In our sixth year, the Sultans of Dot finished the season with a 12-5 playoff loss to the hated (but beloved) Diamond Dogs. We'd won just one game in the regular season and one in the postseason. But, like every Sultans season, we had a good time and were happy to be on the field, warm and so outside, a walk but out of sight from the office.

Who knows how many of the teammates will be back next year. We're down to just four original members — Chet, Bob, Tim, and myself. Who knows whether the field will still be there next year. Who knows if I'll still be around. But every game, I tell you, I've loved being out there.

The Sultans of Dot enter their sixth year with a new look, and that look is good. Spring trends are bright red, a brawny new logo and victory.

We keep our old, black-and-white Sultans jerseys in the place in our hearts where we keep the cartoon Oriole Bird, the original McDonald's fry recipe and letter-writing. I plan to break out the old jersey around the house (regularly) and when I need a shirt with the sleeves cut off by a knife (more sporadically). It's practically Cooperstown Collection.

On the new jerseys, new skipper Cesar even got us numbers on the back. Numbers… we got to choose. For those of us who've played for the Sultans from the start — just a few of us left now — this is big.

The season began Thursday evening on Gannett Field, years after its projected death now the Fenway of media conglomerate softball fields. We took on a team from SAIC, our defense contracting neighbor, and they pushed us around like we were a Tysons Corner excavation crew. They beat us 13-1 as darkness fell. We weren't that bad, but we lost.

But we were playing. We were playing on our field. We were playing on our field in our new fire-red jerseys with the numbers on the back. Hope had sprung external once again, sprinting down the line to first.

And I'm going to be away at the beach. So, I'm going to root for rain at Gannett Field while I'm gone. But if it doesn't rain, I hope the team can pull out a couple huge wins. At 5-3, we're the No. 2 seed, and we play the No. 3 IT team on Monday for a spot in the championship game. The winner of our game plays the 7-1 Production/Circ team, whom we beat earlier this year but to whom we lost 15-10 on Monday. Go Sultans go.

Update: I wrote this post weeks ago and forgot to publish it. The Sultans lost but remain victorious in the hearts of good people everywhere.

We won 11-5* over Production, dropping them to 5-1 on the year and moving us up to 4-2. Everyone on the Sultans of Dot played well on a hot night^. We were down a girl and had to take an out at the bottom of the order, but we had lots of singles to manufacture runs and were decent on defense. There was new talk tonight of the field's turnover, so it was nice to keep our good season going. For myself, was 1-3 and reached on fielder's choice. Good contact all night but needed to wait more on pitches. On the field, wasn't awful at second but should have practiced backward runs. Next up: Playing Production again Thursday.

*On numbers in the first sentence, I think they're close but not exact. I'm on furlough, baby, what do you want from me? To get to the work field, parked in the garage and then walked outside to avoid the lobby. Fought urge to ask about everyone's day. Labor laws, you're welcome.

^Which may explain my iTunes Beach Boy mood right now. This is rare.

A month and half into the season, yeah, but thanks to rainouts, only three games in.  The Sultans of Dot split a doubleheader Monday night, moving to 3-2 on the year. Playing security-guarded neighbor SAIC in both games, we won the first in the 9th — our first extra-inning game in five years of play — and got killed in the second. I was happy about the wins but happier we still had a field, given we supposedly sold the land two years ago. Went 1-2 in the first game and 0-1 in the second, platooning, but made good contact after figuring out a new swing at the batting cages. Misplayed one ball in the field, played another well. Hoped the games would help sleep — not so much. Bring on furlough.

On the second glorious county batting-cage day of the year, you're the only customer. In his high school track hoodie, the booth kid thinks no one knows they've reopened yet. Besides, it's a Sunday morning, and the county is soggy. Thank God for an hour we get just this rainy mist.

The kid hands you a helmet, and you find a beat-up bat on the rack. You smile when you ask about your old tokens. Of course they're still good! What's a batting-cage token machine going to do? Change?

You take 120 pitches, finding a new swing about 40 balls in and liking the bat's sting. You switch to the right side of the plate for the final 30 or so after your lefty backswing keeps snagging in the net. When the red light blinks out, you whack a ball sitting at the backstop, grab your coat off the fence and leave feeling the opposite of the cold gray day.

It's not the losing that hurts. The Sultans of Dot lose games. We play, win or lose, and no one screams. But it's the playing. I like running on the field, standing in the dugout, wanting the win. I like my team. I like when people ask how the game went, even when we've lost. It's too bad the season is only a month or two long. There are so many good months to go. This season may be the last one, with that multimillion-dollar deal delayed but still in the books somewhere. After the loss tonight, the season's done. I hate the end of softball season.

The hated Diamond Dogs? Softball rivals of the last four years, too often victorious bane of our existance, abusers of extra bases and fences? The other traditionally online team in the intra-USAT league?

Our Sultans of Dot beaten them once, in our first season of play, and already have lost to them once this year. But we're now 4-3 after a forfeit win last night and in need of some help. By our manager's guess (as institutional agate love stops at the intranet and standings aren't published), we sit half a game behind Git 'R' Done for the fourth and final playoff spot. While we're done for the regular season, that paper-production squad plays the Diamond Dogs next week. If the Dogs win, Git 'R' Done falls into a tie with us, and we have the breaker. We think.

The playoffs would be nice. But what I really care about is beating the Dogs. Regular season, playoffs, it doesn't matter. If we make the cut this year, we have a shot to play them again. But we have to cheer for their victory to do so? Feels wrong. For a season that wasn't supposed to happen, this last week is a doozy, a word only playoff fans and stair-tumblers can use with good cause.

If I owe you an e-mail, Facebook msg, tweet, link, or receipt, it's coming. A little behind this week. Best explanation: This is on my kitchen counter.

The softball field at work went for $48 million. There is nothing to say here, nothing about naming rights or stadium deals or salary caps or the true price of a long afternoon in the summer sun, but I would've sold too.

I wasn't going to say anything until the news broke outside the building. That took all of one day. Gannett is selling a big chunk of our corporate campus, the chunk currently used for our softball field. This field is of course home to the Sultans of Dot and our entire company softball league. Early reports indicate we'll play out this season before losing the field in '08, but there's no firm word yet.

There are fields nearby, most notably the beautiful fields next to Capitol One's complex on 123, fields neither my dentist nor I in our discussion last year knew how to access, but in rush hour traffic we may be talking 20 minutes newsroom-to-field. Not good for newsroom teams, who typically hustle between deadlines and game times.