It’s hard to look back on this past Sunday. I don’t want to look back. Not yet. Just forward. First to Monday, when I get this bicep reattached. Then to the 6 weeks of healing. Then to the 4-6 weeks of rehabbing. Then to the day I can return to the field with you all and finish the game I started. Because the game I started went like this….
No one was on the field at Woodmere Middle School when 28 of us Jewballers descended. Prime was back. The sun was shining. Was probably almost 60 degrees. I was feeling light, and fast, and healthy. Pray was my QB.  If you didn’t look at your phone to see how effed up the world was, you’d think….what could be better than right now?
I’ll tell you. Three completions with Pray in the early going and a defense locking down Dachs and his very talented core of receivers including Storm and Zinn. The last of these completions a gorgeously designed play with Stella setting the pick and Jordan crossing behind him from the slot to the out and up…and Pray lofts one just far enough to make it worth the sprint toward the ball. There is nothing like that feeling of seeing a pass in the air and knowing that it’s a good pass – a perfect pass – but it only works if you – the receiver – makes the effort to         get there. And it was in fact worth the effort. A TD. Stat, count it. I look over to the other field and I see Yaron and Mighty putting up points. Me and Mighty scoring TDs on WMS turf. It’s 2009 again. Pray to Jordan almost put up a second score, but a slightly underthrown fade to the right corner of the endzone was picked by Dachs, and the score remained Pray 1, Dachs 0. On the next play, with Dachs taking over from the 5, a quick pass to Ernie on Dach’s right on the outside and it’s mano a mano with Jordan. Ernie trying to get as many yards as possible. Jordan trying to limit the damage. I did something I’ve done a thousand times before. Grabbed him with the left arm, pulled the flag with the right. But, just as it happened with Goldberg on Thanksgiving about 6 years ago….the strength of my adversary overcame the biological limits of my physical body. Tendon snaps, arm is done, game is done. People are sympathetic, but I know how it goes – it just sucks for the players on the field. One person has to rotate. The flow is thrown off. The game is tainted. But, wait, it gets worse.
I look over and see Fox on the sideline as well. He’s hurt. He’s out for the game. When it rains…
Right about then, a very nice guy walks on the field. He is the soccer coach for WMS. He still owes me a video of Mighty racing some kids (though we got it later from Zada). He tells they have permit for 9:30. He says we can stay till 9am. When it rains it pours.
There are few things more important in life to get you through a travail than a productive goal. So, in a way it was a blessing. Instead of watching from the sidelines wondering and worrying how bad the injury was, I had a field to build on the grass. I built it. It was awesome but sucked at the same time. I knew Spira would eventually find a flaw, which he did. But the dimensions were perfect. It was trial and error and wound up in the only spot you could build a field on a patch of grass of that size an shape and with the obstacles it presented. The problem was it was diagonal to every reference point around it. So it was a mind eff of a field. Which isn’t good. Also, there was only one of it. So, at 9am, when Yaron v. Gronk and Pray v. Dachs needed to finish their games, they had to share. 15 minutes each on the grass. It was that kind of day for Jewball. But….Jewball is a long story. You take the good with the not as good.
I believe both games entered their 15 minutes of “overtime” with tie scores. Gronk had thrown 2 TDs to Stats, 1 to Ross, and 1 to Dax. And he had 4 picks. Jewball was his with the W. But Yaron was intent on fixing his early season losing streak. He has been throwing the ball well, but just not doing enough to get Ws. That’s why God created Mighty. To get men Ws. The Mighty one catches 2 scores and adds a third via P6 (along with a bonus pick for good measure). Dude was feeling himself! Yelling at soccer kids, challenging them to races, challenging them to leave the field at the end of their game 8 minutes early.  Yaron and Mighty (along with DK, Bert, Rook, Zada and injured Fox) take a close game from Gronk 5-4. Jewball to Mighty for the show he put on.
Pray and Dachs came in to the 15 minutes knotted at 1s. As Pray described it, the wait between games and the switch to grass killed his team’s momentum. Well, may be true, but why didn’t it kill Dachs’? One team has to want it more. One team has to execute better to wrestle the W from the jaws of L. And Dachs did that. Dobs and Beast performed at the line with 5 sacks between them. Zinn had 2 picks and 2 TDs, the final picking icing the already iced game, which was a one handed bit of insanity streaking across the endzone to steal a TD. That’s some dark magic. But, the game was surely turned with Dachs up 2-1 and Pray beginning a drive with ten minutes left from Dachs’ five yard line. A screen to Prime that went the way of the duck and bounced off Prime’s cleats….into Storm’s arms in the endzone. It more or less put the game away in stupefying fashion. Absolutely brutal.
Game 2 was all Yaron and Gronk and not enough Perla magic. This is the game where BK doesn’t factor in the stats, but it’s really all about him. BK takes himself out, The Rook gets his spot, but the The Rook has cleat issues, so The Kid jumps in for The Rook for BK….and the game will forever be remembered as the one where Gronk humbles The Kid. There will be no bragging or big talk after this one. It wasn’t even so much Gronk toying with our young rook, but more like pretending he wasn’t there. It’s crazy that we have Gronk as a QB when he’s probably a top 3 receiver in the League. But, anyway, enough about Crony problems.
Perla always battles. He hasn’t won in a bit, but he’s always right there. His teams (both day and night) just need to take one more step forward to start being a real threat. Right now, they are performing like high grade speed bumps. They slow you down for a bit, but in the end you get past them anyway. The game was close for a while, with a deep ball to Jack for a score and a sliding grab in the corner of the endzone to Prime, but Yaron and Gronk just kept pouring it on. Perla’s team basically had no answer for Gronk and that was the difference. Gronk loaded up the stats line with 3 scores, a pick, a P6, and a sack. That’s Jewball material. He gets it.
As for me, I’m out for 10-12 weeks. But in the age of the Enlightenment, there are many ways to contribute to Jewball. And I will do what I can to stick around the game. I pray and I Pray. Will be back on the field as soon as possible. Gotta work hard. Gotta Ern it. No pun intendoned.