[CBL-Commish]

People have been getting paid to play baseball for going on 140 years now, so it's possible that somewhere, somehow a team once suffered through a nine-day stretch worse than that experienced by the Alert Desolation from November 22nd through the 30th, 2006.

Possible. But pretty darn unlikely.

The horror began with a normal, pedestrian 11-5 loss at Tasiilaq. It was a well-played game for the GWIBL, with only three errors, and gametime temperature was a balmy 40 degrees. All 10 of Tasiilaq's paying spectators went home happy as Brian Bannatyne had four hits, pushing his season's average to the cusp of .700. Merrimack New Hampshire's Chad Strype took the loss, going 5.1 innings of 17-hit, 11-run ball. And Álex López surprised everyone with 2.2 innings of scoreless relief. Oh, but what awaited the Desolation.

After Thursday's off day, they traveled to Nuuk to take on the Franchise. A rowdy crowd of 90 was on hand to see a pitcher's duel. After eight innings it was 6-2 Nuuk, with Baio Wu throwing an incredible game with only six hits allowed, no walks, and four strikeouts. Truely one of the best pitching performances of the season. But he tired, and in the 9th Nuuk brought in Prospero 'Moose' Cndida, a Brazilian righty. He promptly coughed up four runs, tying the ballgame. Then things got interesting. Both teams traded runs in the 10th, and Alert plated three runs in the 11th. But Nuuk tied it back up on a Ulysses Bower bases-loaded triple that skipped around the frozen outfield for what seemed like forever. Unbelievably, Alert bounced back and scored another three-spot in the 12th. But just as unbelievably, Nuuk responded. Stringing together four singles, a walk, and benefitting from an error, they scored four times in the frame off of the normally dependable Tadeo Cante. For both of the Alert faithful it was a second straight disappointing defeat.

They didn't know what was coming next.

After an 18-hour hovercraft ride back home to the Alert Station, they took on Tasiilaq Superheroes once again. It was over before it started. Tasiilaq scored 15 times in the first, and coasted to a 34-7 win. Alert, clearly not so alert after the long journey, made nine errors on the windswept, icy playing field. It was -26 degrees, with a stiff 24 mph breeze blowing in from left, but that didn't deter 17 fans from paying to sit on metal bleachers and chew lustily on seal blubber. Aruban Pjotr Veeneman seemed most effected by the Hoth-like conditions, making four errors. Former KC Royal and Baltimore Oriole Chris Fussell was once again disappointing, giving up four runs in three innings, seeing his ERA stay above the 14.00 mark.

On Sunday the schedule makers clearly were taking their revenge for some past slight, as the Desolation had to take an 8-hour flight on a Twin Otter to Qaanaaq, to face the league-leading Tusk. After two innings it was 23-3. In the second, a quick groundout was followed by nine consecutive hits. Then with two outs the Tusk had seven hits, a walk, and reaped the rewards of four Alert errors and a wild pitch. By the time the carnage had mercifully ended, 5:27 later, the final was 47-13. Three different Alert pitchers had allowed 10 or more runs, and the team combined for 287 pitches thrown.

You might have thought this was the bottom, and it could well have been, but the Desolation wouldn't pull themselves out of the mire for four more games. On Tuesday the 28th they started a three-game set with Nord, and got ended up taking the bad end of a sweep. By a combined score of 70-21. Tuesday's game was -26 degrees, Wednesday -24, and Thursday was a bone-numbing 28 below. Thursday saw the Desolation throw four pitchers with season ERAs north of 11.00. Chris Fussell was beside himself. "I came up here to try and resurrect my career. It wasn't a lot of money, and I was fearful of the polar bears and the whiteout conditions. But it's baseball. How bad could it be, right? Well, with all this protective clothing my fastball rarely breaks 70, and I don't even want to think about trying a slider with a -26 degree headwind. I'm not going to lie, it's ugly. I don't know how the fans do it. There were 15 or 20 guys out there waving banners and singing songs four hours into the game yesterday. I was near death!"

But as surely as the sun goes round the earth... or something like that... November came to a close. And with it the Alert Desolation's misery. At least for a moment. On the 1st of December they went to Nord to play the Jawbreakers, and finally, thankfully, got some luck. Lopez pitched brilliantly in relief. And at 10:45, with the thermometer dipping perilously close to 40 below, they pushed across four runs in the 12th, and had that elusive win. Danish catcher Jakob Reuter tried to open a celebratory soda, but it was frozen harder than a steel pipe. The team hustled back to the awaiting sno-cat, and set off for the airstrip, content in the knowledge that no one had died, and they had survived one of the most harrowing nine days in baseball history.