For Whom The Ball Rolls

It was quiet in the Chamounix Forest on Tuesday evening as the good sun of late spring fingered through the tree limbs.
I wandered across the open grass near the ball field, but there was no game. This was not as planned. My first assignment for the new editor was important.
I was down to my last writing pencil and the notebooks I coveted at the papeterie on the Rue Passyunk could not be purchased yet.
The chilly weeks of April had passed, fortunately, but it was still damp and gloomy in the tiny room above the bar on Rue de Cerise. The last of the charcoal and wood shavings were burned away and I could not even afford a pint of the bracing ale. In the night, I could hear their laughter downstairs, especially Lynch, and sleep would not come.
Somewhere there was a ball game on another open field, but I had misplaced it, or it had misplaced me. A tribe of refugees, I was told, against another tribe of drinkers and ogres.
There might be ambulances and in the distance, away from the lovely still of Chamounix, you could hear the distant ring of a bat against the good, honest cover of the ball. It began to rain and I shivered.
The results would have to be invented.
CATAHOULA REFUGEES 18 – SOUTH PHILLY TAP ROOM 16: Two stout undefeated armies on the field of friendly strife. The Refugees emerge victorious, but only because Carol was robbed of her chance to tie the game when Joey Whiteshoes was ruled out after clearly sliding beneath the tag. There will be another day for these armies.
ZOO 30 – FRANKLIN INSTITUTE 18: What manner of beating is this, that leaves the vanquished not only defeated but humiliated? Ah, that there could be some sort of retribution possible.
ART MUSEUM 20 – ZOO 14: There once was an artist named Frank. To be honest, his blog usually stank. He pissed off the GT with a post that was meaty, then said it was only a prank.
PEN & PENCIL 9 – FLEISHER ART MEMORIAL 7: A narrow meeting on the Edgeley battleground where, for some reason, the air defenses have not yet begun to buzz the field. There will be shrapnel in the air eventually, however, and the smell of gunpowder on the rise.
GREEN TAMBOURINE 12 – FRANKLIN INSTITUTE 11: They have known trouble, these tambourines, but yet they rise to once again make their jangly music. It rings across the sporting plain in triumph for the first time.
BISHOP’S COLLAR 29 – NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER 4: The man of the cloth drew back his robes and began to warm himself by the fire. It was a good fire, deep and bright.