Under the Q train overpass, I lived the humble life of a city rat: scrounger of crumbs, chewer of wires, occasional biter of unsuspecting ankles. Most of my days were spent dodging cyclists who think bike lanes are suggestions and pigeons who believe they own the sidewalks. But every evening, when the steam rose from the vents like dramatic stage fog, I trotted out with my splintered broom-handle bat and trained for the big leagues—the Sewer Series, the most prestigious baseball showdown in all of rodent-kind.

My team, the Midtown Gnawers, wasn’t exactly glamorous. Our catcher lost an ear to a glue trap incident, our pitcher had a habit of pausing mid-windup to hiss at shadows, and I’m pretty sure our shortstop wasn’t actually a rat but a very determined squirrel. Still, we had heart. Or at least functioning cardiovascular systems—an accomplishment in the city. We practiced in the abandoned platform under 42nd Street, where the ball always smelled faintly of hot dog water and despair.

One night, during a particularly intense scrimmage, I cracked a line drive so clean it echoed off the tiles. For a moment I felt like a legend, the Babe Ruth of rodents. Then a transit cop shouted, “HEY!” and the team scattered like we’d rehearsed it—which we had. I darted back into my tunnel, panting, broom-handle bat over my shoulder. Maybe the humans will never know the glory of our underground league, but that’s fine. Heroes don’t play for applause. They play for pride, survival, and the occasional half-eaten pretzel someone drops on the platform.

And after the rest of my team was destroyed, one by one, by an alluring bit of cheese on the third-rail, I founded the Nibblers. The BEST TEAM. We are the ones who know which cheese is SAFE. Ratman OUT!