Game

@

I'll teach you a game
in the dark of the night
but only if you
have the spirit to fight

eyes filled with fire
and heart of desire
bare feet unbound
dance over dew's ground

skip now and leap
collapse in a heap
sliver of voice
rock with rejoice

play quick my game
and forget love's old name

I play the game »Diplomacy« over the internet. It's a board game set in Europe immediately before World War I, and all the players play one or another of the Great Powers at the time. What distinguishes Diplomacy from most other board games is that there's no element of random chance – you don't succeed because the dice fell your way, but instead because you convinced one or another of the other players to help you.

The national sport of Canada is not ice hockey, as one might expect, nor even curling. It is lacrosse. Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto on the old Lone Ranger tv series, is enshrined in both the US and Canadian Lacrosse Halls of Fame.

How have you lived without this info...?

Game 3 of the 2018 World Series set a new record for the longest ever played in the World Series, both in number of innings and length in time.

How many innings?

Eighteen.

EIGHTEEN!

18.

Forty-six of the fifty available players made it onto the field.

They even played »Take me out to the ball game« twice.

And the Dodgers won on a walk-off homer by Max Muncy in the 18th – after he almost hit a walk-off homer in the 15th (it went foul).

We begin at even strength, with open, even board between us. It is the nature of this game, though, that as one player takes the advantage, his opponent finds that he faces two enemies: the player as well as the rules themselves.

His sole pastimes were reading the papers and playing whist. He often won at this game, which, as a silent one, harmonised with his nature; but his winnings never went into his purse, being reserved as a fund for his charities. Mr. Fogg played, not to win, but for the sake of playing. The game was in his eyes a contest, a struggle with a difficulty, yet a motionless, unwearying struggle, congenial to his tastes.