Oh, as the bovine-leathered orb tumbled toward the twine, one score and five comrades elevated their visages – temporarily glimpsing the ‘Insights Incite Change’ pennant clinging to the concrete of Crouthamel’s Coliseum – to discover if they would forever be fellows of the humble D.O. newsprinting outfit who finally stamped out WAER’s eight-spring spell of supremacy in Media Cup under the moon Monday.

Besting WAER by a single basket-toss on the old oaken floorboards of James Arthur Boeheim Court that lie above the fresh FieldTurf of Daryl J. Gross, endgame would gloriously materialize in a mere 3.4 seconds, or the equivalent of the 0-to-60 interval of any motorized chariot compelled by D.O. headmaster and sports editor Matt Gelb.

But the inamoratos of Bob Costas found a way, something their deity couldn’t do with regard to securing his baccalaureate. The shrilling heads located a free microphone-monger on the baseline, and the 25 descendants of Johannes Gutenberg gandered in Sam Spence style slow-motion as his heave deftly dove through Naismith’s net, commissioning the contest for extra innings, the newsprinters’ principal happenstance for victory vanished.

‘In 1981, David Halberstam wrote ‘The Breaks of the Game,” spoketh D.O. senior scribe and legend Zach Berman, the proprietor of Z.B.’s Zone. ‘That’s what happened (Monday).’

A devalued victory, that is. WAER’s 52-49 triumph only manifested because the station recruited its Bureau of Talk, which nayeth expounds on such trivial matters as basket-tossing conferences, to its outfit for this millennium’s ninth match, knowing certain failure would result devoid of hot-shooting host Andrew Filliponi, who hurled in a contest-high 29 points, because even the Coliseum’s loud-speaking communicator knew, for example, that treasonous Scott Spinelli of Funny, How? fame would have his crowds roaring if he claimed he participated in the scoring. Alas, the rest of those gents were to content to sing the values of their squadron from outside the boundary of play, a fitting exercise considering their career choice.

‘We do take pride in playing with just our staff,’ spake the garrulous Mark Medina, D.O. senior and resident virtuoso regarding the second Canadian national past-time, in his brief bite of text in semesters.

Forgetting that Filliponi fellow, champagne would hath impregnated the back-right corner post of 744 Ostrom. Tyler Dunne, that former fisher and Saint of the College of John, flung a headliner-high 21 in his Media Cup debut. That neophyte hack Kevin Ware played with an impunity that tinged the face of Gelb, and heaved in the number of the baker or so: exact digits were kept by the WAER staff and thus haphazard – the final demographics of the match shall be lost to history and only regaled by griots and sculptors such as Whence himself. Seniors Berman, Medina, Jackie Friedman, the beardless Patrick DiSalvo and the beardful Brian Tahmosh provided the veteran nutrient necessary, but oh, it was not to be.

A mere 3.4 seconds.

W.F. Whence is a germanificated staff sculptor for The Daily Orange, where he re-germanificated to sculpt this glistening prose.

Published on February 25, 2008 at 12:00 pm