Ruh-Roh!

The wind. It blows, both literally and figuratively, at least for us Hammers, at least for last night. And our opponents, seemingly-friendly as they may have been, smartly rode said beast wind like a deranged Pegasus, repeatedly pinning us on our own goal by some combination of godless black magic and ample zone cuppage. The situation was bleak, and spirits were low. Bunny was nursing a wounded wrist; Glutes a wonky groin (or leg, or something). But then, in a pulpy second act twist, the Hammers crack coaching staff - led by… Coach and coach-emeritus DL - unmasked our opponent’s strategy, revealing our path forward, “solving the mystery”, if you will.

(Yes, yes - this Scooby-Doo theme is a mess… but, onward!)

This season, we have become something of a second half team, and this was also the case last night. After re-grouping at half, we were able to climb to within spitting distance of our foes. Certainly, they were dreaming of a 15-3 romp, and they would have achieved it, too, if it weren’t for us drat kids. BOOM! (*sigh*).

EDIT: We lost, 12-7.

Highlights, lowlights and revelations:

• DL making it out for his first game of the year, then CLEARING THE FENCE with a monstrous hammer (high/lowlight: the subsequent wardrobe malfunction of the zealous dude who went to retrieve it);
• Rookie (this is now Ally’s nickname, btw) appearing to score (yay), but standing mere inches off the field (booooo);
• Strong D from The Pelch (this is now D-Jean’s nickname, btw) and Punter;
• Check out the sticky fins on Sharky, who chased down a few big passes;
• Big scores from Bunny and Partner and fearless handling from Captain and Coach;
• Did one of THEM berate a fellow teammate? I heard rumblings over beers, but didn’t get all the details… please elaborate in the comments; and
• Last but not least, in a wild revelation, it has been discovered that Tim was once a member of the pre-Bag Of Hammers HURL franchise XXX, where he played with DL and quite possibly his namesake. Serendipity! And now I am off to revise our Hammers History spreadsheet, which is becoming increasingly spider-webby.

And I award the Poorly-Received Ugly T-Shirt Player Of the Game Award to Sharky, for his goal line snags and determination to learn the forward fin flick. Atta-boy, Sharky.

See y’all next week,

AA