As we barrel toward another Jewball season finale, we steadily begin to tighten the bow on a season that somehow is three quarters complete. The extraordinary beauty of the Jewball season is that it’s become all beauty. From the rookies added to the chat as if thrown into a pool of unlabeled, to the pre-season sunshine and shorts, all the way to the devastating final recap and the naming of our 2023-2024 MVP. It’s all just so damn beautiful – you can hardly stand it, like the stalker mused in American Beauty while watching a Gourmet Glatt bag rise and tumble in the whirlwind. All that taken for granted, there is something uniquely special about how our seasons wind down. I wouldn’t say we save the best for last, but I would say that much of our best times arrive with the culmination of our calendar. Whether it be the Vets Rookies match up (now a tourney), the climax of Leagues (now heightened as 2 of 4 teams will be eliminated from playoff contention), or the legendary Super Bowl BBQ, there is a concentrated awesomeness permeating our final quarter. And it has arrived. Hold on tight.

But it was more than that – for me – for us – as I sit here trying (struggling, I admit) to get this recap out. It feels both like tying up a loose end and connect the pieces of a fraying moment. A moment where we are reeling from a lack of football. If Jewball is life, then the football itself is chayenu v’orech yamainu (our essence and the length of our days). Without it, we gasp for air, stretching our arms from beneath the suffocating waves hoping someone pulls us from the barrens.  We unravel. We clamor for a lifeline. And I’m hoping this recap serves. And of course, I relish that opportunity. Mighty is wrong in stating that the recaps used to be better. I think what he subconsciously means is that the recaps used to be more meaningful. Not because of their content or erudition, but because they once upon a time literally meant more to Jewball. They were the thing that separated us. They bridged the gap between Sundays. Told our stories as if we were worthy of the myths crafted by the bards of yore. And maybe….just maybe….we were. Our story is currently in its infancy. Believe that. But the recaps were no better. Thank God they are just needed far less in the Enlightenment as the gap has been bridged by so many phenomenal developments.

The above being the case, I am particularly well positioned to write for this moment – as few have been starved of football more than this recapper. I think I went down in Week 4. That’s 12 weeks ago (which is 900 weeks in Jewball years). Haven’t played a single game with my League team. Shout out to my QB. Gronk, always thinking of you and your comeback. Let me tell you (Gronk, and all of you) how you get through an injury, a surgery, and a rehab at the age of 45/46. Easy. Be a part of something as indisputably enchanted as Jewball. Waldo knows. Sting knows. Pray knows. Salem (I remembered!) knows. A lot of guys know. Talk about motivation, Jewball. As creepy as this sounds, the last thought you have before the anesthesia washes over you is Jewball, the first thought coming out of it is Jewball. It’s the thought in the early stages of PT when you can hardly move. It’s the thought on the treadmill as you progress from slow walk to sprint, on the mat stretching and working to  resurrect muscle and bone and connective tissue, and in the weightroom as you shift into the gear of violence. It’s your faces, Jewballers. Your faces. Your spirits. The Jewball aura which has a power and force so massive that it has generated a gravitational pull.  We cannot deny what our eyes see. Dare I say what our hearts know.

Since we are going to be here for a while, I will take this opportunity to thank you for making my 46th birthday so un-46. Jewball is timeless in that it allows us to stand out of time. Time is of this earth. Jewball is composed of the ethereal stuff that God sprinkled here and there into creation to make life tolerable (survivable). It seems to me we’ve commandeered much of it. However, we are slowly but surely spreading it as well. Which I think is part of the reason for our good fortune. We do not horde our treasures.

So, again – the theme being my personal hakarat hatov toward all of you as I finally join you back on the field this Sunday – thank you for getting me through this rough season, but also through half my life.

Which brings me to this coming Sunday and the holiday we call Vets Rooks. It is our v’higgadata l’vincha (the commandment to tell the story of the exodus to your children). Every year, the same story told, but with new and fresh insight and innovations. I’ve been talking about Vets Rooks now for 18 years. It is a celebration of our game – all those who played before and those who have just joined. If recaps are meant to tie Jewball games week to week, season to season, Vets Rooks is symbolic of the grand tapestry we have been weaving for a quarter century. It’s the interconnection of strands representing stories, personalities, talent, heroics, cowardice, success, failure, victory, and defeat. But more than that – a tapestry – though quite overused in the metaphor department – is equal parts art, decoration, and chronicle. Vets Rooks is art because of the creative energies we inject into it. Just think of Sophomores becoming Smores and treating the field like a fashion runway last season. Vets Rooks is decoration because for so long it was the game that players came back for even amid failed or spotty seasons. It has always had the IT factor. It’s the game Singer flies in for. It’s the showcase for our league. And, most critically, it’s a chronicle. Because the Freshies become the Smores and the Smores become the Juniors and the Juniors became the Seniors. It’s a trackable narrative. An inscrutable progression of marvels and wonders and blessing beyond comprehension. To see the Freshies come in. For them to graduate. And graduate again. And finally reach a milestone that allows one to look down from the hilltop. To reach a status of Senior Veteran that never expires. A decade of Jewball time served. Ashreinu! How lucky we are! How fortunate are we to have spent such a significant portion of our lives as part of something so exceptional. How few things in life reward like Jewball in terms of the efforts put in being reciprocated in equal or greater measure. But, like I said – and this is where Vets Rooks “matters” – it’s the efforts put in. You gotta earn it. You also need good mazal. Really good mazal. Sticking around a game for ten years is something that few merit. When I take the field this Sunday with Snow, and Mighty….Steveo, Kut, Daveo, PJs, Tom… friends, teammates, truly brothers – my heart will be overflowing with gratitude and amazement. As all your hearts should be. The zechus to be a Freshie! To be a Sophomore! To be a Junior! To be a Jewballer! In your time. In this time. Whatever stage you are currently in, striving to merit the next stage. To play well and be healthy and be connected to our game and brotherhood. To be named even as a footnote in the chronicle. To be placed on the pedestal of these recaps. To account for a mere strand in the tapestry made of a thousand strands and counting. Do not take a single football Sunday for granted. But surely not Vets Rooks. It’s our only chag. The only mitzvah is to play like you mean it. The only kavanah is to be both laser focused on winning and competing while at the same time eternally grateful just to be there.

Let us now scroll up on the tapestry as we must tell the tales of how we got here. Working backwards before we work forwards. Week 8, which was postponed due to weather was cancelled when Yaron made sure that no game would be played without him. Pray put in a valiant effort to get a group together on the first Sunday of winter break, but Goldberg dropped, and then the dominoes started to fall. Sherrif said the field would be frozen. Kut bailed to support his hometown of Motown. So there went Week 8 and I believe this will officially be our shortest season since the Revolution. I’m fairly sure we’ve gone 20 up and 20 down the past 5 season. So, a shame. But it’s part of Jewball. As are Leagues, right now. And although we’ve been on a break from Leagues and will continue to break from them for another week, this recap will get us up to date with the high drama and Purim level topsy-turviness that was Game 4 of Leagues.

We begin with a drenching grey morning in Woodmere. The middle school was ours for the taking with no soccer or lacrosse being played in these foul conditions. And no 3rd game either. The Dawgs were shorthanded with some of their top, er, dogs unavailable – and it was decided to move that game to a later date. So Week 13 became a double feature: Cronies v. BOP and Crocs v. Cobras – side by side.

The Purple Cobras came into the game winless and left for dead. The Crocs came in with a winning record after two rousing victories in a row over both the Lionhearts and Dawgs. But call this one Jesus Bowl II as there was a resurrection afoot. The Purple Cobras came out for the first time with their full compliment of snakes ready to spit venom, and Perla was St. Patrick driving them out of Loserville. The Crocs looked like a team that didn’t want to be there. MVP was there on time with his Nerf Juniors football, waiting for his team and they rolled in sleepy-eyed. They seemed bothered by the weather and temperature and their body language suggested they believed a win would be handed to them just for showing up. Say what you want about a Perla constructed team, but they never stop fighting. And on this day, they were gonna fight. They were gonna make the Crocs a skidmark on the underpants of society. With the rain falling, they were about to pour it on. Even Goldberg showed up! The game itself was just what the doctor ordered for Cobras. It was the antidote. It was the medicine for what ailed them. Not just because the elements played into their strengths, but just because they had maintained a faith that if they showed up good things would happen. And they finally showed up. Perla would make a good lab tech because he loves him some chemistry. The Cobras experiment went into the game with a formula unproven and left it with a relative theory of how to make the postseason. I really wish I could recap the game itself in some compelling way, but once Cobras got off to the races they lapped Crocs numerous times. This one wasn’t close. Before you knew it, Cobras were up multiple scores, Perla was ecstatic on the sidelines and Sherrif (1 TD, 1 pick) was doing backflips in the endzone to celebrate TDs. Whiskey and Spira were relentless on the line. Talk about two under the radar unassuming pass rushers who don’t have the flashiness of an Oppen or the pedigree of a Kut, but who get after it. These dudes don’t stop. Watching Spira is a clinic. A classic lineman move is to give the sack a valiant effort – a burst – and see how that goes. If it fails, so be it. Spira does not stop. Tomax and Xamot sacked Snow 3 times. Solo was pressing Zinn all game, doing a great job neutralizing Crocs’ heretofore unstoppable weapon. And, finally, amid all the giddiness and revelry was an MK performance for the ages. For Cobras to continue their march to relevance, their stars need to show up. Not just to the games, but during the games. And MK brought his cape to Week 13. A man who once but lights in his beard lit up the Jewball stage with a 4 score day. 2 TDs caught, 1 rushed, and a P6. That’s what we call Jewball worthy. Good on ya, MK. The postscript for this team is unwritten. Will the Cobras be satisfied with this one day in the sun and slither back into their burrows, or will Perla continue to channel Joe Burows? They have a real playoff shot now and – for one – I hope they get it. Few games stand out in my Jewball memories, but I will remember this one. The rain. The joy. The backflips. And best of all – the potential realized and the possibilities born. It’s why we play the game.

Because the entire Woodmere Middle School shares the same climate, the 2-1 Cronies played the 3-0 BOP in equally wet conditions. The Cronies limped into Game 4. A team wracked by injuries, and reliant on back-ups. But what do you do when a back-up doesn’t show? What happens is that Yaron inevitably plays, and Brody – God bless ya, with your willingness and wristband of plays – shifts back to WR (albeit needing some breathers). And Waldo – who is probably on a different team – is in town so he jumps in. And Jordan tries to get some reps in while his tendon screams please don’t tear me again. With all these issues and adjustments, Cronies are still a core of Daxxy, Oppen (his daughter waiting a few more days to be born – good kid), Zada and Storm. And that’s formidable any way you slice it. So they will always have a puncher’s chance. Brody – antics and call – can ball. And Yaron is always better when he’s not consumed by the prospects of what can go wrong. He always competes, but playing in a game he didn’t come into overthinking and conflicted by what result to the game would benefit him most personally, he played loose. He played chill. And it was great to see. He and Storm brought it back to the 193 days with two TD hookups. The game was close for most of it, but someone must have stuck the orange voodoo Ernie head onto a Justin Jefferson voodoo body. Listen, Ernie and I had our chat issues this week. I just don’t like a certain kind of BS. I think we cleared it up – more or less (Ernie in his mind: NEVER!), but let’s talk actual facts: Ernie is the best of us when it comes to caring about others and a generosity of spirit. The guy isn’t faking. He feels. He is sensitive to the traumas of this life – and that’s a hard thing to be. People like him either guard themselves from everything for fear of being mortally wounded by the tragic nature of life, OR they feel an achrayus (moral obligation) to make things better. Ernie always chooses the latter. So, let’s not break him, Jordan. Even though he broke my tendon in Week 4 and broke my team in Week 13. He made MK’s game across the gridiron look pedestrian. Pray to Ernie for 4 TDs (Go Smores!). Every time the Cronies carved out a path to victory, Ernie settled them down. Roadblocks established. He went full Gandolf. Thou shalt not pass! He added a pick to the flurry of scoring. Jewball to the lead singer of Weague Leek. The only other thing to say about this game is that DK apparently had the sexiest flag-pull hydroplane of all time. No Jewball for it, but…a bracha – DK, may them game always bring out of you that kind of youthful passion. Amen. 

A week later (WEEK 14)  the Lionhearts and Dawgs faced off in a game that surely felt like a must win for both. Mighty was out for the Dawgs and the younger Brody stepped in. Good fire that kids brings. But you know who brings the most fire to big games. The Wizard. On this very special episode of Jewball, Yaron and his Lionhearts visited Steveo Island – and the result was a nightmare for them. Like the torment of a recurring Bertfumble, over and again, Yaron flashed to his right when in the redzone and searched for points. Points that never came. Steveo had his wand at the ready and went Avada Kedavra on Yaron’s ass. While Yaron did find success moving the ball as he always does with Jack, and he even is establishing a Dachslike timing with Dax on the curls – he has lost his way when it comes to sealing the deal. Dachs had no problem sealing deals that day. On the very first snap, he launches a heatseeker to Brody up the gut of the field and Brody scores. It would be the only score the Dawgs would need. Steveo made sure of that. Sorting hat says Jewball to Steveo. Lionhearts now have the same record as Cobras. Crocs are trying to find their identity. Dawgs are digging themselves out of a hole. Cronies are trying to hold it together. And BOP just needs to keep their foot on the gas.

For the record, there was a game 2 played on Week 14, but it ended in a tie so I’ll just pretend it never happened. Weel 15 was washed out – hence my introduction about our being in the football diaspora.

All good exiles come to an end. And ours ends in but a few days. With sound and fury, it ends. It ends in the redemptive waters of Vets Rooks. The game that ties everything together.

I’ll end with this thought. A thought for Sunday. A thought for the future in general. As Jewballers, we care about the ties that bind. The ties being each other in the present. And our ties to the past and future of games. Games that are really stories. Players that are really brothers. But sometimes we forget to appreciate that we ourselves our bound by these ties. That we at first were roped in – perhaps by a twist of fate or pure dumb luck,  but now – by choice – we are strapped in – buckled up – always ready to ride. Holding on, tight.