Thursday, February 14, 2008

Appreciate Her! (Go, Decatur!)

Introducing my entry in our fantasy league, the Decatur Commies, who will no doubt follow in the footsteps of their proud forebearers by finishing 5th this year. By order of the team owner (i.e., me), home runs hit by Commies this season will be celebrated by the singing (in rounds, if possible) of Sufjan Stevens' "Decatur, Or Round of Applause for Your Stepmother," which I expect will quickly supplant "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" as America's hardball anthem.
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The real-life Commies (which was short for "Commodores"--thus the sweet Thurston Howell cap on the logo) played intermittently in the Indiana-Iowa-Illinois League, the Missouri-Ohio Valley League, and the Midwest League from 1901-1974, winning 4 league titles in that span.
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The team boasts exactly one Hall-of-Fame alumni in Carl Hubbell, who played one season in Decatur before escaping to the New York Baseball Giants.
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That has a nice symmetry with my team, which has played against an array of owners in the Wankdorf League at this point, and which also boasts exactly one future HoFer in Johan Santana, along with a bunch of guys who in different circumstances would have been semi-pro cornshuckers rather than pro ballplayers.
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Anyway, it will be interesting to see if fantasy teams named after defunct Triple-I League affiliates spreads through our league this year the way that teams named after random 1980s comedy characters dominated last season. For those interested, the Bloomington Bloomers team name is still available at press time!

1 comment:

El Angelo said...

I went in another direction and am honoring the team and season after James K. Polk, who's neck and neck with Woodrow Wilson for our most underrated President. I'm sure you understand.