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Many of the longest and closest friendships of my life derive directly from the softball teams I played on in my just-post-college years, particularly the legendary Polera’s Demolition Crew, winners of back-to-back (and belly-to-belly) league championships and continuous crusher of our arch-rival, Ted’s Auto Body.¹ So I’m dedicating this post – for reasons that will be obvious once viewing the video – to my friends/teammates, “The Fellers” (and I’m mentally working my way around the diamond in comprising the list): Bags, Coach, Rosey, Zuck, Kap, Lil’ Zuck, Matty, Duck, Hoosh, Check, Grobes…with occasional cameos from Bones and Sugar Ray.

The featured artist, The Sheepdogs, are, incidentally, a really good band. In 2011 they won a monthslong Battle of the Bands contest to become the first unsigned group ever to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone, doing so under the headline, “A Very Hairy Rock & Roll Fairy Tale.” I saw them play live at a South by Southwest Festival showcase in Austin a few years back with three of my aforementioned fellow Demolition Crew-members, and, like the Ted’s Auto Body pitches we used to routinely clobber, they were right in our wheelhouse. The Sheepdogs are just a good old-fashioned American classic rock band from the ‘70’s era…except that they’re actually a very modern band formed just over a decade ago, and they’re from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Let’s call them retro rock imported from the great white north. And their over-the-top, completely obnoxious softball sensibilities displayed here seem right in line with our vintage Demolition Crew behavior, as we habitually proceeded to steamroll over-matched foes and then loudly blast a celebratory rendition of the Gap Band’s ‘Burn Rubber On Me’ on the field after every win.

We are were the Champions! (at least that’s how I remember it).


¹That’s right, suck it, Creesh, you one-named freak boy