Here's a fun exercise for the Burketon faithful, those three or four of you who still bring lawn chairs: cover up the third inning of Wednesday's line score and tell me what you see.

Zeros. Two innings of them. A 4-0 hole, then an 8-0 hole, and only then did the Beavers remember they'd been invited.

Final: Donkeys 17, Beavers 6. Burketon's six-spot in the third was the kind of rally that gets described as "encouraging" by people who've already decided to be encouraged. Beau homered. Justin went 4-for-5 with one over. Chad got his own souvenir. Gorgeous. Truly. Also entirely beside the point, because by then Enniskillen had hung nine in the top half and the outcome had the suspense of a rerun.

The Donkeys' top two did not so much hit as file paperwork. Chris: 10 at-bats, eight hits, two homers, zero strikeouts. Austin: nine at-bats, eight hits, one homer, zero strikeouts. Between them, 16 hits in 19 trips and not one swing-and-miss worth recording. That's not a baseball game, that's a batting cage with a scoreboard attached.

"We were just taking what the pitching gave us," said Austin, who was given everything and took slightly more than that.

The Beavers came in 4-3 and allegedly dangerous, having beaten these same Donkeys 3-1 back on 23 Sep, a result Burketon has leaned on the way a man leans on a cane. One win. One. Framed, matted, hung above the mantle. Meanwhile Enniskillen is 6-1 with four straight, and the only team they've lost to just surrendered 17.

"We never stopped competing out there," said Chad, whose 2-for-5 was recorded entirely after the Donkey had already reached double figures.

The quiet truth is that Burketon is still the second-best team in this league, which tells you more about the league than about Burketon.

Somewhere the Turkeys are 1-6 and sinking, so Beavers fans have that for perspective. Burketon may get another crack at the Donkeys next week, and I'd encourage everyone to arrive on time. The Beavers, historically, do not.