We Just Can't Beat the Sweet Meats, Part IV

Match 1: Round of 8
If You Want My Bocce vs. Boccismo

Game 1
SHR and Jim
Beth and me

We got off to a strong start by dominating to the tune of 7-2. We fell behind by an early score of 2-0 but the tide turned in frame 3 when SHR and Jim put up a four-spot with four great rolls. In particular, SHR's 2nd roll was the one that pushed us from 1 point to 3.

Game 2
Sarah and Dave
Mike and Mitch

We took a quick 3-0 lead. And in proud Rod fashion, we had some good 'ol defensive rolling in the fourth frame. Leading 3-1, Boccismo was on the verge of a game changing 3-spot. But Sarah knocked the pallino back a little and they only scored one point. We still had a 3-2 lead.

Boccismo tied the score at 3 before Dave and Sarah added two more and the M & M Boys added one. But then Boccismo caught fire and took a 6-3 lead. But we weren't fazed. Dave and Sarah put up a point to get us to within 2. And then Mike and Mitch finished it off with a beautiful 3 spot.

Final 4 action!

Uh-oh.

Not against the Sweet Meats again! That squad has Rod's number.

Game 1
SHR and Jim
Mike and me

We fell behind 6-0 in ugly fashion. Down 1-0, Mike and I had 4 chances to get a ball closer to the pallino and missed all four. The Sweet Meats capitalized and put up three. Then SHR and Jim gave up two more.

But the game wasn't over just yet.

Mike and I put up a four spot powered by Mike's great first roll.

Down 6-4, Team Rod felt the comeback coming on.

On SHR's 2nd roll, she placed the ball right on the pallino. Woo hoo! On the Sweet Meats second attempt to break it up and the last roll of the frame, they gently nudged the pallino. It was measuring time. After much deliberation, it was deemed that the Meats were closer by mere millimeters. We had one last ball left. It was a very very tough shot and Jim couldn't quite put it in there.
7-4 Meats

Game 2
Beth and Mitch
Sarah and me

No matter because we were pumped for Game 2.

We took a quick 4-0 lead powered by a clutch roll by Beth in the first frame and a good roll by me in the second. In fact, my roll in the second frame was millimeters short of giving us three points rather than just two. This would come back to haunt us.

In the next frame, we went for the kill. On our last roll, Mitch put up two points for us. Unfortunately, they had two left and used them well. They scored two and halved our lead.

In the next frame, Sarah's great last roll was wasted when they had an even better roll and scored another point.

No big deal. Mitch and Beth put up two more on Mitch's clutch last roll.

With a 6-3 lead, I was excited. Surely, we'd put them away and we'd be on to Game 3.

But it wasn't to be.

All four of us shit the bed. No gold records for this year's Rod squad.

In the first frame of our undoing, Sarah started it off well enough. But the Sweet Meats put one of their balls right on the pallino. With my first roll, I tried to knock it to no avail and hit the back wall. Then Sarah didn't do much better. I knew I needed to protect us but my 2nd roll was way too short and not even close. The Meats scored an easy two points. I felt lucky that it wasn't more and that we still had a 6-5 lead.

The second frame of our undoing was awful. The Meats put the pallino in the back. Mitch and Beth spent all four balls not getting close. Mitch rolled the last ball of Rod Summer Season '07 and made the same mistake I made in my last roll of the season - he failed to protect us by putting one of our balls fairly close. They closed us out with the next roll and it was already time to start planning for the fall.

Game 2
7-6 Meats

I'd by lying if I said that I was rooting for the Terrors against the Sweet Meats. I'm competitive and I liked the fact that all of us from that original championship team still had only one trophy. Plus, the Sweet Meats have never won so I wanted to root for them as well.

But like many a Floyd final match, one team simply dominated. The dominant rolls that we saw against us were nowhere to be found against the Terrors. But that's the way it goes. Congratulations to the Coffee Flats Terrors - two time champions.

They might have had an easier road of it than it looked when the seedings were announced - no match against the 5-1 Bourbon Balls, a forfeit, and a Brian-less Boccelism. But that doesn't matter. They came to play and played well. And the way that some of them were rolling in the final three matches, it wouldn't have mattered who they played.

The league has had only two champions over the last 6 seasons. They are clearly the teams to beat. Next season should be interesting.

Not to mention, there are going to be some major changes in Rod Land. But more on that later.

6 important rolls of the day:

Check the Terrors' blog for more.

Summer Season
Final record: 6-3
Regular season: 4-2
Playoffs: 2-1

One Down, Three to Go

A shorthanded If You Want My Bocce entered the playoffs hoping to avenge a regular season loss to Tchauzinho, one of two teams that handed the Rods a loss this summer. I think we were the only team they even beat!

Game one started with Beth and Dan at the far bathroom side and me and Mitch at the other end. We won the coin flip and opted to begin the match on the far side and with the red balls. We went down 0-1 after the first frame, but then came roaring back as M & I put up a three spot. In the next frame it was the long game, with the pallino squatting right by the wall. DMR rolled a great ball which somehow picked up speed towards the end for a near miss as it threaded the green ball and paulie (Don't get mad at me for typing that. First I typed pally, but I didn't like the way it looked.) to hit the wall. On his next roll though, he pinned the paulie to make a bocce sandwich, but red was just closer! One more point for Rod! M and I put up point in the next frame to bring the score to 5-1. In the next frame, Beth rolled a great knock out shot with either our 3rd or last ball which forced Tchauzinho's hand and resulted in another point for the Rods. I threw the paulie in the next frame and though my first ball was pretty mediocre, the Tchau Tchau's could not get closer and we took the game 7-1.

For game two, Dave swapped in for Dan. Sometime during this game we find out that the Tchau Tchau's are Mets fans, too. Carlos Delgado hits a two run home run in the 8th inning to give the Mets some breathing room in their game vs. the Marlins. Members of both teams are happy, but alas, one team will see their smiles turn upside-down at the end of the match.

The Roddies went down 0-2 in the first frame but then Mitch saves us with a great roll with our last ball in the next frame to get us on the board. The Rods then tie it up in the next frame thanks to precision knockout rolling by Nellie. We then take a lead and I think I did something good cause on the napkin upon which I scribbled my notes, I wrote "4-2 SHR." The Tchauzinho's decide to go deep in the next frame and take two points to tie up the game. However, SUJTCH (or MIJAN, take your pick) continue to be in sync this game. We put up a three spot to take the game and the match. Rod 화이팅!

Game One:
Love Touch & Hot Legs
Downtown Train & Young Turk

Game Two:
Love Touch & Handbags and Gladrags
Downtown Train & Young Turk

Up next are Boccismo who advanced to the round of 8 because neither of their potential opponents decided to show up. What are the retributions for teams that do this? Unless they make an effort to call the bar or let their opponent know they will not be able to make the match, they should be shown the door. The games can go way long as it is (the 1PM match between VVV and the Gowanus Iguanas went an hour and forty-five minutes!). It's selfish and rude to waste other people's time.

Addendum 8/14: It has come to my attention that some people can't see the special message I typed in Korean in the line above GAME ONE. I wrote "Rod Fighting" with fighting spelled out phonetically in Hangul but Jim just told me it looks like "Rod ???!" Boo.

Even the Brooklyn Dodgers Finally Beat the Yankees

Fresh off our thrilling victory over the Terrors of Coffee Flats, If You Want My Bocce suited up last Monday against the 4 time champions -- Boccelism.

We've played them well in the past (other than the terrible championship match) but went into the game an abysmal 0-4 against them.

But so far this season, the U.S. Steel of bocce have not been dominant. Whether they suffer from winner's fatigue, are confused by the new court, or are merely toying with the rest of the league, who knows? But they entered the game a highly mediocre 2-2. They were ripe for the picking.

But not at first. They took a quick 4-0 lead and things were looking dicey really quickly for Team Rod.

But then ... but then ... The tide turned to all Rod!

Jim and SHR put up a three spot and all of a sudden it was close.

And before they knew what hit them, Mike and Beth finished them off with four big points!

Game 2 was ugly and better not discussed.

Game 3 started in the same similar fashion as the first game - with Boccelism taking it to us. We found ourselves in a 3-0 hole before we even knew what hit us.

And what would a match against Boccelism be without a little controversy? At one point, Mike was measuring and accidentally moved the pallino further away from our ball and closer to theirs. The captain of Boccelism admitted that the pallino moved slightly but one team member who our team already had a run-in with in the past insisted that the pallino never moved. I'm not sure of all the details but it ended up not mattering much. And to be honest, what are the rules if your team is the one who moved the ball by accident? Regardless of when this happened during Game 3, it had no bearing on the outcome of the match because Mike had a great shot to give us a point anyway.

We scored two in the first frame of the comeback and we were on our way again. Mitch and Jim tied it at 3. Mike and I added two more points to give us a 5-3 lead.

And then it came down to Jim and Mitch. Jim led off with a perfect first roll. So perfect that Boccelism missed the next four shots. So we had three balls left to try to beat Boccelism for the first time ever! Mitch missed. Jim missed. But they were only missing to set up the dramatic final shot. In my hysteria, I forgot who rolled the winning shot (even though I knew who was taking it mere seconds before) and had to verify during the celebration who had actually rolled it.

We raised our winning percentage against the champs to a sparkling .200.
Game 1
SHR and Jim
Beth and Mike

Game 2
Mitch and me
Beth and Sarah

Game 3
Mitch and Jim
Mike and me
Mitch texted Dave (Boccelism's number one fan) this message.
It was a great night all around. I even made peace with Bashley of Po-Town.
Final regular season record: 4-2

The celebration continued onto the streets of Brooklyn. This is next year!

An Epic Battle

Wow. Both Games 1 and 3 went to the final frame tied 6-6. I think that I might have had a heart attack if the second game had been super close as well.

When it came down to the final frame of the night, I felt that it was such a shame that one team had to lose. Thankfully, Team Rod prevailed.

Game 1
Mitch and me
Jim and SHR

The Terrors took 3-0 and 5-2 leads and things looked bleak. But they just couldn't put us away. We took the opening and pounced. We all had some really clutch rolls in this game. They still had a chance to beat us at the end but couldn't do it.
7-6 Rod

Game 2
Beth and Mike
Dave and Sarah

The Terrors busted out with a 4-0 first frame lead and that was pretty much it. We got absolutely destroyed by a score of 7-1. I saw almost all of the game action during the match. However, one of the few that I missed involved a bit of controversy. Apparently, on a Beth roll, Team Rod thought that the ball did not hit the back wall. However, the Terrors called that it did even though at first, one of them said that it didn't. I'm not exactly sure what happened since I missed it but it got kind of loud there for a spell.
7-1 Terrors

Game 3
Mike and me
SHR and Jim

If Game 1 was tense, this one was even tenser because of the high stakes involved. It was back and forth. The Terrors took a 6-5 lead. I ended up placing our red ball right on the pallino. The Terrors had two balls left to knock ours out and win. Kaci almost placed her ball closer but couldn't quite do it. Then Chris knocked that green ball out of the way and we lived for another frame.

We were down to our last ball and the Terrors controlled the point. The pressure was on Jim. And he came through with a great roll. The last roll of the night fell to Dani. She rolled well but couldn't quite do it. Rod Wins! Who's going to update Wikipedia?
Thank you to the Sweet Meats for the many cheers of "Rod! Rod! Rod!"

So if you have the patience, check out these two movies of the night's festivities. They are both about six minutes long. I had no intention of making a movie at first. I was simply taking a few short movies to keep track of the action for blog purposes. Eventually, I decided to just keep taking movies of all the important action. If only I can learn how to take movies and roll at the same time!

Games 1 and 2

Game 3

Next time, I'm just bringing a notebook.

We Just Can't Beat the Sweet Meats!

It is really kind of sad, ain't it? The two other times that we've played, we destroyed them in the first game only to fall meekly in the next two games.

Before the game, Cap'n Jim (oh yeah apparently the summer team is called the Jimbo's Sweet Meat All-Stars or something) told me that despite our two squads being friendly that they were going to decimate us.

I wasn't afraid though but I suppose I should have been.

Game 1
Mike and Jim
Dave and Sarah

Things didn't start well as we quickly found ourselves in a 3-0 deficit. But then Dave and Sarah quickly tied it and we were on our way. That is until the Meats answered that with a three spot on Mike and Jim to take a 6-3 lead.

However, we weren't done. No way. Dave and Sarah notched another point and we were only down by 2.

Then things got interesting. Jim started the frame with an exquisite first roll. The Sweet Meats spent the next four balls trying to knock Jim's ball out of the way. They did not succeed but did set up a nice wall around the pallino where it resided on the right side.

Victory was within our reach! We had three balls left to get two more points but it was a tricky shot. Mike and then Jim both tried to sneak it in on the left side but couldn't quite do it.

With one shot left, I was hopeful that Mike could get us another point to set Dave and Sarah up to win it. The score would have been 6-5 at the very worst if Mike was not successful.

However, Mike (goaded by the Coffee Flats Terrors in attendance) went for the kill. It was an easy shot he kept saying afterwards. I was blissfully ignorant at the other end of the court about the debate going on before Mike's roll. So when his roll came barreling down the court and smashed into the wall of red, I was caught unawares.

Unfortunately for Rod, a one point green advantage turned into this.

Game 1
7-4 Sweet Meats

Game 2
SHR and Beth
Sarah and me

But we didn't let it faze us. We took Jimbo and his squad out quickly by a score of 7-2. All of the women rolled well and they carried me because I was pretty mediocre. SHR had one of the best rolls I've seen in a long time early in the game that set up Rod taking a 5-0 lead.

Game 3
Same as Game 2
It was back and forth at first. 2-0 Meats, Tied, 3-2 Meats, 4-3 Us

But the tide turned in the frame where we took the lead. My good rolls from the beginning of the game had completely deserted me at this point. Despite an excellent roll by Sarah to knock the pallino back to set us up for a killer round, I hit the back wall and we only got two points. We should have had three.

Somewhere during this time, many of the Coffee Flats Terrors who were supposedly rooting for us early in the match accepted bribes from the Sweet Meats to root for them instead of us. Oh well, anything for a quarter I suppose. We now know how cheaply some of the Terrors' loyalty can be bought.

Whether it was my bad rolls, Rod having an off night, or the quarters being bandied about, we completely fell apart - all four of us.

The Sweet Meats scored three points in the next frame and then finished us off in the next frame by only throwing one ball. The funniest part of this was that Tom Sweet Meat had no idea that the game was over and thought that we had become so disheartened that we had simply quit. I think he thought that we had one more ball left or something? Anyway, it was yet another loss to the Sweet Meats but we'll get them back in the playoffs! Maybe.

Game 3
7-4 Sweet Meats

Summer Record: 2-2

If You Want My Bocce vs. Bourbon Balls

We have a winning record again!

I was out of town last week but I made sure to listen to the Faces last Monday morning as a tribute to Team Rod.

We only had four folks on the squad (Mike, Sarah, Jim, and Dave) but they took down Bourbon Balls in three games.

Not sure what happened exactly but I figure someone has got to update this thing.

After having avenged our playoff loss to Po-Town in a recent match, we look to take down the last team to end a season of ours, The Sweet Meats, in our next match.

Hot Legs Angers Po-Town

First of all, much like I refuse to call the third baseman for the Yankees by the name of A-Rod, I refuse to call our Monday Night opponents Po-Po. With that out of the way, I've got to say that I have nothing against this team. I mean, other than the fact that we were the only team who beat them in the regular season last year but they pretended that they had no idea who we were. And, of course, losing to them in the playoffs was no fun either.

However, at this point, I think that they hate me. Or at least the captain does. Oh well. I wasn't trying to get in their heads or nothing when I suggested that we start the game as we waited for their 4th member to show up. Captain Po-Town did not seem excited by the idea but was willing to do it. My reasoning was that there were two more games after ours so we should just get going. I never suggested a forfeit or nothing. But since it was already 5 minutes past start time, I figured why not just start the first frame? We did and perhaps I unintentionally got in their heads? Mitch and I took an immediate 3-0 lead.

And then we waited for their 4th team member to show. It was only a few minutes more which was okay with me. At least we had started and given him a chance to show up on time and not delay the match further. He was completely out of breath from running which I guess helped our cause. SHR and Beth continued the run of excellence. Actually, all four of us did and we took Game 1 by a score of 7-0.

Game 2 saw us take a quick 5-0 lead. There was talk about where to get dinner. I began to feel guilty for rushing things since it was barely past 8 and we were about to dispatch the enemy in quick order.

Um, not so quick. Things began to fall apart quickly as they sometimes do when we try to get too fancy rather than play nice and easy, Rod-style. Rod knows you can't rush a good thing and sometimes our squad forgets that.

With a 6-3 lead, the Po-Town squad had a chance to put us away with a four-spot. Luckily, they could only put up three and it was up to Mike and Sarah to give us the win.

But Po-Town was too strong and they prevailed by a score of 7-6. So much for an early dinner.

Game 3 was tense. We took a quick 4-1 lead before things got scary again. It was back and forth until finally we set it up for victory. Po-Town needed to knock our ball out of the way to avert defeat.

I set up to take a movie. Captain Po-Town was not happy with me. I understand the way she feels and I'm sure she thought I was going to take a picture with the flash. Still, it was funny to be chastised by her and then by my squad.

So I moved back and documented the last shot. Victory to Rod!

Game 1
Mitch and me
SHR and Beth
Rod 7-0

Game 2
Mitch and Dave
Mike and Sarah
Po-Town 7-6

Game 3
Mitch and Mike
SHR and Beth
Rod 7-5

Summer Record: 1-1

Later in the evening saw the Coffee Flats Terrors play Boccelism for the first time ever. The game was an intriguing one as it pitted the last non Boccelism champ (more or less) vs. the fourpeaters.

It wasn't even close. Boccelism got rattled and fell to the Terrors in two games.

The winning shot by Balgavy.

And when it comes right down to it, how could a team with a member with such a fine 'stache lose?
By the way, I have officially named this new fixture at Floyd. His name is Rod.
Finally, as we all know, our team hasn't been playing all that well recently. But last week, while I was at a math workshop I stumbled upon a very good omen.

We were learning about different activities on how to use Cuisenaire Rods. The instructor put up this sign.

Who cares about the Virgin Mary appearing on toast and other such nonsense? I've never believed in that stuff. But when I saw this lovely creation, I knew that the Bocce Gods had spoken. And it spoke the name of Rod.

Summer Season!

The Year of Rod Might Just Be A Mirage

Because as much as I hate to say it, we kind of aren't very good these days. We hit a peak sometime in mid winter of this year and it has all been downhill since.

Last night, we started off slow, gained some momentum, almost won, and then fall apart yet once again.

The new court plays very differently which I think will be a good thing for us in the long run but last night messed with my head. Either that or the three pints I drank in quick succession right before rolling did the trick.

Game 1 stunk.
We lost 7-3.
Team: Mike, Sarah, SHR, Beth

Game 2 was crap for a bit. But after spotting our opponents a 5-0 lead, we came roaring back to a 7-5 victory.
Team: Mike, Sarah, Mitch, me

As team captain, I knew what had to be done - remove myself from game action because I was killing us, KILLING us I say. I had planned on taking Mike and Sarah out but they were hott so I left them in.

Things looked rosy for awhile. With a 5-3 lead, we had two balls to close the deal. Unfortunately, we couldn't add the points to take it. Then we lost 7-5. Oops.
Team: Mike, Sarah, SHR, Beth

The victors - Tchauzinho

All we can do is keep plugging away and maybe good things will soon happen.