There are plenty of chosen people on the FADER Saucony team, but apparently we missed out on the whole upstate summer camp sports circuit that so accurately trained our friends at HEEB Magazine. Biding by tested flag-capturing strategies—from hiding the flag in their pants to the ole’ captive prisoner flag handoff—Heeb out-tricked Asstricks, in an ironic turn of events.

But this was no Meatballs, and our Tripper was nowhere to be found. More like a certain conflict in a certain little area of the Middle East, this was a dirty, brutal war of land encroachment and senseless bickering. Did you know that the boundaries extended into the woods? I sure didn’t. People get hurt in the woods, people. Let’s not forget it.

In conclusion, capture the flag was a lot more fun when we were spry and innocent ten year olds without the jaded awareness of magazine editors in between smoke breaks, working on our third can of Coors Light in a brown bag.

Our efforts this summer in softball and wiffleball haven’t exactly been successful, but yesterday Heeb finally tasted victory in a game of Capture the Flag in a series of three to zero against the urban rag The Fader.

Makes sense that we would master at a game in which the basic strategy is to invade and occupy territory that arguably doesn’t belong to us. (Sound familiar?) But the dynamic duo that made the W happen was no doubt Michael Moshan (above, center), attorney-at-law, and his Long Island ringer, Mike Blitzer (right).

Between hustling our prisoners back to home territory and snagging that flag every round, those two not only get our game MVPs but redeemed an entire summer of winless shame.