Battle for West Virginia

Fans, this was a UFC matchup that had been brewing for months. Let me get specific and paint a picture for you... There we were, mid-March, and it was time to enter your team into the Tomaszewski March Madness bracket. No time to act, no time to go online... So Tim "West Virginia Thumper" Lord delegated. He asked Neil "Piro Maniac" Shapiro to go online and enter in his bracket. Shapiro waited patiently while Lord finished his bracket, then Shapiro went back to input it into the website... you guessed it, Shapiro wins the bracket. Or wait, that wasn't Shapiro. It said Shapiro but it was really Lord. Tim Lord, bracketology chammpion for Rawlings.

Flash backward even further, let's look at some of the gems that great state of WV has produced:

Pac Man Jones
Chris Henry
Randy Moss
Tim Lord

All dominant athletic specimens. All with a few "issues". And now we zoom forward to the main event...

Lord was in early, armed with a new bat that might just be have been an old bat, we're not sure. All I know for sure is it has 10 or 11 layers of stuff in it and a lot of techy looking logos. In fact, Shapiro could almost make out four or five of those logos on the bat before it smacked him straight in the head. Lord then switched around and smacked him again - delivering equal pop from both sides of the plate.

But let me tell you something about Shapiro. He's spent a lot of time working with Kathy "Ozzie" Smith on some sort of device that measures (or exerts) extreme amounts of pressure on round objects. Like softballs, baseballs, or in the case of today, Tim Lord's grill (head or face, not his Weber). That's right.. Lord had just finished his follow through, staring at the scoreboard doing his Chris Henry style touchdown dance (it's quite a number - it starts with a shimmy that drives the interns crazy...) as he rolled to that early 9-2 lead. (4 points for the bashing, 4 points for the dancing, 1 points for the interns going crazy)

That follow through though suddenly and quickly ended inside some sort of Shapiro-inspired head smack ending in a Shapiro-created vise, in which Neil began to crank away to lock Lord into place. That's when he began to go to work on Lord's midsection, delivering a special series of tests that even Tim couldn't pass. These tests, you see, are designed to find that breaking point and Neil found Tim's after taking out his driver and working on Tim's course. He didn't need a mulligan but he took one. Or three.

The battle locked even at 9. Then Shapiro took an 11-9 lead with a painful backswing.

Lord then broke free and began to send in a series of interns, employees, and security guards at Shapiro - anyone he could find was sent into battle. Shapiro was outnumbered and unable to keep up with the perpetual stream of Tim's Army. Lord reclaimed the lead 12-11. Briefly.

That's when Shapiro began to rub his hands together first slowly, then quickly. It became apparent that this wasn't some strange means of grooving. Neil was starting a fire. A fire that would engulf Lord and his West Virginia thumper and end this battle in a pile of ashes.

Shapiro pulls the upset 18-13 and advances to meet today's winner:

#5 "Six Degrees of Dan" Cullinane vs. #12 Kelly "The Gate Keeper" Absheer

Email your vote by hitting REPLY or emailing it to rawlingsufc@gmail.com

And, kids, don't be like Neil Shapiro. Don't play with fire.