Amherst Again, and Sam Uses the Wood
Cleveland State70
UMass14
- Game
- 2033 Week 2
- Site
- Away
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 2-0
Vikings 70, UMass 14, in Amherst. Two and oh.
Fifty-six points of daylight in New England, our third win over the Minutemen. It’s a pretty campus, folks, all brick and trees just starting to turn, and our guys played like visitors who’d been there before. Which they had, in 2025. Different players, same result.
Three pierogi, because UMass isn’t the Big 12, and I promised Kenny I’d grade on a curve.
Now. You’ll remember that last Thanksgiving, my son-in-law Sam, the carpenter, looked at Ken and Teresa and said, “I have wood left over. Whenever you need it.” Teresa turned the color of cranberry sauce. Ken turned the color of the sauce’s jar. Everyone at the table wondered what Sam meant.
Well, Sam has revealed what he meant. On Saturday morning he pulled up to Ken and Teresa’s building with his truck and unloaded a walnut record cabinet, eight feet wide, with sixteen compartments and a little brass plate on the front that says HOGMANES. A wedding present, a year late. For the records. So Ken can stop wearing his coat indoors.
Ken stood in the street and looked at it for a long time. Then he said, “Sam, I don’t know what to say.” Sam said, “Then don’t,” and went back to his truck. Sam’s my favorite person who isn’t related to me by blood.
A fifty-six-point road win at UMass. Two and oh. The two freshmen, DuBose and Reece, look like they’ve been playing together for years. They’ve been playing together for two games. I’m told it’s called chemistry. I’m told chemistry is real. I have a chemistry teacher in the extended family now, and he confirms it.
Sam built us a record cabinet. Walnut, eight feet, sixteen compartments, our name on brass. I’d like to formally apologize to the readers who spent ten months wondering what Sam meant by “wood left over.” So did I. So did Teresa, who had, it turns out, a very different theory. When the cabinet came off the truck, she laughed so hard she had to sit down on the curb. I asked her what was funny. She said, “Nothing, Kenny. It’s perfect.” It took me a day to understand. I’m a slow reader of people.
The coats are back in the hall closet. The records are in the cabinet, by mood, as Teresa arranged them. The “Kenny After Ohio” section has its own compartment. It’s the biggest one. Sam measured.
Back and forth
Teresa had a different theory?
I’m not discussing Teresa’s theory in a newspaper.
Sam measured the Ohio compartment?
He did. He asked Teresa how big it should be. She said, “Big.” He made it bigger.
Fifty-six points in a pretty New England town, two freshmen with chemistry, and a carpenter’s leftover wood finally revealed as a walnut cabinet with the biggest compartment saved for Ohio.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.