring's time on the Crabs
Details include:
- Herring learning about the local ghost-life with Kennedy Loser
-Winfield learning about the local water-life with Finn James
-The Duo investigating the mysterious circumstances of the Mints and Crab's tied game
-The Duo's redaction on the Crabs
Full text is available here.
Added to page
Life on the Shoe Thieves
Herring Winfield first joined the Shoe Thieves organization as part-time private investigators hired by team manager Cornelius Games. While Herring Winfield primarily joined in order to investigate the team's connection to the ruins of Sunken Charleston, Games put them on payroll to solve the mystery of the stolen shoes, intending for the pair to expose any loose ends and sloppy thieving by his partners in crime.
Unfortunately, Winfield's enthusiasm for mystery-solving is not accompanied by any skill in the craft. The fish is somewhat notorious among his teammates for fixating on false leads and entirely missing obvious clues. As a direct result, Winfield has yet to realize that the Charleston Shoe Thieves are the perpetrators of innumerable shoe thefts within Charleston and throughout the world. They swear that someday they will bring the culprits to justice.
With the sudden disappearance of teammate Blood Hamburger just before Season 14, Herring and Winfield were called up to play in the ILB along with fellow off-the-books Shoe Thief, Simba Davis.
While the pair were initially nervous about participating in the high octane world of professional splorts, due to Herring having drowned decades before the first observed instances of Blaseball and Winfield being a fish, they quickly acclimated to the league and became strong game-in, game-out performers near the back of the Shoe Thieves' batting lineup. The pair's use of a half-rotted oar, retrieved from the wreck of Herring's old ship, as a bat has been permitted by ILB management on the grounds that it "is not even the fifth weirdest thing any of us have seen today."
Physical Appearance
Colloquially now known as Herring Winfield, they are a symbiotic pair. One half, a sentient, talking fish named Winfield. The other half, the briny ghost of fisherman, Hendry "Herring" Findlay. “Herring and Winfield's relationship is,” according to scientific and occult expert Fitzgerald Wanderlust, "a semi-symbiotic, cross-planar, consensual spiritual possession with simultaneous ectoplasmic manifestation." In layman's terms, Winfield lives in Herring's spooky ghost body, which Herring is able to manifest because Winfield allows themself to be possessed. Herring's ectoplasmic body, conveniently, has sufficiently similar properties to the seawater.
History
Little is known about the life of Hendry “Herring” Findlay prior to the sinking of his ship sometime during the 1800’s. Even the ship’s name has been lost to time. When Herring tries to recall its name, he pictures instead a young girl, waving from the dock of a lush, green land. His heart aches, but he knows not why.
Winfield never felt at home with other fish, preferring to live a solitary life. No one is quite sure what inspired Winfield's fascination with investigating the unknown. Whatever the cause, he longed to roam the land in search of mysteries to solve.
The two met one day at the end of a hook. Herring, being a fisherman by trade, hooked Winfield, being a fish. Winfield offered the ghost a deal-- release him, and he would grant Herring one wish. Herring replied that he had no need of wishes, being a ghost. Herring offered instead to let Winfield have the wish for himself. Winfield was touched, and said that he wanted more than anything in the world to be on land, without dying. Herring chuckled, and told the fish that he need not use a wish for that. Herring, being a ghost made of salt water, would let the fish swim inside his form and take him wherever he liked. Since then, the two have been inseparable. Except when they need space apart, at which point Winfield has a lovely portable aquarium.
Hobbies and Interests
While both Herring and Winfield have less time to themselves since joining the league, they still make room for their respective pastimes and hobbies. Winfield’s painting hobby has spanned a number of mediums and styles. While Winfield feels most at home making landscape paintings on a lake, his work also includes many portraits and still lives in styles ranging from abstract to interpretive to realistic depending on his mood.
Despite his unfortunate shipwreck and drowning sometime in the 1800’s, Herring still loves the sea and enjoys taking a boat out on the water to go fishing. Given Winfield's understandable discomfort with joining Herring on these fishing trips, the fish usually stays behind in a bowl at Choux Stadium. Curiously, no matter the body of water, all Herring is able to catch are wellington boots.
They also enjoy doing puzzles together.
Connections with Other Players
Herring Winfield spent a significant amount of time with fellow rookie Simba Davis before they were pulled up to the majors. Simba cheerfully helped the pair learn the ropes of Blaseball with her typical over-enthusiasm. Herring Winfield initially struggled to get results at practices before receiving the advice of league veteran, Esme Ramsey, who advised them to do "literally whatever the opposite is of whatever Simba told you to do." Nevertheless, the three of them remain good friends.
Herring Winfield do their best to be a part of the team. They feel honored to take Blood’s spot, but also nervous. They cook meals for the team (which often include something pickled). Employed by Cornelius Games (a gentleman of strong moral fiber), they do their best to solve crimes, despite constant false or misleading information. Herring has an eye on Gunther O’Brien, careful never to leave Winfield, the fish, alone with the O’Brien, the penguin. They remain pleasant with Fitzgerald Wanderlust, despite the unnerving suspicion that Fitz is trying to study them as a supernatural phenomenon.
Winfield, despite Herring’s pleadings to remain cordial, is intensely competitive when facing another fish or fish-adjacent player.
