Newsletter 2016

A few years ago, when I was bitching to someone that Thanksgiving was quickly approaching and I hadn’t yet written the newsletter—sorry, that’s Newsletter, with a capital ‘N’—that someone said to me, “you know, you don’t have to write it if it’s causing you so much stress.” 

I know that person was just trying to be kind. But clearly, they didn’t get it. Which is part of the reason why I’m not friends with them anymore. For real. 

But I’m not going to lie, because the Turkey Bowl has always been about essential truths and Orchard Park is one of the few places left in the world where no one lies, or else the wolf and the pig will terrorize your dreams. I’m not going to lie about the fact that the Turkey Bowl does cause me stress, in a variety of ways. For instance, right now I’m stressing not just about the fact that this Newsletter is late or that the Jersey Turkey Bowl Blog has disappeared, but about the fact that I have no idea where the cones I use to mark the field are. I moved over the summer and I can distinctly remember where the cones USED to be, but I have no idea where they are now. And the clock is ticking. 

And I think this is the stress talking, too, because lately I find myself thinking a lot about Lou “The Toe” Groza, who either had one of the world’s greatest nicknames of one of the worst. I can’t decide. He was a kicker for the Browns in the 40s, 50s, and 60s who made everyone realize how important kicking field goals could be. In an era when teams hit fewer than 50% of their field goals, he made almost 70% of his, not infrequently from more than 50 yards away. Oh, and he also played offensive tackle. He retired when he was 44. 

(When I was at Drew University, there was a guy working out there hoping to get a tryout as a kicker with an NFL team. He’d be in the fieldhouse and I’d be in the workout room and every time he kicked it, there would be an earth-shattering ka-boom. I think about that guy from time to time and how he never made it. How freaking loud would the kicks have been from someone who did make it?)

And I find myself thinking a lot lately about George Blanda, who I first learned about back in the days when I half-heartedly collected football cards. I committed to memory the facts from his card:  that he scored 2,002 points in the NFL and that he played in four decades, the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. He retired when he was 48. 

Another George Blanda fun fact: he was the first-ever player taken in a fantasy football draft, way back in 1962. That I learned today, not back when I was collecting football cards.

And I find myself thinking lately about Gordie Howe, who played professional hockey into his fifties but then I remember that I really don’t like to spend a lot of time thinking about hockey.

So the subtext here, in case you haven’t figured it out, is that I’m turning 50 in a few weeks. John Nulty turned 50 last week. Doug turned 50 like 10 years ago. In other words, we’re all getting old. When we started this tradition, the Cold War was still raging, the Soviet Union was a thing, and Bunny’s had a payphone on the wall which in a few years a number of people would use to get ahold of me, since mobile phones back then really weren’t that mobile. Sonny’s bagels were less than a quarter back then! We could get two slices and a soda at Roman Gourmet for, like, two dollars!

Do you hear how old I’m sounding right now?

So I have to ask the kids: why haven’t you beaten us yet? I’ve heard some rumors that Mike Nulty is going to take a pass this year, because he says the game isn’t really that competitive. Honestly, I think if he didn’t play, it would probably be a case of addition by subtraction, but saying the game isn’t competitive when you’ve NEVER WON would be like the winless Cleveland Browns (a second Browns reference?) forfeiting the remainder of the season because they didn’t want to embarrass any of their opponents. 

Owen says that this is the youngsters’ year. He says they have the sweet combination of growth spurts and chemistry on their side. 

Rumor has it that Lulu Kesin is going to be watching from the sidelines this year. 

There may be other Turkey-Bowl-related rumors out there, but I cut myself off from Facebook and other social media a couple of weeks before the election because I couldn’t take it anymore, so I’m out of the loop. 

Meanwhile, I haven’t thrown a football since last year. And I’m cowering at the idea that soon I’m going to be entering my sixth decade on this earth. (I’ll wait while you youngsters use your fingers to figure that one out.)  I have this weird clicking in my knee that my doctors say they can’t do anything about. And I’ve been battling a bad back for months. And don’t even get me started on my prostate.

But the point is, long ago the Turkey Bowl became more than just a football game. Now it’s a ritual. I consider it to be a successful year when I can make it to the field on Thanksgiving morning and check in with my fellow truth seekers. I savor the annual pilgrimage we all make to Maplewood, where we have the traditional meal of Taylor Ham, egg, and cheese sanctified by beer and whiskey, and then engage in ceremonial combat. 

Last year I didn’t play in the Turkey Bowl. I showed up in street clothes to avoid even being tempted to play, because I was recovering from having run the Philadelphia Marathon and my right knee was the size of a cantaloupe. I’d forgotten that I didn’t play, but recently Sam reminded me. He called me out on it, too, in an inspired bit of shit-talking, along the lines of marathon, shmarathon: you wimped out, Dad.

 

George Blanda would have played. The Toe would have kicked my ass and then played. 

So I’m playing this year. 10:30 a.m., Orchard Park. I’ll be there, with cones. Come one, come all, old and young, winners and winners in waiting. 

They say exercise is a good way to combat stress. We’ll see.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Archives Return!

Look there! To the right! Archives!

A Blog Re-born!

A funny thing happened on the way to the 33rd instance of The Turkey Bowl: Our blog disappeared! Poof! The archives have gone missing, too. Thirty-three years of newsletters, down the Internet drain.

Who says that whatever you post on the web stays there forever?

We've reached out to the powers that be to see if they can help, but it's Thanksgiving Week and we can't just sit around waiting. So, here we are! Look for the 2016 Newsletter within a couple of hours.

2012

Turkey Bowl XXX

This past September, I began teaching an 11^th grade English class as part of my regular job duties.  In addition to teaching The Great Gatsby and reading the tortured prose of adolescent analytical essays, I find myself in a frenzied and hormonal whirlwind of teenage high school angst.  And since Sam turned 13 last week, I find myself more and more often suffocating under a cloud of Axe Body Spray and anger.

What does this have to do with football, you might ask?  Well, it occurred to me as I sat down to create this year’s newsletter that the first Turkey Bowl took place when I was in 11^th grade.  And now I’m teaching 11^th grade. So in a sense, I guess I’ve come full circle.  Or something like that.  In another sense, this is the time of the year when I question my own version of history and my ability to do math. How can this be the 30^th Turkey Bowl, I ask myself. What if my recollection is wrong? What if it’s not the 30^th Turkey Bowl?   And then I go over the story in my own head so that I can repeat it with conviction to anyone who asks:  the first game was played over Thanksgiving weekend in 1983 when a group of us gathered in Memorial Park to play football after a night of debauchery at a bar in Newark whose name escapes me (help me, Glosh!) watching Walter HK Tore.  In 1984, my senior year of high school, we played in Orchard after watching Joe “Basadile” Santasiere score on a kickoff return in his final high school football game. I distinctly remember Joe showing up at Orchard to watch us play later that day, too sore from his game to join ours. 

In 1985, we were all in college, and the game was well on its way to becoming a tradition.  In 1987, this newsletter debuted.  The rest, as they say, is history.

But on the occasion of such a momentous anniversary, I longed for more proof.  And that’s when I turned to my journals.  Some of you may be remember that back in the day, I was a bit of a diarist.  I began keeping a journal (not a diary or a beer log, but a journal) in 1982 and kept it up pretty regularly for a number of years.   So I turned to the archives, the papers that scholars will undoubtedly comb through some years from now for clues about…something or other.  (And that’s only if they find my manifesto, which is pretty well hidden.)

Anyway, I dusted off the notebooks from high school and turned to the entries from Thanksgiving 1983 and found---nothing.  No mention of Walter HK Tore, no mention of Memorial Park and no mention of football.  Nothing.  No worries, I thought: it makes perfect sense that I didn’t write about it after the first one, because it wasn’t really the first one until the second one happened, anyway.  Right?  So I opened the next notebook and turned to the entry for Thanksgiving 1984 and found—nothing. 

WTF?

I did find these quality, teen-angst driven entries, though.  These are unedited, though I did redact some names:

9/17/82

Columbia won against East Orange 5-0.  ----- scored.  Saw ----- at the game and she saw me and didn’t say one word to me.  Bitch.  ---- was at the game also. Dick.

----‘s grounded for two months and he says that he’s never drinking again until he’s 17.  Right.

Tuesday, 10/12/82

Another boring day.

Wed. 10/13/82

Another boring day.

10/27/82

Did physics homework for three hours.  Went to the library and found nothing on the Navajos.  Shit.

11/1/84

Columbia soccer lost to West Essex in the first round of the State Tournament. ----, ----, and ----- all missed penalty kicks.  Last night, ---- had a kind of consolation/birthday party, which was fun.  They weren’t as bummed as they could have been, but ---- and ---- really [screwed] up.

12/3/84

Now about Kesin.  Well, for some reason…Rich was talking about swallowing goldfish. Then, fortunately or unfortunately, ---- had goldfish.  These weren’t your little carnival type goldfish, these were five-year-old, five-inch-long goldfish.  Kesin ate one.  He didn’t just swallow it, he chewed it up.   I was pissing at the time and was bummed that I missed it. 

Well, Sunday Kesin and I went to the Union Market and bought her two goldfish.  Then we went to bring them to her house and right when we pulled up out front, we lost it.  We all just started cracking up. It was very hard keeping a straight face bringing it to her. It was funny as shit. The only thing is that now when people hear about it, it will all be out of context. That sucks.

There are dozens of other close-to-the-event recollections of other infamous incidents from my past. Many of the names of those involved now populate my Facebook friends’ list. Which says something about me—or about Facebook. What, I’m not absolutely sure.

But where is the stuff about Turkey Bowls of yore?  Maybe I shouldn’t dwell on it so much.  I should just accept what I wrote down; after all, the record is the record, and I shouldn’t lament an honest document.  There is more to life than the Turkey Bowl, isn’t there.  But it’s a bit of a bummer that there isn’t more evidence.

Yesterday, Owen asked, “What time is our game on Thanksgiving?”  My heart soared at his use of the first person plural possessive pronoun (I’m teaching English, remember?).  And I realized that the evidence, the history of the game, is right there in front of us. It’s part of us.  And not to get too schmaltzy or anything, but the game is now a part of our kids’ lives, too.

In our annual neighborhood Fourth of July block party softball game, my father would always play catcher.  We usually played with one of those big, 16-inch softballs, the ones they use in the Midwest that don’t require any gloves when you’re playing the field.  Dressed in shorts, loafers, and a plain white t-shirt, he’d use his big hands, minus half a digit, of course, and field the position with the proper amount of seriousness, secure in the knowledge that his glass of gin was only a few feet away on the curb, waiting to give him a between-innings boost.  My favorite part was when he would shadow the runner to first base, just in case there was an overthrow from third or short. 

What will our kids remember about us when they tell stories of the Turkey Bowl?  What are they saying—or writing—about us now?  I’ll probably never know, but that’s much more interesting than what I may or may not have written—in cursive, mind you—in my bedroom while listening to U2’s Bad and waiting for someone to call me on the one land line our house had.

I like to think that I have grown a bit since them. As proof I offer the most recent reviews of the Turkey Bowl from my journal.  Note the marginally better syntax and the notably less anger.

2004

The Turkey Bowl.  We had our lamest showing ever—six guys: Nulty, Shelffo, Novak against O’Neill, MacDonald, and Kesin.  We got our asses kicked, too, because Brian was channeling the mad qb skills of Bart Starr.  That on top of the fact that we were just too slow to keep up with Kesin made for a lopsided game.  But I had a great time running around and the weather was awesome: 70 degrees and sunny.  And as soon as the game was over, it started to rain. 

All of that running caught up to me, though.  My knees are swollen and my thighs are tight.  My toe nails, of course, feel like they’re going to fall off at any minute.  The worst thing, though, is this new injury I have.  At some point during the game, I got hit in the ribs, just below my right pec.  And it kills.  It’s a sharp pain that really kicks in when I sneeze or cough or when I try to push up with my right arm.  I think I may have cracked a rib and when I woke up today and it still hurt a lot, it got me thinking about going to the emergency room today.  We’ll see how things progress. 

2005 

The real game officially ended when we started inserting our children into the game.  First came Doug's kids and then eventually all of them got in.  We did this because Jacky Jenks was upset that Doug's kids weren't allowed to play.  I tried to explain to her that it wasn't merely a matter of inserting one kid, that doing do represented a fundamental shift in the Turkey Bowl.  I also wanted to kick some more ass. Whatever.

2006

I had a couple of good plays, but I didn't leave the game with a good taste in my mouth. 

2007

No mention.

2008

When Zusi showed up and went on their side, the game was effectively over.  I couldn’t throw very well and the footing was slow, so I couldn’t keep up with anyone.  At halftime, the kids took over the field and when halftime was over, it became a mixed kids-and-adults game that didn’t have any real focus or purpose.  But the kids had fun, and that’s the important part.  Even if the game broke up early and left me needing to go for a run afterwards.  That’s definitely the first time that’s happened.

2009

The Turkey Bowl was great.  As predicted, there were only five adults, but we had a lot of kids, so we worked them into the game from the beginning.  My team ended up losing, but Owen won the MVP with his performance: sack of Doug MacDonald for a safety, an interception, and a touchdown reception.  The MacDonald bloc of votes carried him over the top, and they don’t understand his talents, but it was a legitimate vote.  I’m touched. Sam had a good game, too.  Everyone had fun and the weather was beautiful.  A good day.

2010

The game was the first official kids-grownups game, with Brian taking over as Pied Piper for the young’ns. I had fun playing, though I was a bit too timid for my own tastes a couple of times, and of course I’m fat and slow, too, so that hurt me a bit.  But I threw a couple of nice touchdown passes and I made some plays on defense.  It was all good.  Sam and Owen had fun and the game ended in a tie.  Mr. Hogenauer showed up yet again for the second year in a row—I just remembered, wasn’t Ken supposed to be hosting them in California this year?—as well as Rachel and Beth.  It was a good game. 

2011

I think yesterday was one of the more pleasant Thanksgivings I’ve had in recent memory.  We left a little later than I would have liked, but we made it to the game on time.  The weather was balmy and I played in shorts. It was the first official kids vs. grownup game, with the Kesin kids, the Shelffo kids, two of the Nulty kids, and two MacDonald kids. Then Lars showed up with a whole passel of kids, and it was game one.  The adults won pretty easily, because youth can’t overcome 29 years of playing together.  I felt fat and slow out there on the field, but I had a good time and made a few good plays.  Owen played well, and Sam did, too, but there was too much chaos on the kids’ team for anyone to really shine. 

They’re not exhaustive reviews of the game, but they do a good job of capturing my feelings from the game.  That’s all I really need, I guess, a reminder that the Turkey Bowl is a good time. 

The Turkey Bowl allows us to annually reconnect with each other and walk down memory lane while creating new stories to tell.  That’s the very definition of tradition, I suppose.  I hope that this year’s edition will allow those of us hit hard by Sandy or other sad events to focus on something more fun.

I hope to see everyone Thursday morning at 10:30 in Orchard Park.

2011

Turkey Bowl 2011 - Payback's All I've Got

I find myself longing for the Turkey Bowls of yore, when—not yet slowed by the burdens of being the main breadwinner for a family of four and having to worry about disability insurance—I could fly around the football field with equal parts speed and abandon. I miss those days when a younger version of me could easily adhere to the strict Turkey Bowl training routine that included closing O’Reilly’s on Wednesday night and without benefit of an alarm clock still show up early to Orchard Park on Thanksgiving.  The only concession to overindulgence would be the ibuprofen I’d wash down with a beer illegally consumed in a public park. (What does it say that I shuddered as I wrote that sentence?)

I miss being able to back up my talk with a pain-free walk.

I’ve felt the effects of regret this fall.  I guess after a year that’s seen hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and a freak pre-Halloween Nor’easter, I find myself wondering, what’s going to happen next?,   with the full knowledge that my football skills are not going to get better next year, no matter what I tell myself after the game on Friday morning.

Sure, I can focus on what’s really (but not really) important: how the game is more than a game, the camaraderie, the food, the company, the award ceremony--it’s a ritual and a reunion all wrapped into one.  Sure, Lulu Kesin’s enthusiasm, Sam Shelffo’s quiet intensity, Alex Novak’s athleticism, and Mr. Hogenauer’s visits are all things that I look forward to.  And with more and more kids playing, I don’t have to worry as much about whether or not we’ll have enough players to take rightful ownership of the field for a day.  On the eve of its 29th incarnation, the game’s in good hands.

But, I have to ask myself, what’s in it for me?

I heard recently that Michael Nulty is looking to even the score against Andrew Kesin, and that made me smile.  Owen Shelffo told me that he’s focused on three things: “M-V-P,” as he puts it. I can already picture the cool confidence the MacDonald boys, Kyle, Drew, and Ian, will bring to Orchard Park.  Sure, they can put on a typical teenage “been-there-done-that” air, but that’s merely cover for their intense enthusiasm. They’re the elder statesmen among the second generation set.   Don’t let their kindness fool you—they have enjoyed having that Dominant Force bowl at their house all year and they’re not going to just give it away without a fight.

That’s what it comes down to, really: self-promotion, bragging rights, and winning. Brian O’Neill’s evil laugh still rings in my ears from years ago. Inspired by his sweet touchdown passes to Kesin, the sound mocks my inability to stop the successful duo from scoring.  The only way for me to make it stop is to prey on the weaker and smaller, the fruit of my loins. That’s right, the kids.  

Most of the kids are at the age now where they may not entirely believe the stories we tell about past Turkey Bowl glory, but they’re willing to give us the benefit of the doubt. In other words, we still retain something of a hero status. I’m not saying very much, but a little something.  So I say, let’s use that status—and our superior height and enhanced weight—to our advantage and put all the kids on one team and show them that a victory at the Turkey Bowl is something to be earned first and savored later.

If I can’t count on beating my kids and rubbing it in over dinner, what else do I have?
You can tell me on Thursday morning at 10:30 in Orchard Park.  I hope to see everyone there.

2010

It's All About How You Prepare

When I was in eleventh grade—coincidentally, the same year the Turkey Bowl began—my history teacher, Mr. Spear—whom I still maintain showed up stoned to school at least once—told me that I would never have as much free time as had in high school. Now that I’ve grown up, I’ve realized just how right he was. I’ve got a fantasy football team to manage and I have to help Sam and Owen manage theirs. I’m in two football pools and have to get my picks in every week. Thursday is trivia night (we won last week!) and don’t even get me started on keeping up with my favorite television shows. I’m also training for a 5K while shuttling my two kids to basketball practice in 4 different basketball leagues.

In other words, I’m busy. So busy, apparently, that I didn’t realize until very recently that Thanksgiving has descended upon us yet again. This year it really snuck up on me. I mean, I would swear that just a couple of days ago, it was summer and Thanksgiving was but a dim light on the horizon. Now as I am scrambling to get ready for the big day, I realize that Mr. Spear’s pronouncement was not the advice of a wise sage but a curse. That’s right, I’m blaming my lack of preparation this year on a teacher I had 27 years ago.

But it’s a different story with the kids—they’re ready. Despite my busy schedule, I’ve been able to play a lot of football catch in my side yard—with the kids, of course. I play permanent QB and Sam and Owen alternate on offense, and despite some predictable disagreements and questionable refereeing, there have been some good plays out there. I shouldn’t be surprised, really, because Sam just finished his third year of tackle football, playing on the same team with Jasper Kesin, and Owen acts out every football game he sees on television, in real time—in our living room. And I’ve heard that the Nulty kids have been getting ready for Thursday, too, and I just know that the MacDonald boys have been entertaining their college friends with their own tales of Turkey Bowl glory. I even heard some young Turkey Bowl veterans whispering about secret plays to be used against the grown ups.

I think it’s entirely possible that we may see our first full-blown kids vs. grownups game this year. Hell, we might as well do it now while we have a reasonably good chance of beating them.

(Side note: on the last night football practice before the last game of the season, the coaches on Sam and Jasper’s football team decided to shake things up a bit with a touch football game, parents vs. kids. Including the four coaches, there were a total of six adults playing against a full team of kids, in pads and helmets. The adults won, and I have to say, we were very happy about the outcome. The head coach in particular was positively gleeful about the victory and did nothing to hide it from his son. That competitive nature at least partially explains why he’s the head coach, I guess.)

And if we can’t beat them fair and square on the field, I bet I can come up with a good curse that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, if only to prove that I did learn something in Mr. Spears’ class.

Here’s a video that will help everyone get ready for the big game, Turkey Bowl XXVIII. See you on Thursday at 10:30 a.m.

2004

Turkey Bowl XXIII

My excitement for the Turkey Bowl usually begins to build in August, as the summer fades away and my body goes into that back to school mode that none of us will every truly be free of. But this year, something happened on my way to true excitement when I had some unsettling realizations. They are as follows:

    There won't be as many players this year as I would have hoped.
    I won't be able to run as fast as I do in my imagination.
    My passes won't be as true as I want them to be.
    And the plays I think up just won't be that creative.

These thoughts sent me into a bit of a downward spiral that resulted in a newsletter draft about which my wife said, "You can't post that. You'll have a bunch of depressed, middle-aged men if you do." I believe she also used words like "bitter" and "discouraging" in her review.

I also received some counseling from Andrew Kesin who I'm sure had an internal debate about whether to post my screed as it was and take out a large life insurance policy on me or to talk me off the ledge. He decided on the latter and made me appreciate how much the Turkey Bowl has evolved over the years. It really is a sacred tradition.

So I'm feeling much better today, thanks. (I guess I've got to stop drinking that dark whiskey when I write these things.)

Anyway, this year over Thanksgiving the Class of '85 has its 20-year reunion (class of '85 rules! All other classes drool! Excelsior!) and we'll be playing in the 23rd Turkey Bowl. The game this year will be touch. We'll play on the lower field this year so that we can keep a better eye on any of our children who might be attending, as this year there will be much more focus on family than in years past. Among other highlights will be the now-traditional post-game rocket launch. (Please, someone remember to bring batteries to the game this time.) Weather permitting, of course.

For those of you who might have forgotten what Orchard Park looks like, here's a little diagram:

As of now, it looks like we'll have seven definite participants: Doug MacDonald, a long-time player whose love of the Turkey Bowl runs so deep that he's actually disappointed that we play it on a holiday because he thinks it should be a national holiday on its own merits; Lars Novak, a TB stalwart whose physical size won't let him be stealthy on the field so he chooses to be stealthy about whether he's playing or not; Andrew Shelffo, who's still referring to himself in the third person in these newsletters after all these years; Brian O'Neill, who has two more years to hone his stories from his spectacular performance in last year's game and impress the ladies at his 20-year reunion; Andrew Kesin, who's teaching Jasper how to tackle the TB way (you grab the guy from behind and dig your chin in between his shoulder blades); John Nulty, the defender of the little guy who always ends up defending as little as possible in these games; and Brett Jenks, who is returning to the game this year after a long hiatus and is therefore fresh blood who will have to cover Kesin this year.

Other people have made some noise about playing, most notably Chris Zusi and Rich Bayer, but nothing firm as come from these guys as of yet (insert impotence joke here). I don't know if Brian Zusi will show up this yearahe was a no show last year, but if the does show up, take a look at him: he's a pretty big dude.

If you're reading this and not sure about whether you should play or not, come and play. Don't make us, because of a lack of players, challenge the Dads on the other field to a game. I mean, if you're going to be reliving your high school days, why not play a little football with some friends?

THEC's will be served at 10, and the game will follow immediately. After the game there will be a special award presentation and then the rocket launch.

One more note. To keep these newsletters fresh, we've decided to open it up to whomever would like to write one. Anyone can do it, really. If you're not sure how to begin, here's how to get started.

How To Write A Turkey Bowl Newsletter

Begin by putting everything in context:

Once again, it's that time of year when [insert timely reference, preferably sports-related] and when [make a joke at a participant's expense; an O'Neill is drinking too much one usually works.] Yes, once again it's time to gather in [insert Orchard Park here; it's like when rock stars use the name of the city they're in at the moment]. As you might recall, at last year's game [two jokes in a row to point out the foibles of players in last year's game, like MacDonald dropped more passes than Steven Hawking and Nulty ran around so gingerly, I'd have sworn that he was wearing high heels, followed by one left-handed compliment, e.g., who'd have thought that O'Neill would be channeling Terry Bradshaw the whole game; 20 years of underperforming on purpose finally paid off in a landslide "Dominant Force" performance.]

Segue to this year's game [Be sure to reference what number of annual Turkey Bowls the current year's edition will mark at wenty third annual in this case; or, if that's not appropriate, be sure to reference the players' advancing ages. For instance, we will have one player over 40 this year, with more to come next year.] Try to stoke the competitive fires by insulting some of the players through real or fictitious quotes from other players [e.g., after last year's game, in which Kesin, O'Neill and McDonald kicked serious butt, running rings around Shelffo, Novak, and Nulty, Nulty told me that our biggest mistake was in bothering to cover Doug at all. We should have double teamed Kesin, he said. Kesin told me that he knew his team was going to win as soon as he heard what the teams were. But the really disappointing part was that he didn't even have to use his mother's hot tub after the game, because he hadn't been pushed enough to be sore. But he used it anyway.] Next, belittle those people who aren't playing, preferably by mocking their excuses [insinuating that someone is effeminate for not playing, choose any player who has played in the past who is not playing this year, is sufficient.]

End the newsletter with a reminder about when and where the game will be played [Orchard Park, 10:00 a.m.] and then wish everyone well.

That's it, you're done.

Of course, you can write whatever you'd like. If you want to write something - perhaps some post game words - just send it in.