The Bet Flips: Ken Pours, Ken Says It
Cleveland State29
Miami (OH)51
- Game
- 2029 Week 7
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Loss
- Record
- 6-1
Miami (OH) 51, Vikings 29. At home.
I’m going to be honest, folks, because you deserve it: they were better. Joe Snyderwine’s RedHawks came into our house undefeated and left undefeated, and it wasn’t close. Twenty-two points. Five straight years we’d beaten them, and you get used to a thing, and then a Saturday comes along and reminds you that nothing is permanent except Big Stan’s pierogi recipe.
Donna said something I keep thinking about. She’s three and oh in Oxford, but this game was here, at home, and she watched from our living room in the cape. When it ended, she took the cape off, folded it neatly, and said, “Michael, I think it only works on the road.” Then she went to bed. She’s not wrong. Superstition is just pattern recognition with feelings.
Six and one. We’ve lost before. We’ve bounced back before. That’s what this program does.
Zero pierogi. I’m eating Donna’s stuffed cabbage, which she made in advance. She knew. She always knows.
The bet flips.
For five years, Nadia Petrakis poured me a beer every November and said, out loud, in front of the whole Lantern Room, “Your team is better than mine.” On Tuesday, I walked behind the bar (she held the hinged counter open for me), pulled her a beer myself, set it down in front of her, looked her in the eye and said, “Your team is better than mine.”
The bar went quiet. Then Nadia picked up the glass, raised it, and said, “Five years, Ken. Five years I waited.” The whole bar applauded. She turned the bobblehead to face the room, took the green ribbon off the “WE’LL SEE” trophy, handed it to me and said, “Keep it. You’ll want it back next year.” I’ve put it in my wallet.
The football analysis is simple: the Vikings ran into an undefeated team playing at a very high level and lost by three touchdowns. It’s one game. It’s also the kind of game that tells you who the other contenders are. Miami (OH) is one. I think Ohio is the other.
Teresa’s pick this week, after the game, was a record called “Songs for Difficult Tuesdays.” She’d planned ahead.
Back and forth
You poured it yourself?
You honor a bet. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.
Donna thinks the cape only works on the road.
Then we schedule more road games. I’ll write to the conference.
The RedHawks end a five-year streak in our building, Ken pays the bet with dignity and a hand-pulled beer, and a green ribbon goes back into a wallet to wait.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.