Some Thoughts on the Current Standings

Courtesy of the morning paper, the current standings …

I think it’s obvious at this point that it’s going to come down to Junior A.C. and Davis Shell and the private-school kids with their high-end bikes who populate the two teams. Were this a cinematic flight, then the relentlessly middle-class kids from, say, Naas Candy, would rise up and bring low their economic betters. But this isn’t a movie, so Junior A.C. and Davis Shell, what with their superior breeding, boutique equipment and precocious and unreachable girlfriends will surely hold sway.

Just as sure is that this will mark the onset of many decades of holding sway over the Naas Candy boys. The difference is that the certain defeats ahead will be more meaningful, more lacerating. For instance, is there really any doubt that Davis Shell shortstop Caspian Westwood will one day order his middle managers to fire current Naas Candy left fielder Rusty Stricken from the crew because he was rumored to have a flask in his lunch pail? The mounting black lung was making him less than efficient, anyway.

As for the natural rivalry between Faultless Cleaners and Economy Cleaners, two concerns that will leave your Sansabelt slacks crisp to the grope and redolent of chemical vats, it’s not much of a contest thus far. This is because Economy Cleaners is shitty in all ways.

You see, they are shitty because their coach, Floyd Chickens, is all too at ease on the dole, where he’s been for lo these many years. His indolence seeps down to the shiftless layabouts on his roster. Rather than patrol the infield with a sense of mission, they instead panhandle base-runners. Even when a member of Economy Cleaners is presented with the opportunity for honest toil — for instance, Junior A.C. star pitcher Maximilian Humphries, while measuring his lead-off from second base, recently offered Economy infielder Cesar Chavez McMurphy a good many pence to beat the teammate of his choosing with a ditching spade and then finish him off with sheep shears — they recoil and fart. They are bound headlong for diseases that never spread north of the Town Plaisance.

All of this helps explain the current standings, which you see above.