Rod's Swan Song?

This blog has been awfully quiet for the past couple of years. And now the team itself might be finished. But we went out strong - with a 2nd place showing in the Floyd vs. Union Hall championship yesterday.

And while it would have been nice to actually beat Boccelism in a big match, we still represented well. So I'll leave you with the following two videos. And never forget - In Rod We Trust.

Yours, Hot Legs

Rod Lost But At Least Alex's Cookies Were Fabulous!

Monday night's match pitted BF Sweet Touch vs. GF Alex B. Keaton. Who would win the grudge match?

The coin toss went the way of Arthur Boccerelli.

Arthur took it to Rod. Ouch. Before Rod knew it, he had been decimated 7-3 in the first game. The second game started well and Rod took a 5-0 lead. But that only set up a horrendous collapse. Arthur B took the second game 7-5.

The Fonzie ladies pose by the depressing evidence. Ay!!!!!!

Last season Rod started 7-0. Thus far, Rod is 1-2 in 2010. Yikes.

The most exciting news about this night (other than the amazing cookies) is that Lauren made a movie. Too bad the results weren't better.

Bocce night from poohlaga on Vimeo.

A Sad Month in Rod Land

It's been a long time since I've written. A lot has happened.

1. Yes, we lost to Veni Vidi Bocce in the Final 8 of the fall playoffs. We won Game 1 and then blew a 6-2, Game 2 lead to go meekly in Game 3. Ugh. Final record: 4-7



2. YouTube banned my last movie featuring a great Rod song. It can currently be seen without sound. I've tried to upload it to SHR's server but have been running into problems with it. I smell a conspiracy.

3. We've moved to Saturdays. Too many babies and homework assignments have led us to this road. Although Saturdays now look to be a problem for too many hangovers.

4. We've added two new team members, Rebecca and Sean. More on the new Rods to follow.

In our first match of the new season against Kiss My Pallino, we got spanked. It was ugly. 7-2, 7-3. We were a bare bones operation (see last sentence of #3) and it showed. Things can only get better from here.

Rod feels small.

Here Comes Rod

Despite an abysmal regular season, here comes Rod roaring into the playoffs.

In the Round of 32, we lost to Boccismo in Game 1 but then came back to win the second and third games.

In the Round of 16, we dispatched of Do These Droids Speak Bocce in quick fashion - 2 quick frames. They had had a long layoff between their games and Rod knows better than anyone how long layoffs can really mess with one's rhythm.

This Sunday - the final 8.

First up: Veni Vidi Bocce

The Movie with sound. Well, not yet. Still having problems getting it to work.

Or the blocked YouTube version. I can't believe Rod would block his namesake bocce team.

Up Then Down

Three weeks ago, we beat the Coffee Flats Terrors for the 8th straight time.



Two weeks ago, we blew a 5-0 lead to Da Bears and lost a heartbreaker.

Monday night, we look to even our record.

CFT
Game 1
7-0 Terrors
7-4 Rod
7-4 Rod

Da Bears
7-2 Rod
7-4 Da Bears
7-5 Da Bears

Season Record
2-3

We Just Can't Beat the Sweet Meats When I'm Playing

After going 0-6 against the Sweet Meats with me in attendance, Rod was riding high on a 1 game winning streak against the Meats without me in attendance.

I was there last Monday night. The result? An obvious one. I was terrible - perhaps my worst game ever.

The Movie: Watch it if for nothing else - SHR's and Jim's great shots when we were down to our last ball.



Game 1
7-4 Meats

Game 2
7-4 Meats

Season Record: 1-2

A Two Hour Game Edited to a Crisp 1 Minute and 22 Seconds

In this movie, Erik drops a possible big news development.



Too bad we lost.

Season record: 1-1

Rod Stuart May Love the Hamptons but Lady Luck Doesn't Love Team Rod Stewart

We took down Da Bears in two frames both by scores of 7-0. What? Wow!

We waltzed into the Final 4 for the second straight season. But for the second straight season, that is where the dream ended. We ran into the buzzsaw of some miraculous rolling by the one they call The Fixer and we succumbed to a heartbreaking loss in three games.

Game 1
We fell behind 5-1 and then roared back to win 7-5.
Game 2
We got spanked 5-0
Game 3
We had 5-0 and 6-3 leads but couldn't close it out and fell 7-6.

The Movie:

Season Record: A not so stellar 4-5.

Read Joanie's take on the proceedings.

Bocce Brunch Goes Down Hard

Team Rod got its revenge for its ignominious defeat to Bocce Brunch in last season's Final Four. We took them out in the first round of the summer playoffs.

Last time we played them, I was villain number one for taking movies of them because one guy thought I was going to take flash photography as he was rolling.

As the match came to a close my nemesis mockingly asked if I wanted him to take my picture for me which elicited hearty guffaws from his teammates. I decided to not say anything and let my roll do the talking. Unfortunately, I just missed putting them out of their misery. No matter, we won the next frame.

I may not be the coolest guy in the world as Bocce Brunch pointed out but should a team that calls itself Bocce Brunch really be casting any stones or pallinos for that matter?

Game 1
Jim and me
SHR and Mitch
7-4 Rod

Game 2
Jim and me
Erik and Mitch
7-2 Rod

We've now won two matches in a row and hope to continue our late season momentum into this Sunday's Elite 8.

The Movie

Season Record: 3-4

Rod Suffers Defeat Again

Yikes, we suck. After losing three in a row, we had to face Boccelism a couple of weeks ago. That's no fun, y'all. No fun. They beat us but we did have a few minutes of fun.

Game 1
Jim and Beth
Erik and me
7-0 Boccelism

Game 2
Jim and SHR
Roberto and me
7-0 Rod

Game 3
SHR and Beth
Roberto and Erik
7-3 Boccelism even though we started with a nice 2-0 lead.

We have the Sweet Meats on the docket next and we hope to get one in the win column before going on our championship run in the playoffs. We still have never beaten those Sweet Meats though. I hope that my absence will be a good luck charm.

Earlier in the season, Turkey Terror sent me a link to this amazing picture.

Last week, Jim stumbled upon a Facebook page for a DC based squad named Boccelism. And just like their Brooklyn namesakes, they are too cool for team T-shirts.
Team DC Boccelism had a match on the DC mall earlier this afternoon. Having already done that and knowing how much fun it is, I was tempted to crash their game. Oh well, maybe next time.

The Movie
Season Record: 1-4

Apparently We Lost Yet Once Again

This time I was there to witness the atrocity against Legends of the Ball.

The game started late because the two members of Legends of the Ball showed up a bit late. They then recruited two members from that team with the many letters in their name who gave us our first defeat of the season.

Again, we were shorthanded. This time, it was SHR, Sweet Touch, Beth, and me.

We got trounced in Game 1 by a score of 7-0. Then we won Game 2 by the same score.

We went down 6-0 in Game 3. Sweet Touch made a miraculous shot to stave off defeat and give us our first point. We slowly made a comeback and got to within 6-4 before Beth and I gave up the final point.

The Movie: Mercifully Quite Short

Season Record: 1-3 And we still have Boccelism and The Sweet Meats ahead of us. Ugly.

If You Want My Bocce Vs. ?

Blah! I'm too annoyed to even begin to try to decipher the name of the team that we lost to.

The court continues to be a disaster but we have to put that behind us. We are all playing on the same court. We started off well and then fell apart. They made some clutch shots when it mattered, they got some really lucky rolls, and we just couldn't get it done.

Game 1
Beth and me
Mitch and Jim
7-2 Rod

Game 2
Roberto and SHR
Mitch and Erik
7-3 Them

Game 3
Beth and me
Jim and Erik
7-3 Them

No matter, there's always next week.

The most interesting thing on the night occurred during the Terrors' game. Some random dude stepped onto the court and rolled a ball in the middle of a frame. I've never seen that happen before.

The movie:

Season Record: 1-1

For those out there in Rod Land who feel sad about this loss, maybe this will cheer you up. Thank you Balltrap for finding this gem for us.

A Friendly Game of Bocce

The summer season commenced last Monday. There are some changes in store for us this season well at least one big one as we welcomed new teammate Roberto to the fold. Some things remained the same though and Team Rod ran its winning streak against the Coffee Flats Terrors to a wonderful seven games.

Game 1
Beth and me
SHR and Mitch
CFT 7-5
We fell behind, came back, then lost.

Game 2
Roberto and me
Jim and Erik
Rod 7-1

Game 3
Roberto and SHR
Jim and Erik
7-3 Rod

The court was the worst I've ever seen at Floyd. They really need to fix that shit.

The movie:



Season Record: 1-0

Welcome to the Terrordome

What the? How could we really have beaten the Coffee Flats Terrors six times in a row? Six times! Gone are the days where the Terrors saunter in blasting Public Enemy on their boombox. Six times. This streak has to end at some point but I hope to at least carry it into its second presidential administration.

So how did we do it?

Let's see --

Game 1
We were decent. But they were awesome. It was tied at 2 before they destroyed us.

SHR and Mitch
Beth and me
7-3 Terrors

Game 2
We cruised.

Erik and Jim
Dave and me
7-1 Rod

Game 3
We took a 4-0 lead in the first frame. The Terrors hit the back wall twice.
But then they came roaring back with a four-spot of their own to take a 5-4 lead.

In the final frame, we put it close to the pallino with our second roll. The Terrors expended the rest of their energy (and balls) trying to knock ours out to no avail.

And then Dave rolled the shot of the match - he knocked out the Terrors' closest ball to give us two points. I finished it off and Rod marched into the Final 8.

Erik and Jim
Dave and me

The Movie


Season Record: 6-2
Hot Rods: Erik, Jim, Dave, and me

Thank you Marc for sending me the scary photo featured above.

Team Rod Is Ready for the Playoffs

Every single season, we seemingly finish early and then have 4-6 weeks to sit around and wait for the playoffs.

This year was no different.

A number of weeks ago, If You Want My Bocce finished its season with a doubleheader against Schwetty Balls and The Mamalukes. We won both.

Match 1 vs. The Schwetty Balls
7-1
7-6
Rod

Match 2 vs. the Mamalukes
7-5
7-5
Rod

The Movie

Season Record: 5-2

Hot Rod: Beth in match 1, Dave in match 2.

Next up - the playoffs.

A Big Victory for Rod

Team Rod was on a losing streak when it suited up to take on vaunted rivals, The Coffee Flats Terrors last Monday night.

The Terrors entered the game with a stellar 3-0 record while Rod limped in mired in 2-2 mediocrity.

Game 1
SHR and Mitch
Jim and me

The Terrors let us know who was boss in Game 1. Despite solid rolls on our parts, the Terrors cruised to a 7-2 drubbing. Ezra and Marc could do no wrong.

Some of the Terrors started playing Ms. Pac Man, confident that victory would be theirs and their four game losing streak against Team Rod would finally be over.

Game 2
SHR and Mitch
Erik and Dani

SHR continued her stellar rolls but Sweet Touch was the star. He absolutely dominated. We fell behind 3-2 before turning it on and winning 7-3.

Game 3
SHR and Beth
Erik and Dani

The Terrors could not touch us. They rolled decently enough but all four of the Rods rolled splendidly.
7-1 Rod!

We beat the Terrors for the fifth straight time! For those keeping track, the last time Rod was terrorized by the bitter coffee taste of defeat to the Terrors was two long years ago.

Jamie wrote on the Terrors blog, "i think our losing streak to the Rodders has reached 5 consecutive matches including at least 2 in which we won the 1st game only to succumb in the end."

Actually, a little research shows that of the first four matches of the Rod winning streak, the Terrors had not won the first game ever. This match was the first time. Not that that is here or there. But Rod likes getting things right. You don't chart with 62 hit singles if you don't get a lot of things right, you know.

Hot Rod Award: SHR even though both of us agree that it should have gone to Sweet Touch.

The Movie:

By the way, I'm sorry that I didn't get any good footage of Dani's excellent rolls. For the most part, I was only taking movies of my teammates' second roll of each frame. Dani's amazing first rolls of each frame thus went undocumented but I'd like to point out that she is Rod's favorite to get things started right. Her stellar first rolls on this night set up Erik's later dominance.

Season Record: 3-2

The Sweet Meats Are Rod's Daddy

There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. They own us. We are now 0-6 against them. 0-6!

We took a 6-2 lead in Game 1 to end up losing 7-6. In Game 2, we fell behind 6-1 before coming back to win 7-6. Game 3 sucked.

Game 1
Sausage fest: Just like Rod likes it sometimes.
Mitch and me
Erik and Jim
7-6 Meats

Game 2
SHR and Dani
Beth and Jim
7-6
Rod

Game 3
Couples Skate:
Erik and Dani
SHR and me
7-2 Meats

Season Record: 2-2

The Movie

All Good Things Come to an End

After vanquishing two of our rivals in the first two games of this season, Team Rod was riding high against the fellas of Boccelism or Lism as they prefer to be called. We were not only riding a two game winning streak on this young season but a two game winning streak against the four-time champions of Boccelism.

It wasn't meant to be last Monday night though.

We just couldn't put anything together. We had some good rolls, we had some bad rolls. We had some good dance moves, we had some bad luck. Oh well, that's the way the gold record shatters sometimes.

For the record:
Game 1
Beth and me
Mitch and SHR

They took a 3-0 lead before we came roaring back to take a 4-3 lead. But then everything went bad.
7-4 Boccelism

Game 2
Jim and Erik
Mitch and Dani

They took a 5-2 lead but again we edged closer. We didn't take a lead though but we did get as close as 5-4. But then just like in the first game, things went sour at the end.
7-4 Boccelism

So far this season, we have beaten the two teams that we hadn't beaten yet (going 0-2 against both ODB and Watch Your Balls in previous seasons) and lost to the team that we had beaten twice in a row.

I'm not sure what this trend means for a team we haven't beaten in five previous tries. But The Sweet Meats have a week to figure it out. Rod prefers it medium raw if you catch my drift.

Season Record: 2-1

The Movie: Complete With Sound Effects!

Rod: Avenger of All Losses

After beating ODB last week for the first time, we faced off against another team that we were 0-2 against, Watch Your Balls.

In fact, not only were we 0-2 against them but we hadn't even won a game against them. But those two losses came at odd times in Rod's checkered past. One was immediately following the haze of a heartbreaking Sweet Meats defeat last spring as part of a doubleheader. And the other was last fall. That loss dropped us to 0-3 and much drama immediately followed.

But Rod is in a different place mentally these days and likens last fall to the dissolution of his marriage to Rachel Hunter. And now look how happy Rod is!

But when we went down by 4 after the first frame, things looked a bit dicey. But Rod ain't afraid of no balls. Mitch and I began the comeback by notching our first point. Dani and Beth added a point and then Mitch and I added two more. All of a sudden it was tied at 4.

Down 5-4, Mitch and I added two more. Dani put the hammer down in the next frame and we took a satisfying 7-5 victory.

Game 2
Mitch and SHR put up three quick points before Watch Your Balls answered with three of their own. Then Rod was down 4-3 before we even knew what hit us. No matter.

Jim and Erik tied it at 4. And then Mitch went to town. His first roll of the frame was so brilliant that it forced Watch Your Balls to expend all of their pent up energy into four missed opportunities. SHR and Mitch finished them off and that was all she wrote.

Game 1
Dani and Beth
Mitch and me
7-5 Rod

Game 2
Jim and Erik
Mitch and SHR
7-4 Rod

On the night, Mitch's side won by a score of 11-1. Nice! Yet somehow I scored the Hot Rod belt. I'll take the charity knowing that the real winner on this night was Rod.

Season Record: 2-0

The Movie

If You Want My Bocce: Back in Business

This is a season of redemption. This is a season to welcome back old friends. This is an era of good feelings.

This is If You Want My Bocce 2008!

For our first game of the season we had a tough assignment - the Old Dirty Barristers, the reigning champions.

This was the third time we had started a season against them. We lost to them to begin Fall '07 as well as Summer '06. Would Spring '08 be any different?

At first, it didn't seem likely.

We quickly were down 5-0.

But then Team Rod started to come back.

Jim and Dani started it with two points with some nice rolling.

Down 5-2, Sweet Touch started things off well with an excellent first roll. ODB took four rolls to get closer. But closer they got. Right on the damn pallino.

No matter, Beth knows that Rod likes it nice and hard so that is what she did. With a precision shot, she knocked out ODB's ball to give us two points. It was an unbelievable shot.

Jim and Dani gave us another point to tie it and we were on our way to victory!

Down 6-5, Dani pinned them deep with an amazing roll. Tied at 6 in the same frame, Jim put them away with a lovely shot deep.

In Game 2, we fell behind 4-2. No matter, SHR, Dave, Mitch, and I had a plan for victory. We chipped away. Soon it was 4-3. Then it was 5-4 us. Then 6-4.

Mitch and I had the opportunity to put the hammer down. Unfortunately, we didn't quite do that. No matter. ODB helped us out. With a chance to win, not only could they not add to their point with any of their remaining balls, they knocked theirs out with their last ball to give Rod the win. As we all know - some guys have all the luck.

Team Rod!

Hooray for everybody! I can't wait for our next game - maybe Floyd will actually turn on the heat so our Rod hands aren't so darn cold.

Check out the video. Not my best work considering I missed Beth's amazing Game 1 shot as well as the last shot of the match. Oh well. There's some Ms. Pac Man footage instead.



And while you're at it, this Rod approved jam is dedicated to our returning members, Beth and Jim. Welcome back.