Good morning Hank, it's Tuesday.

I had this whole video planned trying to become a Pinterest celebrity, but I-I just have to tell you the story of how thousands of people just had the most amazing feeling. I'm friendly with a fella named Ryan Reynolds who's a lovely guy. He supports the Project for Awesome and lots of other stuff in this community. He's also a successful actor, a and with his friend Rob, he owns a football club in Wales called Wrexham AFC. He's also, like, part-owner of a bunch of different companies. Thi-thi-this guy Ryan, he's a real Hank Green when it comes to jobs.

So listen, I know that sports are not very important. Like, it is not critical to the future of humanity whether a ball goes over a line or into a cup or through a net. And I am sympathetic to people who feel like maybe we shouldn't devote hundreds of billions of dollars in gobs of human attention to the exploits of these balls and the people who were paid to manipulate them. But I love sports, not for the lines or for the balls, but for the people, for the way loving something together allows us to feel earnest unironic connection and emotion in a way I just couldn't feel otherwise. Also, at least among the best sports fans, there's an awareness that in sports, as well as in life, no condition is permanent. Like years ago, I watched AFC Wimbledon, the team that we've sponsored for over a decade that wear DFTBA on their shorts, win a massive a playoff final against Plymouth Argyle, and after the game, I saw this young man who was crying green and white tears through his face paint and I said, "I-I'm so sorry." And he said, "Thanks, great day for you lot though."

In sports, one team's joy is usually another team's heartbreak, but neither the heartbreak nor the joy are final. In fact, Plymouth Argyle have been promoted two times since that playoff final a-and each time I've thought, “Great day for you lot.” But right, about promotion. In England and Wales, there are four tiers of full-time professional football. That's called the Football League. And each season, the best and worst teams get promoted up or relegated down among these divisions. But below the Football League, is the fifth-tier, the National League, the league from hell because there's only two promotion spots: one for the team that wins the league and the other for the team that wins the playoffs. Like Wimbledon escaped the National League in 2011 thanks to two brilliant saves from 19 year old Seb Brown, and we still sing about it every single game.

So that's where Wrexham are, the team owned by Rob and Ryan. And in the last 20 years, that club has been through hell. They've lost out on promotion through the playoffs five separate times, they went bankrupt, fans had to pool their savings to save the club and their famously rollicking stadium, and now they are locked in an epic title race with another great football club, Notts County. And yesterday they played each other in a game that might just decide who wins the title. And it was just a brilliant game, I mean it's fifth-tier football, not all the passes are going to be completed, but the guts, the heart, the noise of the fans, the passion. It was just incredible, and then in the final minute, it was 3-2 Wrexham, and Wrexham gave up a penalty. All season long they've been lifted by their great goalkeeper Rob Layton, but he is injured, so Wrexham brought 40 year old Ben Foster out of retirement. So here's Ben Foster playing in like his fourth game for Wrexham after being retired for a whole year.

The Notts County player steps up to take the penalty, Foster dives to his right and saves it. And the game ends seconds later with Wrexham fans in absolute unadulterated joy. If Wrexham go on to win the league, they're going to remember that day for a long long time. I know because of how long we've been remembering Seb Brown's saves. They'll sing about this day about 40 year old retiree Ben Foster, who sent them back into the Football League. but then it wasn't just Ben Foster, was it? It was also the other players, the coaches, the owners, the groundskeepers. And it was the fans who made that place a cauldron of noise and who held it together when it was falling apart. Wrexham gave each other that memory and that is precisely what will make it last so long and burn so bright.

Hank, I'll see you on Friday.