The 2020 Season Report: Pandemic-Shortened Campaign Decided By Two Clams, Bish Declared Champion Of Whatever That Was

The League Historical Preservation Committee hereby files its official accounting of the 2020 Season, a campaign the Committee has formally classified as “abbreviated, contaminated, and statistically suspicious.” Owing to a global event the Committee is contractually forbidden from naming in print, the 2020 calendar was reduced to a mere handful of sanctioned tournaments, producing point totals so low that three separate auditors initially assumed the spreadsheet had been left out in the rain.

When the smoke, fog, and ambient NutGas finally cleared, Bish was declared Donkey of the Year with 111 points. The honor — the highest available to any member of the Flock of Donkeys — was conferred at a ceremony attended by four people, two of whom were standing six feet outside the building.

A Margin You Could Lose In A Sneeze

The 2020 title race was the closest in recorded league memory, a fact the Department of Clam Security continues to investigate as possible sabotage. Bish edged Vene (109 points) by a margin of just two points, with Terry (107 points) lurking a further two points back. The entire podium — all three Donkeys — was separated by a total of four points, a spread the Committee describes as “within the documented error tolerance of one (1) misplaced ante.”

“I won by two points. Two. I have personally produced more than two points of value by simply leaving a chair,” said Bish, who declined to clarify the statement and was asked not to elaborate.

Vene has filed no formal protest, but sources confirm he has spent the off-season measuring various objects and announcing how many of them weigh “about two points.”

The Tony Sighting

The season’s most anticipated event was the annual appearance of Tony, who surfaced exactly once — as is his custom — accumulated 2 points, and submerged again. League naturalists, who track Tony the way other institutions track migratory whales, logged the cameo as “consistent with prior breaching behavior.” His 2-point finish places him in last among the 20-player field, a position the Committee notes he secured “with minimal effort and maximum mystery.”

Elsewhere, the season’s lone bright flare came from Jim, who posted the highest single-tournament score of the year at 78 points — a number so disproportionate to the shortened season that the Department of Clam Security briefly placed it “under quarantine pending review.” Jim’s 🦪 40 Clam Contribution was confirmed legitimate, as were his three Emergency Clam Replenishments, which witnesses describe as “aggressive but technically permitted.”

The Committee additionally documented the following 2020 health-and-safety irregularities:

• Hand sanitizer was repeatedly mistaken for, and on one occasion deployed against, suspected NutGas.
• Three players wore masks; two wore the same mask; one mask is still unaccounted for.
• Social distancing was observed at the felt only by Tony, who was not present.

The 2020 Season is hereby entered into the permanent record as official, contaminated, and decided by two Clams. Bish is Champion of Whatever That Was. The Committee thanks no one and reminds the Flock that the felt remembers everything.