May the Worst Team Win

That is what I said to the Coffee Flats Terrors before our match on Monday night.

We had stumbled to a pathetic 0-3 record this season. We had lost team members as the season progressed. And we had lost sight of the most important thing - listening to rock music while playing bocce is much more preferable to listening to techno while playing bocce.

There wasn't anything we could do about any of these things. Other than hope for the best against the defending champions, wish our former teammates well in their future endeavors, and hope against hope that honest to goodness rock & roll would be played on this night.

Game 1
Erik and Dani
Mitch and me

I was the weak link while everyone else was hot and we cruised to a satisfying 7-2 victory. We've blown 6-0 leads this season so I wasn't convinced we were going to actually win until the final point was scored.

Game 2
Erik and Dani
Mitch and Dave

Mitch and Dave were on fire! They put up a four-spot to start us off and then we bled the Terrors to death by scoring one point at a time prolonging their misery like a cat would torture a mouse or a Rod would torture a young blonde plaything in a much different manner if you catch my Rod innuendo and I'm sure that you do.
7-0 Rod!

Could this be the turning point? Maybe. Maybe not. But we continue to prove that for whatever reason and whatever personnel we throw out there, new Rodsters or old, we are a force to be reckoned with, at least, when we play the Terrors. We are their Sweet Meats (we are 0-5 against them) and we raised our record against the Terrors to an imposing 4-0 in our last four matches dating back to Summer '06.

The Video

Celebration Time!
Erik forgot to bring the Hot Rod award to the game. It hasn't mattered until this week because the Hot Rod award is only given to the MVP of the game if and only if we win. This week, the award would have been given to Dani for her stellar play. To be honest, everyone except me was a solid contender for the award.

No worries though because yesterday, Hot Tub Eric in Memphis e-mailed me this gem of a picture with the subject heading Hot Rod.
This is much much hotter than a belt buckle, don't you think?

Everyone has their rituals I suppose. Apparently, the Terrors have one for when they get shutout. I'm not quite sure what to make of this but I think Rod would be strangely excited by it.
Season Record With Rock On: 1-0
Season Record With Dancey Dance On: 0-3

Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?

If You Want My Bocce squared off against Watch Your Balls this past Monday. I wish that we hadn't.

We fell to an ignoble 0-3 on the season. What the fuck? We are just terrible, terrible, terrible. All 6 of us were terrible on Monday night.

Five of the six members of the squad kept swinging for the fences all night to do something great. Instead, there were a lot of whiffs. Yes, there were a couple of nice doubles which were immediately followed by more strikeouts and more weak groundballs. Beth was the only member of the team to not hit the back wall at least once.

Watch Your Balls played well so no disrespect there at all. But we were abysmal. It was embarrassing how bad we were. We never forced them to make bad shots because we kept rolling hideous ones.

Game 1
Erik and Mitch
Beth and Dave
7-3 Watch Your Balls

2 of our points were scored because they gave them to us with an errant roll.

Game 2
Dani and Mitch
Dave and me
7-2 Watch Your Balls

At this point, we have to look deep within our hearts and see what we are truly made of. That is the beauty of sport.

"These are desperate times. We have to play like a desperate team. Maybe we can get lucky and get some help."

"This team has shown itself to be resilient. We needed wins the past two games and didn't get them. We need a win tomorrow."

The first quote is from Todd Helton. The second quote is from Clint Hurdle. Both were made after the Rockies lost their third in a row in mid September and were on the verge of having their season getting away from them. Since these quotes were uttered, the team has won 21 out of 22 and are headed to the World Series.

"We all feel terrible for ourselves as a team right now that we can't really close the deal. But we still have time. We're not giving in."

"It (the losses) will only make the champagne taste sweeter."

"We need to go out there and finish strong and dig down deep and really do some soul-searching because we're going to have to finish with a flurry."

The first two statements were uttered by Willie Randolph. The last one by David Wright. All there were made during the Mets disastrous last week of the season.

So what will it be? Will we be the Rockies or Mets? Can we right the ship? Or we will go down in an embarrassing blaze of defeats?

Statistically speaking, we are the worst team in the league right now. Our next match is against the best team in the league, our vaunted rivals, The Coffee Flats Terrors who will be out for my blood and the blood of the traitors in our midst.

But as Mitch pointed out, the Devil Rays seem to always beat the Yankees.

There is still plenty of season left to make Rod proud. Because right now, he's in hiding.

Urban Bocce, A Found Shirt, and Juggling

It has been a slow few weeks in Rod Land. Still reeling from our 0-2 start, we've been biding our time until our next match. We were supposed to play last week but the Notorious BRF have left the league having not even rolled one ball in anger all season. Oh well.

In the meantime, bocce fun still has been happening.

First, there was Urban Bocce '07!

Secondly, an odd Boccelism occurrence happened to SHR and me.

A couple of seasons ago, I proudly wore this shirt during yet another Boccelism march to the championship. If you notice, the shirt is way too big on me. Anyway, I appreciated the gift from Cobra Kai but the shirt was so damn big that I ended up not keeping it.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. SHR says to me as she is going through her laundry bag, "I didn't realize you still wore your 'Stop Boccelism' shirt. The laundromat put it in my bag." I was quite perplexed because I remember throwing out the shirt a number of months ago.

It only took me a moment to realize that this wasn't my shirt and that somehow our laundromat had given me someone else's "Stop Boccelism" shirt. How incredibly strange is that? What are the chances of this happening? Does my laundromat know I play bocce from washing my If You Want My Bocce shirt and got mixed up and gave me this shirt? Very very odd.

A few days later, SHR thinks she saw a Cobra Kai member in our neighborhood. The pieces are falling into place.

Notice how small the shirt is compared to my other one. If you are missing this shirt, don't fret any longer. Just let me know and I'll return it.
And finally, who knew that Mitch could juggle? Let alone juggle bocce balls? Check it out.

My team is going stir crazy. We need to get back on the court soon for something other than practice.