There’s precedence for today’s strip, too: against the Arlington HS Cardinals on April 1, 2000, Gil came out to bat, claiming that coaches were allowed to hit in exhibition games. When the ump protested, Thorp said, “What’s the date today, Earl?” (MIlford would go on to win the state championship that year, the only Mudlark baseball team ever to do so. They haven’t made the state baseball playdowns since 2010.)
Milford football has had at least three winless seasons: 1957 (the year before Gil took over), 1982 (0-7, with the final game of the year against Tilden cancelled) and 2000, when they went 8-3 on the field but later forfeited all of their games after the Jarvis White scandal. (The 1998 softball team, 21-1 on the field including a state playoff win, also had all of their games forfeited due to an ineligible player.)
Far as I can tell, this is the first Milford boys basketball playoff game since a first-round loss to the Hamilton HS Big Blue, 82-81, way back in 2013. (The “playdowns” stopped being a thing in the mid-2000s, apparently.)
“a Big Mac but only if you replace the special sauce with ranch dressing, the American cheese for Swiss cheese, and the sesame seed bun for a brioche bun.”
Dorothy getting pounded might actually make this strip interesting, for once.