December 30, 2024 — The 2024 American Calvinball Bracket (ACB) Mega Rad Championship Scrumble that took place yesterday at Orforcorp Court may very well go down as a defining moment in the sport’s already storied history. Perhaps in all of sports history.

At the Centiday-Over-Eighth Slot, with this momentous must-watch scrumble roaring toward its dramatic conclusion, Grand Rapids Rumma Tum Tums star Herb Verberserker, masked in a tinted astrofishbowl, overshot his whiffle ball missile. With that whiffed miss unreflectable, Verberserker ended up flopping his flukey flim flam in the resulting shimmy shammy juke-off, leaving his left torso exposed for a decisive Calvinball walloping from hometown hero Orange Forest Olly-Wolly Polliwoggy phenom Rosa “The Raptivator” Rockydad, masked in a simple red bandanna with two knifeslit eyeholes that was knotted behind her head.

Rockydad’s use of a newspaper wad wrapped and layered with masking tape for her Calvinball proved to be a smart move in the extra grip it provided.

In repentance, Rockydad had Verberserker recite a Spout about Calvinball’s glory. And from within his tinted astrofishbowl mask, Verberserker delivered a Calvinball Spout that, under ordinary circumstances, might’ve gone done as one of the greatest Calvinball Spouts of the ages:

“In all of the places

I’ve ever masked my faces

Without any traces

Of all my past disgraces

Standing on this court

With the Calvinball in hand

I know I love this sport

And I know I love this land

Embrace all of the naysayers

That say that I’m no playmaker

They gave me these waylayers

Cuz they feared this gameslayer 

Standing on this court

With the Calvinball in hand

I know I love this sport

And I know I love this land”

The Spout, delivered with such passion and raw human emotion, brought the entire crowd to hushed silence, each of us in attendance sniffling back tears and thinking about all of those cherished Calvinball memories that have shaped our lives. At that moment, no matter where you were in the country or the world, even if you were next to a random fan wearing your most hated scrumbler’s mask, you became instant friends and family. 

Once the emotions simmered down, Rockydad and Verberserker resumed scrumbling as the Raptivator whipped out a tape measure and quickly established a Zone of Irrational Ratios that kept Verberserker twirling off in circular tangents.

Then, with less than a Hop Skip and a Wink left to play, in a scrumble-altering moment, Verberserker moved to snag Rockydad’s flag as Rockydad grasped out and ripped off Verberserker’s tinted astrofishbowl facemask.

The unprecedented play silenced the 80,000 people in Orforcorp Court. No one in attendance or at home had ever witnessed such a heinous disregard for the game’s second-most sacrosanct unwritten rule.

But things only got worse from there.

After careful review by the i-Dotters and t-Crossers, Rockydad’s forbidden move revealed that Verberserker’s tinted astrofishbowl facemask contained an earpiece connected to AI, feeding him historical data on plays to avoid and ideas for new original plays, zone creations, and Spouts.

Only by ripping off that once-untouchable mask could Rockydad expose Verberserker’s betrayal of the game’s most sacrosanct unwritten rule, resulting in a pyrrhic move that’s still sending a shockwave that threatens to crumble this hallowed sport to its very foundational core.

At the end of the scrumble, no flags were captured. No one was awarded Most Mega Rad Scrumbler. No one won on the court or on the couch.

With the 2025 ACB season now beginning, all eyes are on how the Bracket will handle this blatant disruption of established sporting norms. Will it censure or sanction Verberserker’s actions? Will it uphold or overhaul the game we all know and love? Will it bunker down and barricade itself against any momentary pressure? Or will it open the floodgates and let a tidal change transmogrify tradition?

After all, nowhere in the Official Calvinball Rulebook does it mention using AI for assistance—no prohibitions, bans, or disallowances. Then again, the original, and only, Official Calvinball Rulebook was scribbled on a sticky note and currently sits behind glass at the Hall of Calvinball History & Most Baller Calvinists.

So stay tuned to find out what happens next in the “Always Unpredictable World of Calvinball” brought to you exclusively by Orforcorp.