the eighty-eight

The eighty-eight players in the First Canadian Open may have composed a stronger roster than had been fielded at the United States Open a few weeks earlier.

Of the eighty-eight thousand residents, sixty-six thousand were white, while twenty-two thousand were black.

I ’ad six nippers, then I goes and leaves one on a bus, the eighty-eight up from Brixton.

Bevelacqua, noticing the eighty-eight, shook his head and said, “We’re looking for the hundreds.”

The three North African teams were out before playing their final matches; Nigeria and Senegal went into their last group-stage games this week carrying both momentum and hope for a continent that has yet to see one of its teams advance beyond the quarter-finals in the eighty-eight year history of the tournament.