OTTAWA – The funbunch sat around the table at steve “field marshal” saunders’ house last night and lamented their devastating loss to the athletics mere hours earlier. With an empty twelve year old bottle of whiskey sitting in front of them, they had tried unsuccessfully to drown their sorrows and so the second guessing began. “Oh my god, could we have possibly hit any more ground balls to the short stop!”, snorted plucky first base woman leah “the roadrunner” morrell. “or how about any more lazy fly balls directly at fielders”, joined in jack “jackhammer” lawlor one of the rare funbunch players who enjoyed a stellar game. “field marshal” listened without saying a word. He took the brunt of the loss upon his broad shoulders. He had ample opportunities during the game to hit a ball over the fence and he had failed. The team looked up to him and he felt he had let them down. Sure he was a man hobbled with a damaged achillies tendon, torn rotator cuff and surgically repaired back—unable to run and wincing with every swing of his mighty bat. And sure he had to deal with some questionable pitching from Richard “wild thing” Bujold—press ganged into the role with the absence of his baby brother scott “boom boom” saunders. But excuses were for losers.

As the team continued wallowing in self pity , he felt an intervention was necessary. “ENOUGH!” , he yelled at the top of his lungs. “wild thing’s” whiskey bottle rattled around on the table before he steadied it with a shaking hand. “Listen team, none of us had our A game yesterday, but there is still hope. We must be the rebels tomorrow to get a second chance at playing the Athletics in the finals. To do that we simply must play better and more importantly we MUST GET HITS. We have beaten Colin’s team both times in the regular season so WE CAN DO IT. We’re going to have to work extra hard though, because he’s got those umpires in his back pocket so you know we won’t get any breaks”.

Stunned into silence . One by one they nodded their heads in agreement. “You bet field marshal, I am going to knock the stuffing out of that ball tomorrow”, piped up neophyte Paris “songbird” Patricelli, with perhaps one too many glasses of rosé in her belly. “wild thing” lifted his hand to address the crowd but then fell off his bar stool before anything came out of his mouth. Scott “boom boom” Saunders, looking for redemption after missing the first two games of the tournament, “because he was tired”, lowered his head, determined to make a difference. The mood of the squad changed dramatically, they started talking about strategy and tactics, payback and retribution. “wild thing” managed to seat himself back onto his bar stool and grabbed a fresh bottle of whiskey – this was going to be a long night.

The team continued the discussion into the wee hours of the morning…