Big Dogs Face Elimination in Losers’ Bracket

APEX — The Big Dogs (1-15) face elimination tonight against Rebel Alliance (9-7) at 9pm on Laura Duncan Field #2 in the Class-C Apex Men’s Spring Softball League tournament.  The game is not televised.

They have fallen to the Rebels (as their fans affectionately refer to them) three times this season by a total margin of seven runs.  The Rebels were the suprise team of the C-League this year, breaking out for a winning season and a 4th-place regular season finish.

While losing has been a lesson in humility for the Big Dogs this season, losing to Rebel Alliance is rather shameful explains first baseman Lucas Miller.

Up until a conversation with a teammate yesterday, Miller had assumed Rebel Alliance was the sponsoring company’s name; it even provided for the smooth “Rebels” nickname.

But the embarrassing truth is that “Rebel Alliance” is a Star Wars reference. 

In fact, the Rebels are all software engineers or computer programmers for SAS.  On closer inspection, they even have an X-Wing Fighter logo on their jersey. 

“They probably run an undeground RTP fight club in the off-season,” Miller quipped wryly, the embarrassment evidenced by his sullen expression.

Their leader isn’t Han Solo or Luke Skywalker, but rather Jack Ramsey.  He’s 5’3″, plays left center, and leads off with his patented left-handed hack-swing, just like the girls.  He wears jeans shorts and scrunches his white tube socks halfway to his knees.

“In another life he probably flies the Millenium Falcon,” suggested Big Dogs right centerfielder Brent Horne.  He went on to add that he was wearing a storm trooper helmet at the plate tonight.

The short stop may have a long pony tail and wear tight-fitting shorts, but he’s a veritable vaccuum in the middle infield and a solid line drive hitter at the plate.

The first baseman stands about 6’4″ and weighs in at around 125 — insert C3P2 joke here — but what stands out are not his too-short old-school Umbros but rather his (inter) stellar ability to reign in the high and wide throws. 

Their cleanup hitter is a Techie stuck in an athlete’s body.  He crushes the high pitches to the deep center woods and then rounds the bases with a gloating trot, as if he has just slayed Darth Vader to save the universe. 

“It’s just really tough to fathom that we’re losing to a group of wannabe-Jedi Knights,” Miller confessed.  “I mean, these guys are thirty- and forty-somethings that will probably sit around analyzing Episode II after the game.”

Regardless, tonight the Big Dogs will need their Light Sabres to be cracking and their defense to be like a force field around some planet in a galaxy far, far away if they plan to keep their season going. 

May The Force be with them. 

As a follow-up, one of the Big Dogs player’s wives was told the following story as to why they chose ‘Rebel Alliance,’ which she passed along to be preserved for posterity.  It has to be true because you can’t make this stuff up.

A couple years back (apparently in a galaxy far, far away), a group of programmers and engineers from the SAS Institute played for the company softball team in the Raleigh Recreational League, the Majors to Apex’s Minors, if you will.  Along the way, for some reason, this team folded.  But a contingent of players was still eager to compete and formed a team in the Apex City League.  They fostered hopes of wearing the SAS jerseys from years past, but to their chagrin, SAS would not support this team as a sponsor, and denied this request; SAS would not actively support the formation of a team under its name (perhaps it was due to money issues for Jim Goodnight, who was likely fighting to maintain his grip over Wendell Murphy on the title of “Richest Man in North Carolina”).  Rejected, but never dejected, this contingent found their own sponsor and became known around the SAS campus as “rebels” for their obstinance towards their corporate opressors.  They took it one step further and compared this act ‘rebellion’ to that of the young Skywalker of Star Wars lore, and officially became The Rebel Alliance.  Unofficially, they call themselves the Rebels, while everyone else just calls them dorks.