"It was a win," Titan Coach Ray "Sugar Bear" Hamilton told me. "I don't give a damn how it looked."

At 10:50, I sprinted back to the press box, ahead of schedule. There was no telephone to be seen. And no man with a red shirt. I went through an two-minute spin cycle from calm crisis management to fury to panic and back to calm. I sat down to write my story.

Finally, a team official who had heard of my plight offered to let me use the team's direct line. The phone was in a pitch-black lockerroom. I could barely make out a piece of masking tape reading "Lynn Calls Only." Somehow, my story went through. Just five minutes over deadline. Just one minute before I was kicked out of the clubhouse.

I still had to call the copy desk to check for questions, and I had no idea how. The clubhouse was off limits. The Stop n' Shop had 10-minute lines. I saw a party going on in someone's front yard. What the hell.

"Excuse me," I whimpered. "Can I use your phone?"

A burly guy holding two open beers walked towards me from across the yard.

"You've got some big ones, you know," the bruiser said. "Absolutely no way you can use this phone."

A long pause.

"Aaah, I'm just kidding," yelled the man, breaking into a huge grin. "Wanna beer?" He let me into his kitchen, and I called the desk.

"Pretty good story," the slotman said. "But I don't ever want to see you miss a deadline again."

I mumbled an apology.

"Bush league, Grunwald," he replied. "Strictly bush league."