Off Topic
October 3, 2042: Yellow Springs – The day after the Geoghegan Round match-ups were revealed, Yellow Springs Nine fans gathered in their usual spot in Gaunt Park, just outside Utopia Field for an afternoon of festivities and barbeque, hoisting Big Niners, and quaffing local macro brew as they relived the season’s semi-high spots and prepared for the deflating defeat they know is now coming.
“It might not be Chicago,” said Naomi Wild, an graphic designer at a local architecture firm. “And it might not be California,” she continued—noting the team that the Nine would face up against if they somehow manage to get past Chicago. “But we all know how it works by now.”
This year marks Yellow Springs’ fifth straight trip to the post season, and 14th trip in 16 seasons. Each time the club has gone home without the trophy, a result that has some mathematicians pondering if they’ve found some new dynamic to the science given that, as Dane Maris, PhD said “this really shouldn’t be possible.”
The team has lost in the Geoghegan three times during that run. The Doubleday has seen their demise six times. They have tripped over the Cartwright twice, and been slammed in the Landis series three times—twice by Jacksonville and last year at the hands of the Edmonton Jackrabbits (despite coming home to Utopia Field with a 3-2 lead). The team has been dumped by far lesser teams, and has been bounced by their betters. The team has lost an entire Landis with as few as four outs remaining.
And so the fans gather to celebrate and to ponder. Each enjoying the food and the bright outside day. As they pass each other they ask “when do you got?” Some gamble with good-natured frivolity. Others merely laugh at other’s predictions. “Definitely the Doubleday,” one will say. “Are you daft?” calls another. “It’s gotta be the Geoghegan. Short and swift.”
Of course, no one knows the future.
Beyond certain things, of course. The Nine will lose, that much everyone knows and everyone agrees on. But the when and the how? Well …
“The uncertainty is the beauty of it,” Wild said. “I mean, if we didn’t have that to look forward to, why would we even get together?”
