Last week we linked to a compelling and gripping story about a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of the . . . well, not the government or anything, but the Milwaukee Brewers. Which is basically the same thing.

The theory: that their beloved unofficial mascot Hank the Dog, who wandered as a stray into their spring training complex in Phoenix two years ago and quickly won the hearts of Brewers fans everywhere, has been replaced. Maybe he’s even dead! It’s not clear, but the Brew Crew Ball blog gave us all of the information that it could find on this sinister (alleged) plot and vowed to get to the bottom of it even if it meant their deaths.

Well, maybe not that far, but they were totally going to get to the bottom of it.

Now, under the intense pressure that only the most intrepid and committed stay-at-home baseball bloggers can bring to bear, the Brewers have cracked:

A press conference has been scheduled for tomorrow related to "Hank 1." Stay tuned for more information. — Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) March 3, 2016

If this goes like most conspiracies go everyone in a position to know The Truth about all of this will be dead or disappeared by morning. But we have to give credit to the Brewers for at least going through the motions here, right? Maybe we’ll actually get some answers tomorrow.

Until then, we’ll be contending with people who think this is all nonsense and that having fun with such things is beneath them:

There will be a banner over the media seating that says “Journalism is Officially Dead." https://t.co/YQZSZs3qad — Tom (@Haudricourt) March 3, 2016

In other news, that reporter’s own newspaper has a dedicated URL page in which its numerous Hank the Dog stories are stored. Maybe only credentialed members of the Serious Sporting Press are allowed to have fun with stray dogs that turn into mascots. Maybe there’s an unwritten rule of baseball I’m missing which states that it’s impermissible to have some harmless fun at the outset of a season in which your team is probably gonna lose 96 games. Who knows?

In any event, we will update you once the Brewers come clean and admit that Hank has been kidnapped by nihilists or that he had to go back to his home planet which needs him or that the Trilateral Commission, in conjunction with the Reverse Vampires, have actually just induced a mass hallucination on us all via water fluoridation or what have you.

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