It pains me to make this post.

Once again, I am forced to defend my athletic skill and yes, my honor, for my undefeated world series record at All-Star strat-o-matic baseball.  My skill at the game was so superior, those rubes had no chance to beat me.  Ed, Mike, Kev...heh, they were no match for my skill at the game.

Ed didn't even tell me the rules.  I had to pick my players without knowing what the various numbered zones stood for.  I got suspicious after about 8 rounds of drafting players, when Ed picked Jim Perry as his ace pitcher.  Jim Perry?  Not Whitey Ford, Warren Spahn, Bob Feller, and other greats of the day???  Jim Perry?  It turns out zones 7 and 11 stood for singles, and Jim Perry's zones were as large as Nellie Fox's, and Nellie had the largest ones in the game.  According to those player cards, Jim Perry would hit for a higher average than anyone on my team.  But I soldiered on, without complaining.

As Mike said, the common spin started at the 3 o'clock position, IF YOU ARE RIGHT-HANDED, as the cuz's were.  But I am left-handed.  My spin started at the 9 o'clock position, spun in the opposite direction, made almost exactly 7-3/4 revolutions,  generally ending up somewhere between 11 o'clock and high noon.  As it happens, the home run zone on the player cards were at that exact location.

Oh, how they whined, and whined, and whined.  How can Red Schoendeist hit a home run with that tiny zone?  So they protested.

Now, it happens we had a fair and impartial umpire in residence, one who understood the game and had great experience diplomatically dealing with whiners.  The only experience he lacked, obviously, was spanking them.

I demonstrated my needle spin for our esteemed umpire.  "Wow," he said, "it's amazing how you so skillfully manage to land the needle in zone No. 1 with such frequency."  The three brats groaned.  He then asked them to demonstrate their spins.  "They land all over the place," he said, "especially in the 6, 8 and 10 zones.  You guys get a lot of whiffs and other outs, huh?"  Despite their constant reminders that they came from his loins, our fair-minded umpire, his honesty above reproach, consistently called-em-as-he-saw-em, and yes, Red actually hit more home runs than Ted Williams.

Now, that umpire was to be the inspiration for my own umpiring career.  And to watch my cousins call into question...no, flat-out accuse His Honor, the esteemed Edmund Joseph O'Leary, Sr., of showing favoritism in his rulings, is like shoving a knife in my belly.  Oh, the inhumanity!  How could you?  Ohhhhh the shame...