The Fantasy League Tiebreaker

Cormac had written the fantasy football league's constitution nine years ago, half as a joke, and had spent every year since defending clauses nobody else remembered agreeing to.

九年前，科马克写下了这个梦幻橄榄球联赛的章程，一半是开玩笑，此后每年他都在为那些没人记得自己同意过的条款辩护。

This year, for the first time in league history, the season ended in an exact tie between Ansel and Solveig, both finishing with identical records and, improbably, identical total points down to the decimal. The group chat, usually dormant between seasons, exploded with theories about what should happen next.

今年，联赛历史上第一次，赛季以安塞尔和索尔维格的完全平局告终，两人战绩相同，而且难以置信的是，总得分也完全相同，连小数点后都一样。群聊平时在赛季之间一向沉寂，此刻却因为接下来该怎么办的各种说法而炸开了锅。

"There's a tiebreaker rule," Cormac announced, with the quiet satisfaction of a man who had been waiting nine years for this exact moment. "Section 4, Subsection C. Nobody's ever needed it before."

“有一条平局决胜规则，”科马克宣布，带着一个等了九年就为等这一刻的人那种安静的满足，“第四条，C款。以前从没人需要用到。”

He read it aloud. In the event of an exact tie, the champion would be decided by whichever finalist's team, at any point that season, had benched the most total points by accident.

他大声念了出来。若出现完全平局，冠军将由决赛两方中，在那个赛季的任何时候，因失误而让更多总分坐了冷板凳的那一队来决定。

Nobody could quite believe this was a real rule, and yet there it was, in a document four of them had technically signed. Clem, who had opted out of the league entirely this year, was nonetheless pulled back in as the self-appointed auditor. Her task was combing through nine months of lineup history to determine who had made more costly mistakes.

没人能真的相信这竟是一条真实的规则，可它就在那里，写在一份他们当中四个人都在技术上签过字的文件里。今年已经完全退出联赛的克莱姆，还是被拉了回来，成了自封的审计员。她的任务是梳理九个月的阵容记录，判断谁犯的代价更高的错误更多。

Had Cormac written a simpler rule back then, none of what followed would have taken three full days. Instead, Clem produced a spreadsheet so detailed that Ansel accused her, only half joking, of enjoying his failures a little too much.

如果科马克当年写的是一条更简单的规则，接下来的事就不会花上整整三天。结果，克莱姆做出了一份详细到让安塞尔半开玩笑地指责她有点太享受他的失败的电子表格。

"You benched your best receiver for six straight weeks," Clem told him, sharing her screen at their emergency video call. "That's four hundred and twelve wasted points. Solveig only wasted three hundred and ninety."

“你把最好的接球手放在板凳上整整六周，”克莱姆在他们的紧急视频通话里共享着屏幕，对他说，“浪费了四百一十二分。索尔维格只浪费了三百九十分。”

"So I lose," Ansel said, "because I was worse at my hobby than she was."

“所以我输了，”安塞尔说，“因为我在自己的爱好上比她更差。”

"You lose," Cormac confirmed, "because the rule I wrote nine years ago for a completely different, now-forgotten dispute has decided, entirely by accident, that incompetence is somehow the deciding factor in who gets the trophy."

“你输了，”科马克确认道，“因为我九年前为一场完全不同的、如今已被遗忘的争执写下的规则，完全出于偶然，认定了无能竟成了决定谁拿奖杯的因素。”

What none of them could deny, once the numbers were in front of them, was how seriously all four had taken the game. There was no actual prize beyond a plastic trophy Cormac had bought secondhand years earlier. Solveig, newly crowned champion by a margin of twenty-two wasted points, accepted her win with a solemnity the moment did not remotely deserve.

等数字摆在眼前，他们谁也无法否认的是，四个人对这场比赛有多么认真。除了科马克多年前买的一座二手塑料奖杯，并没有真正的奖品。索尔维格以浪费二十二分之差新晋成为冠军，她接受胜利时的庄重，这个时刻根本不配享有。

"I'd like to thank," she said, holding an imaginary microphone, "my own laziness, for costing me slightly less than Ansel's."

“我想要感谢，”她拿着一支假想的麦克风说，“我自己的懒惰，它让我损失的比安塞尔的略少一点。”

Ansel demanded a rule change for next season. Cormac refused, on the grounds that a rule nobody had ever needed for nine years had finally proven itself, and precedent, he insisted, was precedent.

安塞尔要求下个赛季修改规则。科马克拒绝了，理由是一条九年来从没有人需要的规则终于证明了自己，而先例，他坚持说，就是先例。

The trophy shipped to Solveig's apartment the following week, and she texted a photo of it sitting, absurdly, next to her actual diploma, with the caption: not sure which one I worked harder for.

下一周，奖杯被寄到了索尔维格的公寓，她发来一张照片，奖杯荒谬地摆在她真正的毕业证书旁边，配的文字是：不确定我为哪一个更努力过。