Off Topic
San Fernando Brings Fresh Appetite to Feast
- 
September 28, 2061: FOREVER LAND – By now the facts are known. And for those who somehow don’t know—are there any people who do not hear the tales as kids as simply a warning against expectation? I don’t know, but I suppose it’s possible—the details are burnt into the record books for all to look up through the ages. Legends are legends for a reason, both bad and good ones, and by now no one is sure which category this one sits in. We are all certain of at least one thing, though, and that is that this situation is, if nothing else, Certainly Legendary.
We are talking, of course, about the inability of any team GMed by Ron Collins to ever win a Monty Brewster championship, a thing so in his head that he’s taken to requiring the organization he is involved with to refer to it as the Silly Postseason Exhibition Tournament (or, SPET, for short).
Count ‘em up; with the Bikini Krill’s arrival in the SPET for the second time in the past three seasons, Collins is participating in his 28th go around of October baseball. His Monty Brewster Trophy case is as barren as the desert in Antarctica. Less, so, really. At least a few penguins live down there. Unless climate change has got them all by now. I wouldn’t know, seeing as I don’t go down to the South Pole too often—though maybe Long Beach will be doing that next year?
I digress.
We’ll blame it on Markus Heinson and his German coding back in the old days, meaning he’s almost certainly placed a Collins-Cut code in there. I mean, there’s no other explanation, is there? Other than, I guess, that baseball magic exists and it really hates Ron.
For the uninitiated, the whole kit and kaboodle started back in 2026 when the Collins-led upstart Nine of Yellow Springs (with a guiding bump from Recte) squeaked into the post season after a long drought. After winning only 86 games, the team was not expected to do much, and fulfilled those expectations, losing in the three-game Geoghegan round 2-1 to the club that currently resides in Mexico City. That loss didn’t seem auspicious at all. The team had come third in their 4-team division, after all. And when they finished with 89-wins the following year, good for second in that same division, and lost to the team currently known as Omaha in the Doubleday Round, it was seen as a step up. All was good. Full steam ahead. The team had young Hall of Famers on it. The core was coming in. Just a matter of time.
Two more straight losses at the Doubleday level (to Long Beach, and to Louisville) were, admittedly worrisome, though. Four trips to the SPET, and nothing to show for it. Not even a Cartwright appearance.
Then came 2031 and a miraculous 100-win season, sweeping the division title.
Certainly this was the year.
When they made the Monty Brewster round, everything seemed poised to happen. Alas, Tyler Simmons and Jacksonville stole the series. The defeat was so crushing that the team won “only 95 games” the following year, and suffered the ignominy of losing to Calgary in the Geoghegan. Four games and out.
The team was made of sterner stuff the following year, righting themselves to win 107 games, and again sweep into the Monty against Jacksonville…where they found themselves four outs away from taking home the prize.
Make that four outs and an eighth inning David Noboru homer.
No joy.
By now people were scratching their heads. What’s up in Yellow Springs, right? How about them Nine? Seven trips to the post season, and Bupkis.
Fate, of course, said “Hold My Fucking Beer, Man. You Ain’t Seen Nuthin’ Yet.”
Skipping a horrible 2037, the team went on a stretch of dominance rarely seen. Six “straight” division championships taken while averaging 100 wins a year. And yet…the SPET record shows this: Lost Geoghegen to Omaha, Lost Doubleday to Calgary, then to Long Beach, then to Edmonton. Lost the Cartwright to Calgary, then Louisville.
Lost the Monty to Edmonton.
That brings us up to 2041, anyway.
Fourteen seasons. Nothing.
Fourteen.
If a team has a 15% chance to win the SPET and appears in fourteen of them, the chances of them winning at least one is something like 92%. I mean. Seriously. It’s like failing a “1” saving throw on the D20. Possible. But, come on.
Of course, at fourteen, that means we are only halfway though the Saga of Solitude that fans of teams Ron Collins had guided have felt. Along the way there will be two more lost Monty rounds (Edmonton in 2045, and Las Vegas in 2048). Three straight runs to the Cartwright that ended in defeat at the hands of Nashville, Portland, and Twin Cities (the last coming while guiding Sacramento proving that this is a Collins thing, not a Nine thing)
Des Moines got into the game in 2056, punting Collins’s M’opes so hard in the Doubleday that he ran all the way to the Bikini Atoll. Two seasons later he was back, though. The Krill getting dumped by Portland this time, again in the Doubleday round.
So, yes, Virgina, the streak stands at twenty-seven years.
Twenty-seven.
If that same 15% team is given twenty-seven chances at SPET glory, math suggests they will take home the hardware at least one time 98.2% of such occurrences.
So strong, the Markus Curse.
So strong.
New Blood Arrives for the Krill
At least this time, though, there is something new to savor in this gauntlet of SPET futility that teams of Ron Collins have run. In the annals of league lore there have been thirteen different teams to punt Collins’s teams from the field of play. Now comes the mighty Bears of San Fernando looking to raise the body count to 14. They of the top OPS and wOBA in the Frick League. They of the most Home Runs Hit. Or the greatest Pitching WAR. They of Yu Suzuki, who missed the triple crown by a hair’s breadth.
San Fernando is one of those rare franchises who have yet to dislodge a Collins Klub from the SPET.
Now, though, they get their chance.
And as the hungry bear circles the pool of Kaged Krill, one cannot help but watch in morbid fascination as the number twenty-eight comes to play in one’s mind. The 15% rule says that 28 losses in a row should only happen in 1.06% of all worlds. Essentially 1 in a hundred.
And yet the oddsmakers know the truth.
The Curse is strong.
Yes, indeed it is.
-
September 28, 2061: FOREVER LAND – By now the facts are known. And for those who somehow don’t know—are there any people who do not hear the tales as kids as simply a warning against expectation? I don’t know, but I suppose it’s possible—the details are burnt into the record books for all to look up through the ages. Legends are legends for a reason, both bad and good ones, and by now no one is sure which category this one sits in. We are all certain of at least one thing, though, and that is that this situation is, if nothing else, Certainly Legendary.
We are talking, of course, about the inability of any team GMed by Ron Collins to ever win a Monty Brewster championship, a thing so in his head that he’s taken to requiring the organization he is involved with to refer to it as the Silly Postseason Exhibition Tournament (or, SPET, for short).
Count ‘em up; with the Bikini Krill’s arrival in the SPET for the second time in the past three seasons, Collins is participating in his 28th go around of October baseball. His Monty Brewster Trophy case is as barren as the desert in Antarctica. Less, so, really. At least a few penguins live down there. Unless climate change has got them all by now. I wouldn’t know, seeing as I don’t go down to the South Pole too often—though maybe Long Beach will be doing that next year?
I digress.
We’ll blame it on Markus Heinson and his German coding back in the old days, meaning he’s almost certainly placed a Collins-Cut code in there. I mean, there’s no other explanation, is there? Other than, I guess, that baseball magic exists and it really hates Ron.
For the uninitiated, the whole kit and kaboodle started back in 2026 when the Collins-led upstart Nine of Yellow Springs (with a guiding bump from Recte) squeaked into the post season after a long drought. After winning only 86 games, the team was not expected to do much, and fulfilled those expectations, losing in the three-game Geoghegan round 2-1 to the club that currently resides in Mexico City. That loss didn’t seem auspicious at all. The team had come third in their 4-team division, after all. And when they finished with 89-wins the following year, good for second in that same division, and lost to the team currently known as Omaha in the Doubleday Round, it was seen as a step up. All was good. Full steam ahead. The team had young Hall of Famers on it. The core was coming in. Just a matter of time.
Two more straight losses at the Doubleday level (to Long Beach, and to Louisville) were, admittedly worrisome, though. Four trips to the SPET, and nothing to show for it. Not even a Cartwright appearance.
Then came 2031 and a miraculous 100-win season, sweeping the division title.
Certainly this was the year.
When they made the Monty Brewster round, everything seemed poised to happen. Alas, Tyler Simmons and Jacksonville stole the series. The defeat was so crushing that the team won “only 95 games” the following year, and suffered the ignominy of losing to Calgary in the Geoghegan. Four games and out.
The team was made of sterner stuff the following year, righting themselves to win 107 games, and again sweep into the Monty against Jacksonville…where they found themselves four outs away from taking home the prize.
Make that four outs and an eighth inning David Noboru homer.
No joy.
By now people were scratching their heads. What’s up in Yellow Springs, right? How about them Nine? Seven trips to the post season, and Bupkis.
Fate, of course, said “Hold My Fucking Beer, Man. You Ain’t Seen Nuthin’ Yet.”
Skipping a horrible 2037, the team went on a stretch of dominance rarely seen. Six “straight” division championships taken while averaging 100 wins a year. And yet…the SPET record shows this: Lost Geoghegen to Omaha, Lost Doubleday to Calgary, then to Long Beach, then to Edmonton. Lost the Cartwright to Calgary, then Louisville.
Lost the Monty to Edmonton.
That brings us up to 2041, anyway.
Fourteen seasons. Nothing.
Fourteen.
If a team has a 15% chance to win the SPET and appears in fourteen of them, the chances of them winning at least one is something like 92%. I mean. Seriously. It’s like failing a “1” saving throw on the D20. Possible. But, come on.
Of course, at fourteen, that means we are only halfway though the Saga of Solitude that fans of teams Ron Collins had guided have felt. Along the way there will be two more lost Monty rounds (Edmonton in 2045, and Las Vegas in 2048). Three straight runs to the Cartwright that ended in defeat at the hands of Nashville, Portland, and Twin Cities (the last coming while guiding Sacramento proving that this is a Collins thing, not a Nine thing)
Des Moines got into the game in 2056, punting Collins’s M’opes so hard in the Doubleday that he ran all the way to the Bikini Atoll. Two seasons later he was back, though. The Krill getting dumped by Portland this time, again in the Doubleday round.
So, yes, Virgina, the streak stands at twenty-seven years.
Twenty-seven.
If that same 15% team is given twenty-seven chances at SPET glory, math suggests they will take home the hardware at least one time 98.2% of such occurrences.
So strong, the Markus Curse.
So strong.
New Blood Arrives for the Krill
At least this time, though, there is something new to savor in this gauntlet of SPET futility that teams of Ron Collins have run. In the annals of league lore there have been thirteen different teams to punt Collins’s teams from the field of play. Now comes the mighty Bears of San Fernando looking to raise the body count to 14. They of the top OPS and wOBA in the Frick League. They of the most Home Runs Hit. Or the greatest Pitching WAR. They of Yu Suzuki, who missed the triple crown by a hair’s breadth.
San Fernando is one of those rare franchises who have yet to dislodge a Collins Klub from the SPET.
Now, though, they get their chance.
And as the hungry bear circles the pool of Kaged Krill, one cannot help but watch in morbid fascination as the number twenty-eight comes to play in one’s mind. The 15% rule says that 28 losses in a row should only happen in 1.06% of all worlds. Essentially 1 in a hundred.
And yet the oddsmakers know the truth.
The Curse is strong.
Yes, indeed it is.
| Year | TM | W | L | Div | W-PS | L-PS | Post-Season | OPP | OPP2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2061 | BIK | 89 | 73 | 4 | |||||
| 2059 | BIK | 80 | 82 | 4 | 4 | 5 | Lost in Doubleday | POR | |
| 2056 | SAC | 103 | 59 | 1 | 3 | 4 | Lost in Doubleday | DM | |
| 2055 | SAC | 64 | 43 | 1 | 5 | 8 | Lost in Cartwright | TWC | |
| 2051 | YS9 | 98 | 64 | 2 | 8 | 6 | Lost in Cartwright | POR | |
| 2050 | YS9 | 95 | 67 | 3 | 8 | 6 | Lost in Cartwright | NSH | |
| 2049 | YS9 | 104 | 58 | 2 | 2 | 3 | Lost In Geoghegan | POR | |
| 2048 | YS9 | 102 | 60 | 1 | 11 | 7 | Lost in Monty | LV | |
| 2047 | YS9 | 102 | 60 | 1 | 1 | 4 | Lost in Doubleday | OMA | |
| 2046 | YS9 | 96 | 66 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Lost In Geoghegan | OMA | |
| 2045 | YS9 | 107 | 55 | 1 | 9 | 7 | Lost in Monty | EDM | |
| 2044 | YS9 | 116 | 46 | 1 | 1 | 4 | Lost in Doubleday | OMA | |
| 2043 | YS9 | 110 | 52 | 1 | 7 | 5 | Lost in Cartwright | LOU | |
| 2042 | YS9 | 106 | 56 | 2 | 5 | 6 | Lost in Doubleday | SAC | CAL |
| 2041 | YS9 | 98 | 64 | 1 | 11 | 4 | Lost in Monty | EDM | |
| 2040 | YS9 | 110 | 52 | 1 | 7 | 7 | Lost in Cartwright | LOU | |
| 2039 | YS9 | 96 | 66 | 1 | 4 | 6 | Lost in Cartwright | CLG | |
| 2038 | YS9 | 99 | 63 | 1 | 2 | 4 | Lost in Doubleday | EDM | |
| 2036 | YS9 | 101 | 61 | 1 | 2 | 4 | Lost in Doubleday | LBC | |
| 2035 | YS9 | 98 | 64 | 1 | 3 | 4 | Lost in Doubleday | CLG | |
| 2034 | YS9 | 98 | 64 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Lost In Geoghegan | OMA | |
| 2033 | YS9 | 107 | 55 | 1 | 11 | 8 | Lost in Monty | JAX | |
| 2032 | YS9 | 95 | 67 | 2 | 1 | 3 | Lost In Geoghegan | CLG | |
| 2031 | YS9 | 100 | 62 | 1 | 10 | 6 | Lost in Monty | JAX | |
| 2030 | YS9 | 85 | 77 | 2 | 5 | 4 | Lost in Doubleday | LOU | |
| 2029 | YS9 | 99 | 63 | 2 | 1 | 4 | Lost in Doubleday | LBC | |
| 2028 | YS9 | 89 | 73 | 2 | 5 | 4 | Lost in Doubleday | OMA | HNT |
| 2026 | YS9 | 86 | 76 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Lost In Geoghegan | MEX | OMA |
