Excerpt from The Origin of Scrodesball
By P. Lymouth
Sorry Brother Publications, 2006
Just after track season had ended, Josiah P. Scrodalees and Roderick Tatum were in the basement of Ohio Wesleyan University's Tate building, poring over Track and Field magazines. The snow on the ground hadn't stopped them from running seven miles that morning, but they were tired by the middle of the afternoon — not from the run, but from their physical education class, which met for three hours on Wednesdays.
Scrodalees and Tatum ate, lived and breathed running, and it was by pure luck that they had paired together as roommates their freshman year. Tatum had seen Scrodalees' running shorts on the very first day and broke out laughing, yelling, "I can almost see your scrote, Scrodalees!," getting the attention of everyone on the hall, and angering Josiah for about 20 seconds before he, too, broke out laughing. "S'okay, I got some too," Tatum said, referencing his own short shorts, prompting Josiah to smile, before Tatum, giggling, added - "Scrodes!" They bent over backwards laughing, and a nickname and friendship were born.
Scrodes, not a man of the written word, was a fan of Running World, while Tatum preferred Harrier Times. They ogled the women in the mags and often traded pinups - they loved those lean legs and plum-sized busts. Hell, they were runners and damn proud of it, from their women to their spaghetti diets every night. They were so into their sport that they had invented a game to keep themselves busy in January, while the pasta was cooking - something they called "Fantasy Sports."
The concept was simple: they'd each draft a team of the world's best runners, total up the times from their collected races, and whomever's total time was lower would win. At first it was the two guys, and Scrodes won handily. Tatum was black, and of Nigerian descent, but Scrodes prided himself on knowing everything there was to know about every Nigerian runner, just get needle him (Tatum would often complain about "that white dude's memory." Scrodes would just reply, "Sorry, brother"). Soon the whole team, male and female, was playing, and eventually other schools from across the country and across the world began competing, by correspondence. There was a Post Office in Scrodes and Tatum's dorm, and Scrodes worked in the mailroom in his spare time, so the postage was free. Maybe he was going a little overboard, but since he won so handily, he loved doing it. Tatum eventually quit playing just to help him retain his superiority in an increasingly competitive field.
The competition lasted past graduation and into their early adult years, with Scrodes winning every time. It wasn't until the early 1990's - by which time Scrodes and Tatum had moved far apart, Tatum to Phoenix, Scrodes to Massachusetts - that he ran into some competition. And it was from a woman, someone named Mary Lee who rose to the top of the Scrodesball rankings in under three months, ending Josiah's decade of dominance. At first, Scrodes chalked it up to luck, but soon enough he couldn't stand it anymore. It was affecting his fake running and his real running, and he chugged along Great Hill Road urging himself to do better.
"I'll beat her ass this month," he'd say. "I'll pummel her."
"I'll beat her into submission."
"I'll destroy her. I'll whoop her butt."
It wasn't until the Scrodesball convention that fall, in Niagara Falls, that he realized that he would do none of those things. He'd marry her, and Scrodesball would carry on…
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3 comments:
Absolutely riveting.
Something that is not mentioned in this excerpt, and that I am sure Dr. Lymouth will go into in much detail elsewhere in his tome, is the most embarrassing occurrence of Mr. Scrodalees finishing dead last in Scrodesball '98.
That year, against his better judgement, Scrodalees hand selected 10 young men who he hoped to groom into Scrodesball studs well into the next millennium. Early in their second season of training, following an inspired practice at Holiday Hills, Scordalees had an unprecidented moment of Scrodesball hubris. Feeling that his young charges would build on a great training run and take the momentum into the tall hills of Sandwich, he released everyone on his Scrodesball roster, replacing them with the untested legs of Blyan Shiftwell, Patrick Smayson, Iron Smith, Zanger Jones, L.T. Broombeck, Fred Barnett, Andrew Dice Cryer, and even the mascot, a frisky (but inelligable) Chickens.
Race day began ominously as Scrodalees arrived at the boat late. To add to his difficulty he wasted much time demanding that Tim Robinson fetch the javelins from his trunk before realizing that javelins are not a required cross country accessory—only those who compete in Cross Country Death Race 2000 may run carrying lethal objects (of course the rules have since been modified and now Scrodalees trains all his runners with top secret ninja techniques that involve rocks from their track's infield, the training is rigorous and goes by the code name, "Gasoline Station").
Thankfully (though not to his young harriers who were hoping to get out of school early without having to actually run) Coach Scrodalees made the boat. There were many moments during the drive when Scrodalees' pupils thought that his captaining of the van might lead to their demise. Thankfully (though not to his young harriers who were still hoping to get out of school early without having to actually run) the van made it to Sandwich safely—minus some paint here and there.
The race began with much promise. When Scrodalees saw his runners sprint by after the first 1/2 mile he was feeling delighted about his Scrodesball squadron. However, by the next checkpoint, at mile 2, Scrodalees was overwhelmed by the blue singlets of Sandwich. It was not until the entire top seven of Sandwich had passed him by that Scrodalees saw his first Vineyard runner, Barah Madley, who he had not even placed on his Scrodesball roster. Scrodalees quickly realized what a blunder he had made. The prognosis for that week's Scrodesball results looked quite gloomy.
In fact, the outcome was so bad (-273 points) that his Scrodesballl team was doomed for the season. This sent him into a tailspin from which he has never truly recovered. The following day, arriving at practice in a particularly fowl mood, Scrodalees found his runners playing football and being unresponsive to his coaching methods. He demanded the ball. Upon reception of the ball he tossed it into the tennis court and stormed off. While it had always been a mystery to young harriers where Scrodalees had been during his self-imposed exile, records now show that he was in the process of updating his Scrodalees roster. He dropped everyone, Blyan Shiftwell, Patrick Smayson, Iron Smith, Zanger Jones, L.T. Broombeck, Fred Barnett, Andrew Dice Cryer, and even the mascot, a frisky (but inelligable) Chickens. As Scrodesball season was already in full tilt it was slim pickens on the waiver wire. Scrodalees was able to obtain a few of Harwich's top runners as well as the entire Mashpee team (Scrodalees did not know at that time that Mashpee High would not begin their cross country program until the following season).
This episode is considered by most Scrodesball historians to be the biggest gaff in what is otherwise the sterling Scrodesball career of Josiah P. Scrodalees.
My apologies, the year of Scrodalees' boner was of course 1995.
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