(Catching up a bit, here. I got distracted this week owing to some issues in my building, with the need to access my apartment for a building-wide bit of maintenance.)

We continue the story of the investigation into the antecedents of Havelock "Whitey" Greensward, the mysterious ace hurler for the Persoc Tor Chequers, who against all odds have won the regular season, and are now playing the mighty Duke's Own team in the annual Peach Basket tournament. Some decidedly odd things are happening -- and not all of them are on the field.

The description of the Ant-Meet, to a certain extent, is a spoof of the goings-on at the Epsom Derby, one of the highlights (even still) of the aristocratic scene in England. The story behind the Peach Basket is based on the Stanley Cup; it's not widely known that the Stanley Cup pre-dates the National Hockey League, and in fact has more or less been usurped by the NHL as its championship trophy. What Lord Stanley (16th Earl of Derby) would have made of it, we'll never know. As with the Peach Basket, the Stanley Cup has the names of the members of the winning team engraved on it, and it's grown larger over the years, though today they "rotate off" the older bands. And there is a tradition of "getting" the Cup for a day, which can lead to interesting stories -- these days, the Cup has a minder or two to keep the scandals down.

The tradition of throwing out the first ball at the World Series used to be done from the stands, and many times was done by the President (who also did Opening Day throw-outs, usually for the Washington Senators). This tradition, for a variety of reasons, has gone by the boards.

Those familiar with the 1919 World Series will see an ominous parallel with the first game of that series.

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