So with a third consecutive softball win and third straight victory in any athletic contest over the Dirty Bird on the line, who will step up for The Badger Herald in the 2011 softball game (ESPNU, 4 p.m.)?

Last year’s walkoff winner, Joey Labuz, is in the whore herself, Ann Arbor, mashing grad school exams rather than home runs. Slugging first baseman Sean Kittridge is doing…something else, it is assumed. Diminutive news editor Alex Brousseau was last seen scaling bookshelves in the Law Library, looking completely disheveled.

But BH ace Michael Bleach will once again take the Vilas Park mound for the Gentleclowns, intent on striking bitches out with a beer in hand. Shortstop and sports editor Max Henson returns after an offseason training regimen that involved scooping up grounders and firing throws to first base using only his feet.

“I just needed to make the game challenging again,” Henson said while juggling knives and filleting a poisonous blowfish. “It’s just the Dirty Bird; I can afford to take some creative liberties.”

And like any good organization, there’s more talent coming up in the pipelines. State Editor Andrew Averill has been referred to by scouts as “a pure, natural hitter.” Asked to comment on his talent, Averill stated, “Dude, I don’t even need a bat,” following that up with suggestive gestures toward his crotchal region.

Other veteran Gentleclowns will also be called upon to take bigger roles. Following three mysterious months in Slovakia, BH News Editor Carolyn “Just Call Me Ms. Go Nasty” Briggs has returned with a prodigious knack for getting on base, as well as what might be a mental disorder.

“I don’t give a fuck. I want to see blood,” Briggs said while gnawing on may have at one point been a squirrel. “We’re going to win. We’re going to win so hard. And they’ll bleed.”

Arts Content Editor Sarah Witman will make her BH debut at third base. Witman’s fastball has been clocked at 107 mph, but she’ll keep her Flaming Arm of Legends at the hot corner, in the interest of fairness.

It may be early in the season, but already several Gentleclowns who were expected to contribute will watch from the dugout. News Content Editor Addie Blanchard is currently on 13 different kinds of antibiotics and two spyware removers to combat a bout of what might be the Black Death. Deputy Design Director Alex Laedtke is questionable with a case of fishbowl overindulgence. Editor-in-Chief Kevin Bargnes will not be playing either, because, well, he slipped on an icy hill and broke the shit out of his leg.

And pending league approval, Editorial Board member Jake Begun has been traded to Houston for a handle of Jack Daniels and a hug.

Hoping to engineer the next chapter in Herald athletic dominance, Managing Editor Adam Holt said the Gentleclowns will try out a new defensive alignment, akin to the Ortiz Shift. But instead of moving the infielders over, it involves moving all the outfielders to the edge of the infield so they have a better view of Dirty Birders grounding out weakly to the left side.

“It’s more of a mental thing than anything else,” Holt said. “If they actually do still have any self-esteem, this should crush it once and for all.”

The deck may already be stacked against the BH, so to speak, as Mayor-elect Paul Soglin will be umpiring the game. The former Mifflin Street Block Party statistic’s daughter is a graphic editor for the Dirty Bird, but sources say league officials will keep close tabs on Soglin, lest they decide to replace him as mayor with that other guy who is essentially the same guy, except younger.

The game will finally be waged after hundreds of hours of negotiation that make the NFL labor situation look like a disagreement over how much to tip at Denny’s. The Dirty Bird’s incredible, inflexible insistence the game be held Saturday, April 16 is the object of much scrutiny from league pundits, who wonder if the Dirty Bird is hoping the bleak forecast (40 degrees, rain, with a chance of overbearing sadness) will cause the Herald to simply forfeit.

“Every other Friday and Saturday in April and May simply won’t work,” DB editor-in-chief Emma Roller said. “We need to give ourselves some kind of chance, and the scenario where we don’t actually play the game sounds most likely to succeed.”

A league source who asked to remain anonymous said the date also marks a rare linear alignment of Earth, Venus and Mercury. This coincides with an ancient Bacchanalian rite, which is said to help those with child-like tolerances for alcohol hold their liquor better than a high school junior who’s never had anything harder than UV Blue, which currently describes the drinking ability of the average Dirty Birder.

Sports Illustrated’s “Truth and Rumors” section seems to confirm this, indicating there have been numerous goat sacrifices taking place in the Vilas basement.

Meanwhile, the Gentleclowns have been training in a more old-fashioned way. Advertising Director Bree Bunzel has put the BH roster on a strict regimen involving bathing in Everclear and relying on brandy for hydration.

“I mean, yeah, there’s the game, but there’s also the drinking part,” Bunzel said. “I assume we’ll be playing flip cup with the Cardinal’s leftover beer, to put the exclamation point on the victory.”

Why the Dirty Bird’s beer?

“Well, Lord knows we won’t have any left by then.”