Last week's (8/24) bocce recap, by request:
Fellow Schwetties,
Saturday was a beautiful day for late summer playoff bocce...but play bocce was not what most of the playoff-qualified teams in our league wanted to do. I got to Union Hall a few minutes after 3 and walked in expecting to see the usual crowd and chaos that accompany playoff gameday, the air ripe with the special kind of tension that only arises from single-elimination, season-on-the-line at all times PLAYOFF BOCCE...
What I encountered instead was an eerily quiet bar with no games being played. Brian was in a booth with a tired-looking Bobby, who was looking intimidated but determined as he stared down a full rum and coke. I got myself a beer and asked Tom where everyone was...he said people just hadn't really turned out for the matches and most of the early games had been determined by forfeit. We three Schwetties shot the crap a little bit, our energy level low like the bar's, Bobby starting to take tentative sips of his drink as he reminisced about the bottle of Seagram's he'd destroyed the night before. A 3:00 game finally got going, Abbiamo Palle vs a horrible team that somehow kept pace with them for a while and had a guy who didn't make a good shot all match but reacted with shouting and groaning and bodily histrionics like he was genuinely surprised by every one of his shitty throws. I hated that guy but I'm glad he was there. Hatred greases the skids for the emergence of competitive bocce energy. Hatred and beer.
The bracket on the wall didn't name the winners of the early games but we were worried that nobody was going to show up to play us. In an inspired moment Bobby suggested we check the book. Sure enough, we saw that Color Me Bocce had beaten Brooklyn BC (or some shit) just by showing up. We were going to have a match after all and we started to perk up and get into game mode, by which I mean get into the music, ridicule Arm Behind His Back Guy behind his back, and talk shit about CMB. You know...perk up. Game mode.
The arm behind his back guy is really funny (unintentionally). A couple months ago he was rolling near Bobby and me. I noticed that he always threw with his non-throwing arm held behind him, horizontal across his lower back. The arm stayed there for his follow through as he watched his shot. It stayed there still as he stepped off the court and remained there as he stood watching others throw, during which time he often used the hand to hold his other arm. So after watching this for a few minutes of course I have to point it out to Bobby, who studies the situation for a minute and then concludes "he might be handicapped".
I'm blown away. It hadn't occurred to me but now it seems obvious and my heart sinks. Understand, I feel HORRIBLE about this, making fun of this poor bird with the broken wing. I remember every inspiring Special Olympics story I've ever heard and I'm becoming awed by his courage and bravery and want to tell him how great I think it is that he plays bocce...and then he picks something up with his "bad" arm. Faker!
For Bobby and I, it was pretty much the highlight of that particular month. And it was awesome to see him again Saturday, to bring Brian in on the joke, to have another good laugh at someone else in the league...we were ready.
Color Me Bocce is led by two guys who always wear the same long shorts, sneakers and sleeveless t-shirts (one of them says Jurassic 5 on it). They seem pretty douchey and are not very good at bocce. They also have an Asian fellow on the team, and I think a girl who was not present and was being replaced by a fairly homely one. Anyway, our court opened up and Sapna walked in right at four, and we started warming up. We talked to the guys for a minute and they seemed slightly less douchey and more stoned than we thought. We tossed a couple and when J5 asked if we had a coin, Bobby excitedly offered up his iPhone coin flip app that Silver and/or Miguel never allow. The CMBs thought it sounded pretty sweet and won the virtual toss.
In the first frame, Bobby and I threw from the near end of the bar against one of the guys without sleeves and the girl. We had the closest ball (1.5" vs 1.75", clear to the naked eye and measured twice) but they kept trying to get us to look from different angles and incorporating asinine measuring strategies (yes, one of them involved a dollar bill). Eventually they conceded the point. 1-0 us. "This could be a really long game," I told them.
CMB got a point off Brian and Sapna coming back. I think that was the frame on which Brian set the pellino deep and then left his first throw just over the midway line, which was as incredible as it sounds. The other team's next throw was only a few inches better and the members of both teams agreed, "this is NOT playoff bocce." On the next round the CMBs set it short and threw all four balls way too long, gifting four points to the Schwetties. We soon finished off an easy 7-1 win.
Remember when I poked fun at that really short throw Brian made? That was nothing compared to one the girl unleashed in the next game. Bobby and I set it really short along the left wall and then put our first ball right next to it. Short. On the left wall. The girl walks up and kind of sidearm wings it hard down the right side of the court almost to the back wall. It was an astonishing feat of incompetence and we other seven players kind of looked at each other awkwardly. One of the sleeveless guys asked what she was doing and the other one told him not to yell at her. Which was the right response but the first sleeveless guy was right too - the question needed to be asked, as uncomfortable as it was.
On their next throw, a sleeveless guy took out some frustration by unleashing the most aggressive smash throw you've never seen. It didn't break the pellino but it did send it sailing onto the other court and maybe even off of it. So we reset the frame. Does that mean the worst throw ever didn't officially happen? Is it like when a baseball game gets postponed after less than five innings and the statistics compiled are not counted? What happens to those home runs???
The CMBs took a couple points off us but never really threatened. We dominated and ate their faces all match long, taking the 2nd frame, 7-3. Meanwhile the Moms were on Court 1 demolishing a bunch of schlubs who looked like they'd barely played before. At one point it was 7-0, 5-0 and I overheard one of the schlubs telling one of the Moms "you are just way out of our league". In more ways than one, I would wager. It was pathetic.
I then offended the Moms twice, for a total of three times in two weeks. This time I went up to them and asked if they had really just beaten a team 7-0, 7-0 and then wondered aloud how those guys had made the playoffs (Offense #1). Misty told me that we were going to be playing them next week and I went over to the bracket on the wall and told our team that we'd be playing the Moms next week. When I got back to where the Moms were sitting,
Misty told me pointedly that we were playing BOCCE BACI, NOT THE MOMS. I'm not really sure if that counts as a separate incidence of offending them. When they told me last week they were offended, it was also about being called The Moms (they said it was "reductionist" which I thought was a pretty big word for someone who spends 98% of her waking hours talking to a four year old). I told them it's no more reductionist than calling Bobby and me "Scarf" and "Beard" respectively, so I'm calling it even.
Jesus, someone needs to put me on a word count, pronto. I'll wrap up.
We ordered up three Jame-O and a Jager and then in another inspired moment Bobby made a pour-time decision to switch his to Jager out of respect for the previous night's bottle of whiskey. After we shot those, Brian and I both had a couple sips of our beers to finish before we left, and Bobby filled that minute of time by doubling down on his Jager shot.
We celebrated with a pie from
Campo de Fiori (concise review: it's fine, but skip it) and then several hours of beers, darts and pool at Rock Shop. All in all, a successful afternoon.
The Moms are up next, on Sunday at a time TBD.
Gor-Don
