After quaking in fear at the mere thought of playing The Terrors from Coffee Flats in our first season, If You Want My Bocce has finally come of age.
Sure, we beat them in the playoffs last year but flukes can happen, right? If you listened to any of the Flatters after that defeat, the only reason they lost was because, um, I can't remember what their reason was. Maybe it was because they had to wait a long time or something after beating Cobra Kai? Oh yeah, that was it. Ok, nevermind that we had had been sitting around ourselves all day before playing. But whatever makes one feel better I suppose.
Still, the Terrors are top notch and a team to be reckoned with. As I've contended for a long time, no one thinks our team of castoffs and fresh faces is any good. Fair enough. The Terrors still didn't think much of us even after we ended their summer season.
When our match began on Saturday, we were all relaxed. Gone was any team tension. We have come together as a group. Even when we were down 5-1 in the first game, no one was too worried. And then the magic began. The turning point was a beautiful smash-up by Reason to Believe Mike that gave us three points. The Balltrap Jim and I added two more quick points (and blew the chance to put it away with our last two rolls) before Sweet Little Rock and Roller Sarah put the Terrors out of their misery with coldhearted precision.
7-5 Rod
In Game 2, Dani Terror (who by the way can't even get her name listed on the Terrors blog) blew us all away. Holy mother of God she dominated. We played okay. We didn't make any terrible mistakes or anything but Dani and the gang were just too much for us.
7-2 Terrors
The decisive Game 3 arrived quickly. I decided to put the Game 1 squad back on the court. This also allowed me to keep Mike in there and for good reason - he was rolling the best and we all did, in fact, need a reason to keep believing. All of Team Rod was happy to see that Cap'n Terror took out his hot hand by putting Dani on the bench.
The Balltrap took the last match for himself and dominated the hell out of it. While Reason to Believe and Sweet Little Rock and Roller were solid, they were outscored 0 to 3 on their end. But Jim all by his lonesome took it to the bad guys. Two amazing frames gave us 6 points.
Then it was up to me in the last frame. After an incredible Sweet Touch roll that staved off a Terrors defeat brought the score to 6-3 Rod, it was up to Jim and me. And we did the job. I saved my best roll of the day for the end. It set up Balgavy as the final chance for the Terrors much as Sweet Touch had just been a few minutes before. Unlike Sweet Touch, Turkey Terror couldn't do it and the victory was ours! Our record against our old teammates has been evened at 2.
7-3 Rod
Coffee Flats Terrors: All Class, All the Time
After the game, the Coffee Flatters still couldn't bring themselves to believe that Team Rod was actually any good. Read what they have to say. Go ahead, try to find one positive word about their opponents. Not there to be found.
When they lose, it is because they didn't roll well. It has nothing to do with their opponent. It has nothing to do with their opponent rolling well and putting the pressure on them. Even the phrase "It was up to me to make a final, almost impossible shot, to keep us in the game," doesn't make any mention why it was an impossible shot for them. Not because it was a good roll by Hot Legs, I presume, but simply that the Terrors beat themselves.
This is all fine. You don't have to respect us. We'll keep doing our thing. We have respect for you, even when we beat you. In fact, if you take a look at what was written after we lost to the Terrors for the second time, all those many months ago, it was clear that we had respect, perhaps too much respect and fear, for the Terrors.
Now the Terrors are left to question what went wrong, why they can't beat a clearly inferior team. They are left grasping at straws. In fact, one of the better comments to come out of this whole thing is now I'm being ridiculed for leaving in my hottest player of the day to play all three games on Saturday. I suppose it would have been fair if I had taken him out, you know to give the clearly superior team a fighting chance against us. Duly noted.
Record: 4-1
Park Slope Gastronome on the victory meal. Coincidentally, the last time we beat the Terrors, uh, I mean the last time the Terrors somehow made too many mistakes to hand us the victory, we also went to Grimaldi's.
Two Movies:
Movie 1:
Down 6-2 in Game 3, Sweet Touch has to pull out a miracle to snatch victory from our clutches. He does. Sorry that I didn't get the rollback on the ball but I wanted to get a good reaction shot. After the crazy cheering by the Terrors, Cap'n Terror was overheard telling his team to act like they had "been there" before.
The Endy Chavez Moment
Movie 2:
Down 6-3, Turkey Terror has one last chance. He is unsuccessful. Team Rod celebrates in a "We've been here before" kind of fashion. Thanks for the advice Cap'n Terror.
Some Teams Have All the Luck
The Balltrap took home the Rod LP as our first ever RVP - which somehow stands for Most Valuable Rod. While he didn't fully begin to shine until Game 3, he directly led to 6 of the 7 points in the decisive game. Well done, Balltrap. Who will take home the Rod this Saturday?
9 comments:
ha, in the errors' last post, i had actually misread "If we see this gang in the playoffs, they don't stand a chance." as "If we see this gang in the playoffs, WE don't stand a chance."
silly me, that would have been a nice tip of the cap on their part which is the last thing, i've now come to realize, we'd see from these whining turkeys.
The Terrors would probably be well served if they cut their daily dosage of hubris in half and doubled their dosage of humility. They might want to consider embracing the women's suffrage movement as well. You know, plenty of us will be heading to the polls on 11/7; surely we can be trusted to roll a little ball in dimly lit bar...
sexism? seriously? and who is whining? when you crushed us in the playoffs, we readily acknowledged that you deserved it. yes, we berated ourselves for poor play, but that's because we know we can do better. you outplayed us again on Saturday, but a few better shots by us with maybe a dash of luck and we might come out on top. are we supposed to genuflect at the altar of Rod now? screw that - we can't wait to get another shot at you because we want to win and we want you to lose (to us at least). that's why we play the games. that and whiskey.
jamie wrote: "when you crushed us in the playoffs, we readily acknowledged that you deserved it.":
you did? really?
"We should have beaten If You Want My Bocce in the playoffs because we're a better team." - Sweet Touch of the Coffee Flats Terrors (Summer 2006)
not to mention what balgavy said to me after the game as well - which was pretty much along the same lines as what erik said.
the sexism thing is a joke. it's the only reasoning some of us could come up with as to why the hottest roller was benched in game 3.
no one's asking you to genuflect at the altar of rod. why is it that other teams are allowed to parade around, dis other teams and mouth off and it's all in good fun? yet, when we finally respond to all the disrespect that's flung at us, we're the assholes?
paper or plastic. choose.
jamie,
please don't genuflect at the altar of rod. that sounds dirty.
on another note, i think that your quote about us outplaying you guys on saturday was the first ever time that your team has ever admitted such a thing. thank you.
but don't forget - to quote a bocce sage, "humility doesn't get you into the back of a limo."
truer words have never been spoken.
the sexism thing was obviously a joke - we'll just chalk that up to the inflectionless, sarcasm-abating qualities of hypertext.
i don't think anyone was calling you guys assholes. personally, i love having you guys talking trash and calling us out. i think it makes the whole thing more fun.
my memory is a bit hazy, but i'm pretty sure that in the playoffs last year we shook everyone's hand and said "nice game" and then went on to root for you guys in the final. you might beat us 8 more times in a row but i don't think we'll ever concede that you're better than us. if we played perfectly and lost it might be one thing, but when we make even a few bad shots, we're going to focus on those as the cause of our losing.
one thing we should apologize for is not offering you the Crapacopia of Victory after the match.
You did root for us in the final, as I would have done for you. I give you credit for that. Feel free to buy us a Crapacopia anytime!
"my memory is a bit hazy, but i'm pretty sure that in the playoffs last year we shook everyone's hand and said "nice game"
sure, and so did the BocceJisms and every other team we've played. are you saying that multiple members of our team have the same wrong memory of what was said by members of your team to us?
it's fine, you don't have to conceded anything to us. no one is asking you to. just don't expect us to sit still while you guys go swinging your swords. and don't feign surprise and innocence when we swing back.
as team captain, i shouldn't say this, but even if we beat you 10 times in a row, i'd still think you were better than us.
but gosh darnit, i'm proud of my team of misfits.
kiss kiss.
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