Meanwhile, in Alabama, Part Infinity

Remember the other day, when the Blob wondered if Alabama was in the throes of a raging stupid pill epidemic?

I'd like to enter the following into evidence, your Honor.

Seems the organizers of a grade-school rec basketball league in Hoover, Ala., don't much cotton to girls hoops. Or at least the evidence  suggests as much. 

First, halfway through the season, a 5th-grade girls team was told they could no longer use their practice facility (the rec league's gym) unless they paid to play in the Hoover rec league. Of course, the Hoover rec league was a boys league. So the girls either had to end their season, or pay to play against the boys.

 Wait. It gets better.

Turns out this was a pretty darn good girls team. They took up the challenge (because they really had no choice) and, wonder of wonders, won the league championship. But the championship trophy went to the runnersup, because the girls were told before the tournament that they could play in it as long as they didn't win it. If they did, it wouldn't count.

Now, I'm too damn old to really remember what it was like to be a fifth-grade boy. But I would loved to have seen one of the boys on the runnerup team have the character (and pride) to immediately take the trophy over to the girls and hand it to them.

Yeah, I know. Probably expecting too much of fifth-graders.

Also expecting too much for some fifth-grader to get off the appropriate wisecrack: "Hey, look, guys. It's the world's biggest participation trophy."

Now, it must be noted that the City of Hoover and the Hoover Rec Center are looking into this sham. So it's possible they could do wind up doing the right thing after all.

Then again, it's Alabama.

So don't hold your breath.