And with the end of that brief, green promise came people. Players from Asia traveled across the Bering Strait, whole teams came charging down the West Coast, wearing fur-coat uniforms and carrying honking-big spears. What they found alongside the McDowell Mountains: mammoths in marshes, competition that proved to be as easy as a slow runner with a too-big lead off of first. Watch them dance, and then … blam. Sometimes, when I’m feeling sorry for myself, I think us old-timers must’ve looked not unlike those mammoths to the Internet-savvy newcomers, the guys who bought out the papers and speared all the union guys before anyone could turn their creaky old heads. Not that feeling sorry for yourself is any sort of productive, but the metaphor seems apt.

But the new team couldn’t get too comfortable with that 1-0 advantage. Change was upon them, not fast but disconcertingly steady. It was in the warming air and the drying up of the new lakes—these in turn sent the megafauna packing north and farther north, past the Rockies and the Pacific Coast League, steady north till Aloysius Snuffleupagus and his kind ambled right off the edge of the world. Suddenly, the prehistoric humans couldn’t find anybody to play them. Is that how Jason felt when he started plunking down $100,000 bets and the game went quiet? When he was the last one at the table, forty-eight mind-melting hours into a tournament? Poor Liana, her hair could’ve been on fire, and her husband wouldn’t have looked up from the draw.

So he pulled a few hands of blackjack in the middle of the afternoon, what’s the harm in that? He and Carver didn’t have anything better to do. Sure, his competitive drive made him the best left fielder since Ted Williams, made him stick with Greg Carver on that run even when he was certain he was going to puke, made him the lead-by-example player the Lions needed in their clubhouse. But competitiveness isn’t something you can turn on and off like a light switch. Hell, it doesn’t even have a dimmer. And that same competitive drive that got him the Triple Crown in 2009 has taken him to the table more times than anyone can count. One source at the casino says he usually stays longer than they do, and they’re holding down nine-hour shifts.