Monday Morning Mock Draft: Steal This Draft!

Guten Tag, drones.

This week, inspired by the recent Sunday Gravys featuring all that art, we’re going to be drafting heists.

No, these drafts are not eligible, despite the massive amounts of time they have stolen from your employers.

Now, before we begin, we need to define what we mean by “heist” because otherwise you people won’t have anything to ignore during the actual draft.  Merriam-Webster defines it pretty broadly, as “an act of stealing something from a bank or store.”  Technically correct, I guess, which is the best kind of correct, but a little too broad for our refined tastes.  Under this definition a smash and grab at the local liquor store would qualify, and while you may be into that sort of thing, it’s not the sort of thing you should care to broadcast to the world.

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines a heist as “a crime in which things are taken illegally and often violently from a place or person.”  OK, a little better.  We’re extending our targets beyond banks or stores, but I don’t know that we need the violence aspect of things.  Also, smash n’ grabs would still be on the table.

The Collins Dictionary defines a heist as “a robbery, especially one in which money, jewelry, or art is stolen.”  That’s a little better still.  We haven’t ruled out sudden, spontaneous actions, but at least we’re getting away from robbing the corner bodega.

Of all things I find the definition I prefer in the AI introduction to all the search results.  I’m not going to link to it here, because AI likely heisted the definition from a myriad of other sources and did not credit them, so I am just returning the favor.

For purposes of this draft a hesitation shall me “a meticulously planned and executed robbery or theft, typically targeting large sums of money, art, or highly valuable items.”

I, for one, welcome our new AI Overlords.

One important addition to the rules, for the sake of expanding the draft pool you may draft fictional heists, although you will be looked down* on for lacking initiative.  Govern yourselves accordingly.

*Unless it’s that version of ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ with Rene Russo, because she is ungodly hot in that movie.

Heists are, I suspect, rarely this sexy in real life.  More’s the pity.

With the first pick I will take the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist.  Two men dressed up as police and persuaded the security guards to open the doors, claiming they were responding to a call for a disturbance.  Once in they overpowered and secured the guards, then spent an hour or so looting the museum.  Authorities estimate they got away with art valued in the hundred of millions (!) none of which has ever been recovered.

The article linked above provides some fantastic details, like the museum not being able to enhance security inside the building due to Gardner having forbidden major renovations when she set the museum, and the security guards being paid slightly above minimum wage.  The security guards also knew about, and apparently discussed, how poor the security was.

Not an ideal set up in which to store your valuable art.

Reading the article I lean towards the heist being something of an inside job, likely connected to Boston-area mob wars.  All the likely suspects are dead, and at least one theory is that some or all of the paintings were damaged or destroyed when a secret compartment underneath a shed in, of all places, Manchester, CT flooded sometime around 2010.

If you, however, can find the missing artwork, or at least information leading to its recovery in good condition, there’s a $10 million reward offered.  Get cracking!!

The rest of you are on the clock.