“Yes, we won!” he cried
Alone, thousands of miles hence
From men he’d never met
October 6, 2013
July 7, 2013
From “The Five Kay Runns” by Jake V. Dimartino
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: 5k run, dirk, fiction, humor, mitzy, runn, sports, story |Leave a Comment
“Who is Kaye Runn?” Mitzy demanded.
“What? Who?” Dirk cried into his handset.
“Don’t lie,” Mitzy yelped, anguished. “I overheard you talking about ‘that fine Kay Runn’ you’re going to be ‘doing’ tomorrow!”
“5K Run…I said I was doing a 5k Run! You know, running 5 kilometers? Those communist miles that they use in Canada?”
A pause on Mitzy’s end of the line. “Oh, okay. I’m sorry. How embarrassing.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dirk said smoothly. “I’ll see you tomorrow night for dinner like we planned, okay?”
“Who was that, lover?” Kay’s voice floated in from the bedroom.
“Oh, nobody…nobody,” Dirk said. “Now, let’s see about setting a new record, Ms. Runn…!”
June 6, 2013
From “Attack of the Camps” by Neal H. Faustino
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: basketball, fiction, science, sports, story, super-bowl |Leave a Comment
since campus was 75% empty over the summer, Southern Michigan University ran a number of “camps” for younger grade school students, which allowed many staff to keep drawing their salaries over the summer while providing a much-needed influx of hard cash.
Football Camp was incredibly popular, despite the mediocre performance that the SMU Fighting Grizzlies had experienced on the gridiron since their high-water mark in 1969. It was, however, no predictor of eventual success on the field, for a number of reasons. The kids were generally 12-13, so their eventual adult height and weight were still up in the air regardless of how much they trained. The camp also skewed rich and white as lawyer dads smarting over lost field glory pushed their kids into it, and “rich and white” has rarely been a descriptor in the background of the true NFL greats.
Math and Science Camp was also popular, again in spite of the middling national rankings that the associated departments had. Surprisingly, it too was not a predictor of eventual success; it had been once, but the kids associated with it had a blisteringly high burnout rate. Many wound up boomeranging or slacking into minimum wage jobs once they escaped from their tiger moms for the first time. Also 12-13, the kids were working on linear equations and testing hypotheses when their peers were running free and wild–a fact not lost on many of them. They tended to be quite diverse in ways that did very little for the camps’ image as bastions of privilege, with the Indian subcontinent and The Two Chinas being highly represented.
One would think that, due to the strong jock/nerd archetypes associated with them, that the campers would be intense rivals. In fact, they barely met. Football Campers used the Athletics facilities to eat, train, and sleep, and–as faculty often complained–those facilities were a world apart, inaccessible to the campus at large and generally of a much higher quality. Math and Science campers slept in disused dorms, ate in the cafeteria, and worked out of Kirtland Hall. They were, indeed, unaware of each others’ existence.
That is, until the day an errant squirrel exploded the generator on the west side of SMU’s campus thrust them into the same sphere.
May 19, 2013
From “The First Annual X Championships, 1928” by Felix K. Esperanza II
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: extreme sports, fiction, humor, sports, story |1 Comment
HOTSY-TOTSY INAUGURAL X CHAMPIONSHIPS SHOW DEWDROPPERS KNOW THEIR ONIONS
DATELINE: Newport, Rhode Island, June 4, 1928
With a final flourish of the ragtime jazz band on hand for the festivities, the closing ceremonies for the 1st Annual X Championships came to a raucous close amid medals, swing-dancing, and general jubilation. While Mrs. Grundy down the street and all her fellow “fire extinguishers” might frown upon the X Championships as pure applesauce or horsefeathers, a product of idle young dewdroppers bereft of industry, the crowd and sponsors clearly think it’s just ducky.
“These fine young athletes have shown us just how the spirit of the age can turn idle pursuits into virtuous exercises and healthy capitalistic competition,” said the closing speaker Mr. Harrison Dykestra. President of Dykestra’s Old No. 12 Velocipede Company and a major sponsor of the event, he personally presented a gold medal to the overall winner and crowd favorite C. Ernest “Torpedo” Coopington Jr. Coopington, 20, placed first in the dramatic Freestyle Velocipede finals as well as pocketing a silver in the highly competitive Toe-Stoppered Quad Skate event.
“It’s such a gay rub, really,” said “Torpedo” Coopington at the closing ceremonies. “I’m used to killjoys feeding all us a line about velocipeding and skating and such being something only a quiff would like, and razzing us about being no-account lollygaggers. But I think we really showed them we’re on the level and got them on the trolley today!”
Indeed, the image of “Torpedo” Coopington attacking a difficult grind in his knickerbockers and newsie cap with tied-on number and Dykestra’s Old No. 12 advertisement patches has captivated the normally sleepy Providence summer. One can hardly pass a streetcorner without seeing children playing at being their favorite X Championship athletes, despite their elders’ stern disapproval. One source, who declined to be named, said as much: “Velocipedery is but the first step on the staircase to brimstone and damnation! How long before these hellions are engaging in wanton acts of public carnality or frequenting moving picture houses?”
Still, the mood seems overwhelmingly in favor of the X Championships, and Mr. Dykestra was quick to predict that they would return next year. “As long as people are interested in acts of derring-do, the spirit of these young men and their Dykestra-brand equipment will never fade!”
Additional results:
Homer “Cowlick” Hyde took gold in the 1200-ft. Competitive Jitterbug
Gunther Schwartz came in first place in the Regulation Hoop Roll
There was a tie in the Stickball finals, with team captains Thomas “Gunny” Gunnington and Robert R. Robertson sharing the trophy between the Boston Zozzlers and the Baltimore Blotto Boys
February 5, 2013
From “Partial Transcript of the 17th Z-Bowl Commentary” by Jacelyn “Bali Mojo” Marina
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: commentary, endzone, fiction, football, humor, nfl, sports, story, zombies |[2] Comments
PLAY-BY-PLAY: It’s the 2nd down and there’s 10 yards to go on the Chicago 30 yard line, with 6 minutes left in the quarter. We just saw Masterson tackled by Tennison on Chicago’s 26, 4 yards lost.
COLOR: Fitz is not happy about that, you can see it on his face.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: There’s Masterson back for the throw. And there go his boys, swept by Detroit. And there goes Masterson himself, sacked by Tennison for the second time in as many minutes.
COLOR: Good day for Detroit and Tennison out there. Man’s writing pure football poetry.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: Isn’t he just? Okay, I think that’s the warning siren I hear.
COLOR: That’s right, Jim. Later than usual, but then randomness is part of the game. How long would you say they have? Five minutes?
PLAY-BY-PLAY: Maybe two. I’ve seen it as low as thirty seconds and as high as ten minutes for arenas with a lot of obstacles between the field and the gates.
COLOR: Definitely adds some spice to the game. Looks like Masterson is up again for Chicago.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: Yes, he’s in position to make the kick for the final down. Detroit has got themselves set up with Tennison again…there’s the snap. Masterson is through! He’s on the 20, the 15…Tennison struggling to catch up.
COLOR: Aaaaannnnd here come the zombies!
PLAY-BY-PLAY: Three of them between Masterson and the endzone, and two on the field to his right. He pirouettes, goes wide, can’t shake them. Clipped by Tennison, still behind him and, zombies closing in…he’s down! Masterson is down!
COLOR: I count a minute thirty on the clock since the warning siren. One of the better performances by the “third team” in terms of hustle so far this season.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: Masterson is down and the ball is fumbled! Looks like Tennison’s going for it while the zombies finish up with what’s left of the Chicago offensive line. He’s got it, but the zombies are on him now…and he’s out of bounds.
COLOR: Looks like he decided to play it safe and settle for possession and twenty-five yards. The refs are clearing the zombies off him with shotguns and putting up the plexiglass. Looks like Chicago just took a time-out, stopped the clock, probably trying to regroup. Tennison’s on fire today.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: Isn’t he?
COLOR: He got that interception for the touchdown earlier, and here he’s got the zombies all over Chicago’s best offensive lineman without a scratch himself. I smell an NFC defensive player of the month.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: The month at least!
COLOR: That’s what every defensive lineman wants. Lots of sacks, lots of interceptions, lots of zombie-kills. Sack numbers, interceptions, those are good. But then, when you start getting into the zombie-kill numbers, and the opposing-players-zombified, now you’re talking.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: Oscar Earle is back to punt for Detroit. He’s done well against the zombies in other games. Any word from the field on Masterson?
COLOR: Well, to judge by the blood stains he’s probably…yes. Yes, you can see him rising from the grave right there, with that distinctive shambling gait. Masterson is taking the field again as a zombie, no doubt about it.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: One of the better draft picks by the “third team” this season. Looks like he and Tennison get a rematch.
September 16, 2012
From “Angry Birdies” by Jean “Metale” Vortal
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: badminton, birdie, fiction, humor, sports, story |Leave a Comment
There are many reasons to cheap out on sports equipment. Low-paying job, for one. Buying equipment to fulfill a resolution or get a spouse off one’s back, equipment which in all likelihood will wind up being strictly ceremonial. Naked cheapassery is also a popular option.
But, as Ames reflected, a summer party in which alcohol would be flowing was not the time or place for bad badminton equipment.
He surveyed the line of mangled equipment piled in the driveway. First were the badminton birdies, mangled pieces of cheap plastic barely able to hold themselves together. One had been bitten by a dog, one by a person, and one was cut clean in half and covered with tire marks.
Then there were the rackets. One was bent at a nearly 90-degree angle and still had a birdie stuck between its nylon strings. The angry birdies that had come with the set were so flimsy that they tended to comically stick in the rackets as often as not, and Ted’s response to a stuck birdie had been to thwack it against the cooler repeatedly rather than sully his hands or risk birdie flu. Another matched pair both had bent necks and snapped strings as a sobering illustration of what happened when you hit something that was not a birdie. That pretty much went without saying for the first racket, which had been used to hit a full can of Miller Lite and Andy Culloden, but the cause of the second’s injuries was a mere tennis ball.
The less said about the racket that was charred and twisted into a corkscrew shape, the better.
June 14, 2011
From “The Dreams of Willis Carruthers” by Samuel C. Daynes
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: baseball, emotion, fiction, sports, story, tennis |Leave a Comment
Willis had entertained dreams of being signed to the majors like all kids who ever came back to a dugout with dirt on their knees. He got closer than most, and was in talks with State for a scholarship when a simple fall on a rough old sidewalk led to a devastating rotator cuff injury. He tried playing through the pain, but it was no good; he wound up at State anyway, but as a business/accounting major.
Still, that wasn’t enough to quash the hope–is it ever?–and once he started seeing Lily, Willis became convinced that the next generation was the ticket. He has all the right equipment to train his son to be a great ball player, to create someone with a sharp mind and unerring aim that would lead inexorably from high school to college to the minors to the majors. It was an ironclad plan, and it made the pain of tossing a ball to himself against the back fence almost bearable.
After the wedding came the baby shower, and after the baby shower came Carolyn. Willis held off buying her the baseball pajamas until Lily’s miscarriage made certain there’s be no second crib. Wasn’t this a brave new world, anyway, one with the WNBA and Title IX? Carolyn still had a shot. And she had talent: it was apparent early on that the girl was whip-smart with a dead eye for using a stick to put a ball just where she wanted it.
Softball came and went along with practice in the backyard, but Carolyn chafed under Willis’s regimen. She loved the sport but hated the teamwork, the sitting and waiting, the subterfuge and the dirt. When her father heard about the junior high tennis team, he was distraught at first before reassuring himself that those same skills–his genes–were still in evidence and would still make their mark. Intense practice and a backyard net followed, along with summer tennis programs at State.
But Carolyn never really hit her growth spurt, and topped out at five foot two in heels in the seventh grade. Good enough for high school, maybe, but it was apparent that against the willowy blondes she met at State, Carolyn was at a terrible disadvantage. The day she left for State on a clarinet scholarship found Willis seated in his garage, disconsolate, spinning an old racket in his good hand and clutching a worn-out old softball in his bad.
May 1, 2011
From “Olympian Memories” by Van Bullock
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: fiction, Olympics, Soviet Union, sports, story |Leave a Comment
“They regularly visited gymnasium physical education classes to pick out promising students, and I was plucked out of my school for tryouts before coming in at the top of their little class of gymnasts. The Soviets weren’t as bad as the East Germans in that we weren’t relentlessly doped up with anabolic steroids, but the training program was still merciless: a medal at the Olympics was a matter of national security. They altered my state records to make me seem two years older than I really was, to keep me competitive longer.”
“But it wasn’t just that–we were suddenly pulled out of obscurity into the elite, something few managed in the ‘egalitarian’ society they had at the time. My family was given an apartment near the IOC complex in Moscow, jobs, and a stipend. My father was so proud; I know because he would sometimes come to practice to watch me. Once he even bought me an ice cream afterwards, which brought the coach to our door, red-faced, the next day–we girls were on a strict diet, you see.”
“We girls had private tutors, and most of the lessons were in English–we were expected to gain mastery of the language with an American accent in hopes of romancing Yankee athletes and pumping them for information–or better yet, bringing them back as defectors. But it never came to that; I was left off the 1988 Olympic team after I sprained my ankle, and by 1992 the country had collapsed–no more apartment, no more stipend, no more team.”
October 3, 2010
From “The Unrealistic Dreams of Nelly Kilkenny” by Sandra Teague
Posted by alexp01 under Excerpt | Tags: emotion, fiction, humor, love, sports, story, university |Leave a Comment
“I think you might be trying to get blood from a stone, Nelly,” sighed Mary.
“Max isn’t dumb,” Nelly cried. “He might bleed if I squeeze him too hard, but he’s Phi Kappa Phi. Plus G Kappa Q.”
“Well, Max may be an Adonis; he might not be your garden-variety meathead, that doesn’t mean you have much in common,” retorted Mary.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” her friend said.
“He unwinds by watching old NFL games on TiVo; you unwind by leveling up dragon monsters online. He love red meat; you’re a vegetarian. Do I have to go on?”
“Opposites attract, right?” said Nelly. “You see it in the news all the time!”
“Yes, I know, but I don’t think the odds are in your favor. You’ve been in the same class for weeks; is there any spark?”
“We’ve talked a few times,” Nelly said eagerly, “but he usually gets really into talking about the State games with Toby Undine and Kelly Tuomo.”
Mary crossed her arms. “So, in other words, you’re swooning over Max because he’s a gorgeous hunk of man-candy despite the fact that, if you ever went out, you’d run out of things to talk about around the five-minute mark.”
“You make it sound like there’s something wrong with that,” Nelly said.
Excerpts From Nonexistent Books 
October 2, 2013
From “When Pastimes Collide” by Jacelyn “Bali Mojo” Marina
Posted by alexp01 under Blog Chain | Tags: Chicago Bears, Chicago Cubs, commentary, Detroit Lions, Detroit Tigers, endzone, fiction, football, humor, nfl, sports, story |[8] Comments
This post is part of the October 2013 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my.”
PLAY-BY-PLAY: And we’re back with the Detroit Lions versus the Chicago Bears. 4th quarter, 0-0, and just coming off a Meyersby flummox by the Bears that Oscar Earle stopped for the Lions using the Thatch Weave.
COLOR: You just made that up, didn’t you?
PLAY-BY-PLAY: True enough, Carl, true enough. But it’s not like anyone actually listens to our chatter, we’re just a part of the background noise like the roaring fans and the commercials for products aimed at males 18-35. And if we can’t embrace that, own that, and have some fun with it, ours is a hollow existence devoid of meaning–a meaningless howling into the infinite void, if you will.
COLOR: Fair enough, Tom. Looks like Earle is up for the snap on our next play, third down.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: Yes, the Detroit Lions are going all out with this one. They’ve got Earle with Tennison on his right, but the Chicago Bears are countering with Masterson in the center. They both want this bad.
COLOR: Yes, it’s a knock-down, drag-out fight this one, because the loser in this case will be at the very bottom of the NFL rankings not only for this season but for all time. Statistically speaking a very tough black mark to shake, and neither the Lions nor the Bears want to replace the 1924 Birmingham Klansmen in the NFL museum’s “Hall of Shame” for worst record in the history of the sport since organized competition began on November 6, 1869.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: There’s the snap, and…it’s bad! The Lions fumble, and the Bears’ Masterson has got the ball! He’s…yes, he’s out and clear, on the Lions’ thirty and closing in on a touchdown!
COLOR: Not looking good for Detroit and the Lions, Tom. Given the staggering incompetence demonstrated by both teams at the sport in general and this game in particular, it’s unlikely that the Motor City will be able to recover. This will be yet another tough body blow for a city currently suffering from bankruptcy, organized and disorganized crime, corruption on a biblical scale, and relentless nightly assaults by zombies who cannot be killed as they are on the city’s payroll and vote regularly for alderman thanks to a legal loophole.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: Masterson’s on the twenty, on the ten…Masterson is down! Yes, Masterson is down just short of the Lions’ endzone! A player wearing a grey uniform, no pads, and a ballcap has appeared on the field, and…yes, he put Masterson down using what appears to be a baseball bat!
COLOR: That’s right, Tom. Dozens of players, all armed with bats, are surging onto the field from the Detroit locker room. From the stylized “D” on their caps and the leaping orange felid on their jerseys, I can only assume…yes, we’re getting confirmation from the field! The Detroit Tigers have joined the game on the side of the Lions, and it has degenerated into a general melee!
PLAY-BY-PLAY: Yes, Carl, the Bears that were guarding Masterson have themselves been pummeled into submission, their pads, helmets, and indeed cups being no match for skillfully wielded aluminum bats in the hands of anabolic-steroid-blasting meatslabs. The Tigers are forming up, and…yes, they have just awkwardly punted the ball back to the Lions with those selfsame bats. Carl, your thoughts on this sudden and almost certainly illegal play?
COLOR: Nothing against it in the rules, Tom, and I know those backwards and forwards as they’re the only reading material we’re allowed during the 27 hours of pregame coverage. It looks like the Detroit Tigers have come to the aid of their fellow Motor City players, being as upset at the idea of having a worst-ever team in their city as anyone. And, being no good at baseball, they seem to have found their niche–the Tigers, for those who only pay attention to good teams, being in little danger of slipping to historic last place themselves thanks to the continued existence of the Chicago Cubs.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: The Bears are fighting back as best they can, Carl, even emptying their benches, but with the Cubs nowhere in sight, they are being massacred, literally and figuratively, by the combined Lion/Tiger assault. The refs are not stopping this, Carl, they are not stopping this. The Detroit ref has actually joined the assault–that’s him strangling Zaford with his whistle–and it appears that the Chicago ref has fled the field out of fear for his personal safety. It’s a confused melee out there, but one definitely trending in the direction of the Chicago endzone and eternal infamy for all participants in this debacle, surely the death knell of professional sports in every city and franchise involved. Carl, your thoughts?
COLOR: Lions, Tigers, and Bears, oh my.
Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
Ralph Pines
ishtar’sgate
skunkmelon
pyrosama
julzperri
Angyl78