John Barlow as Brad Pitt as Achilles in Troy
Philadelphia sports history was made this past weekend in the Hill Top Flag Football League. I don't know if that's the right name, but it's the league that plays its games in front of Memorial Hall. I can't believe Inquirer Sports hasn't covered this story. It's a story about... about balls, big balls... really big balls... Balls. Here's my account of it, a first person account, utterly exaggerated and untrue, and as I retell all things, in egregious, fake epic language. But that's beside the point.
Saturday, April 7, 2007. Imagine a morose afternoon, cold enough to unleash the hounds of hell, cold enough to ruin many a sack, that is unless your name is John Barlow. Barlow and I were in the Red Belts With Devices for Attaching Flags That Don't Fit Size 30 Waists or Less reserve core together, preparing for duty. Daily, he was running laps around the country. For my part, I had begun overhearing sports talk shows on ESPN while doing the crossword puzzle. Two soldiers had fallen in a prior engagement, and the Commander in Chief of the "Red Belts", 6 star General H.C. Rogers IV, had to activate us for Saturday's game.
Jesus knows, he didn't want to. John and I were as green as a bad case of the frozen Green Giant spinach shits. This was going to be our first battle. Of course, the enemy that day was to be the most difficult yet, the Norristown Blue Spandex Thingy Clad Boppers. They boasted of a champion, Papa Shango,
(This is truth btw. One of the guys on the opposing team was fucking enormous and had his face painted exactly like former WWF wrestler Papa Shango.)
that could defeat the champion of any other team in single combat. As in olden times, they offered to decide the contest in such a manner. Until that day the strength of us Red Belts had been our intellect. We were known for the labyrinthine stratagems of our Commander Rogers, and thus our ability to outmaneuver as a unit. But now that had changed. Now we had... Balls.
The briefest interval of silence, then from the rear of our camp, a voice bellowed back, "I accept your challenge, you bunch of pansies", John Barlow's voice. The two combatants stepped onto the field. Papa Shango chose offense. Barlow was to stop him, either strip him of the ball, or strip him of a flag. They began at breakneck speed, driven by an unseen motivation, just as two rams vying for an ewe in heat.
They clashed at the center of the field like Olympian thunder. Shango, up to that point, had been the strongest warrior in the league. He certainly could not fathom a scrawny 135lb white kid being as strong as he. But he had no idea of John's Balls. Shango suffered demoralization and confusion. Barlow had seized Shango in his vice-like grip, and was driving Shango back toward his goal-- Barlow was seeking the ultimate victory, one that never occurred to any of us, the safety.
However, Shango regained composure somewhere around the 15 yard line, and realizing how more diesel Barlow was, he resorted to treachery. As a smaller sumo wrestler will draw his larger opponent to the end of the ring in hopes of using the larger opponent's strength and momentum against him, so now did Shango lead Barlow on. John, catching sight of the goal line, drove Shango back with all his strength. This was Shango's chance. He fell backwards.
Barlow, still raging like an untamed lion, immediately tripped over Shango's feet. John prepared to break his fall with his hands. He did not anticipate however, the velocity with which he had been driving Shango back, and his right hand hit the ground a split-second before his left with such force that his right wrist exploded on impact.
Shango unravelled his feet and took off for our end zone. His touchdown dance was a combination Unk's "Two Step" and Crime Mob's "Rock Yo Hips." Only seconds before he realized the superiority of his opponent. Already, he had forgotten it, and was arrogantly stomping in our end zone and calling himself "The Shit."
Oh Justitia, how you so reliably smite such hubris! Running up to Shango, the league official held a blue flag, a blue flag missing from Shango's blue belt, a blue flag that the hand of John Barlow, Red Belt, ripped from that blue belt. John Barlow had defeated Papa Shango. You see, all along, Barlow, the paragon of both cunning and humility, had Shango's flag in hand. When John tripped, Shango's flag came with him.
Shango cried and cried for hours, as did his teammates, and they were so ashamed that they would never play flag football again. Barlow, with the legend of his strength and courage preceding him, is currently being hit on by hot nurses across the Delaware Valley.
Get Well, Dude
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