Miss Red v. Muggy Flora

Harvest Moon 2001. Them: A club team out of Missouri; bubblegum pink shirts, faerie wings, antennae. Us: Well, Rice of course; "Indian" war bonnets, a hodgepodge of patterned skirts. The score with 2 minutes left to play: 7-10, them.

In the beginning, we had been winning. Then, they had thrown a zone with a tight 4-(wo)man cup that we just couldn't break. And now, here we were, down by three if we wanted to tie, four if we wanted to win.

We did want to win. So, of course, did they. After a time-out to figure new strategy, we "Indians" began to score. Once we understood how to move the disk, we realized that we could make it to 10, the only question was if we could do so in the next minute.

And at that point, things could have gotten rather ugly. We were closing the score gap. We could have gouged eyes and broken knees for the few more points that we needed, but I'm glad to say we didn't. They could have played thuggishly or at least have stalled on the line to run the clock. But they didn't.

The game was clean, all the way through. The last, intense minute was marked by the same spirit as the rest. When our be-feathered deep caught the last score, I felt no sense of triumph, just a rush of relief.

I turned to my defender, wanting to articulate how much respect I had for her, for her team, for the spirit they'd shown. She held out her hand, and beat me to it. "It was a great game."

For me, never losing heart, refusing to accept a lopsided score as a loss, and playing the hardest fair game you can are fundamental components of spirit of the game. In no other game have I seen it as manifest as it was on that dusty baseball outfield in Arkansas. I don't remember beating the bubblegum fairies from Missouri; I remember how much fun it was to play with them.