Today marks the passing of Stella the Dog, a Staffordshire Terrier/Australian Shepherd mix and my great companion, just two-days shy of her 15th birthday. Stella is noted in Homegrown lore as the dog who, in 2000, destroyed one of the first two official Homegrown kickballs roughly 30 seconds after Starfire arrived at Chester Park and tossed the newly purchased balls onto the field. She spent most of the rest of the day carrying its carcass, occasionally thrashing it about.

In memory of Stella’s remarkable spirit I humbly request that members of the Friday and Saturday night teams take the field this Saturday under Stella’s motto:

Carpe calcitrant pila!

Smart as she was, that dog never could get her Latin declensions right.