The 2017 Season Report: Jim D Wins So Decisively The League Checked The Spreadsheet Three Times

The League Historical Preservation Committee today released its certified findings for the 2017 season, a 44-player campaign that concluded with Jim D being declared Donkey of the Year, the highest honor the Flock of Donkeys bestows upon any living or recently-defeated member. Jim D finished with 546 points, a total so commanding that the Committee, citing “standard distrust of good news,” recounted the spreadsheet three separate times before authorizing a single celebratory clam.

At the heart of the season is the cushion: 46 points separating Jim D from runner-up David, who logged 500 points and a documented expression described in minutes as “the look of a man who did everything correctly and still lost.” Third place went to Chance M at 480 points, completing a top three the Committee has formally designated “stacked, and frankly a little intimidating to be near.”

The Recount That Would Not End

According to internal documentation, the spreadsheet was reopened on three occasions. The first recount confirmed 546. The second recount confirmed 546. The third recount, performed by a volunteer who insisted on using a different chair, also confirmed 546. A fourth recount was proposed and rejected on the grounds that “we are starting to look unwell.”

“I added it up. Then I added it up angrily. Then I added it up while a colleague watched my hands the entire time. It kept being 546. At a certain point you have to accept that a man simply played good poker, which is the single most upsetting outcome this Committee processes.”

The Clam Contribution remained fixed at 🦪 40 Clams throughout the season, though records indicate an unusually high volume of Emergency Clam Replenishment events clustered around the nights Jim D was seated, a correlation the Department of Clam Security has flagged but declined to explain.

The Brian A Detonation

Standing apart from the championship race is the single most violent statistical event of the year: Brian A’s 128-point performance in one night, the highest single-tournament score on record. The Committee notes that Brian A did not finish in the season’s top three, which it describes as “the most 2017 thing about 2017.” Witnesses report the table that evening was “structurally unhappy.”

• 128 points: a record so far above the normal nightly yield that the spreadsheet briefly rendered it in a different color.
• Multiple players present requested their attendance be removed from the official record “for emotional reasons.”
• One chip was never recovered and is presumed to have been carried off by the event itself.

The Department of Clam Security additionally reports that the 2017 trophy cabinet was reinforced “out of an abundance of caution,” after Jim D’s name plate was found to be longer than the cabinet was originally engineered to accommodate.

The 2017 season is now sealed, certified, and triple-counted. Jim D is Donkey of the Year. The spreadsheet is resting. Further inquiries should be directed to nobody.