By December the office has cost you something. There was the trade you vetoed in October and the group chat that followed it. There was the waiver claim at 3am that somebody is still bringing up. There is the last-place punishment, which you will have to enforce, personally, on a friend. OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER, set like a government department, and beneath it, in a rule-box, the clause you have quoted all season: ALL DECISIONS ARE FINAL.
It is a mid-century sports-annual title plate, played completely straight: heavy condensed slab lettering, two hairline rules, a small crossed gavel. No cartoon football. No punchline. The joke is that the joke is never made.
Thick and warm, built for the back half of the season, the layer for a cold championship week and the drive to somebody's basement, with a plate that sits in the fabric rather than on top of it, offered in a range of deep, dark shades.
For the person who has run the league for eleven years. For the league finally buying him something. And for whoever is shopping in December and knows only that he takes this unreasonably seriously: that is the right fact to have.
All decisions are final.
