Consider that each class doesn't necessarily have the most junior UAL furlough in it because folks were coming back at different times for different reasons like mil leave etc. There was a guy in my class that was very junior overall at UAL and these two guys were senior to him. So they felt that the junior guy in my class should keep the ball. Now that defeats the entire point of the ball - it's the junior guy in the class. With real new hire classes this scenario never happens. And the junior guy in my class was going to be in Newark so it made no sense.

The ball lives on and that's what's cool. A couple of losers can't stop a good thing like this tradition.