“Obviously, Splizzball. Everybody loves Splizzball, not just because it is the only sport in the realm, but heck, they even let some of the more civil monsters come and watch. So, that’s one for world peace, or at least the owners get a piece of the pie. “Gold is gold,” is what my agent tells me, usually when he’s about to push a contract at me that transfers any amount of my gold towards his accounts.”
(Jo’jaxon, the wild pitchman is a character in my book/game hybrid, the Also Rans. He’s known for some truly wild throws, which you might Read about if you like this creative response to the daily prompt from a character’s POV)
“A lot of people do ask what Splizzball is, and I get that, I truly do. The way I tell it, think of Chess, only with more balls being thrown. You still have an invading army to take care of, so the pitcher gets to do a lot of that, obviously, but all the linemen have to keep the invading army taken down with zone defense. So you’ll need a variety of skills on the team, because if you just have one kind of defender, then the other side is going to walk all over you if they field somebody with a strong advantage against you. So yeah, kinda like how pawns suck at everything, is the main vibe.”
“Jo, I’m still not following you, and I really have been trying since I met you. How is this like chess when you’re hurling balls at the players when they come onto the field?”
“Well, it isn’t just hurling balls at them, although I do kinda need to point out that is kinda my thing that I’m known for, so… any rate, yeah, there are other players on the team that do the close up fighting to try to score hits on the invading players.”
“This sounds a lot less like a sport, and a lot more like a war game. Please tell me the losing team doesn’t get sacrificed to appease a god?”
“Well, no, but if you don’t please the god of sponsorships by giving it your best, you might end up wishing you did get your liver diced up. And yeah, come to think of it, it probably is a stylized competition of some sort or another, what with the whole ‘my army is better than your army’ subtext. And hey, there was that one guy with the sling who totally took down the big captain of that other team in one of those stories you quoted, so, Splizzball pitchers are a big deal, Alastrina.”
“Oh, I get it a little better now, then. Somewhat like how the Cellestopian Order has a competition using enchanted brooms and a winged golden orb that the two teams have to capture while the other team…”
“Uh, no, nothing like that, and I personally don’t want to get sued, so we should probably change the subject like immediately.”
The Also-Rans 
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