And We're Tied for Second!

The winter season of APA kicked off last night, and we have a new member to show for it. Everybody, let's give a big McSwiggan's One welcome to ... Nina ... Amster!

And while it was a delight to see everyone's shiny faces again, there was also a pool game to be played, against the mongrel hordes known as Oh, Joe, Don't Coach. Kevin was "Trantastic," and even started his match on time — a first for our team! He won his match in three straight games, and also executed one of the more imaginative scratch shots in league play, which looked a little something like this.

Nina was ... Amster-dam good in her first foray for the McSwiggers.

Amsterdam. Really.

She, too, capably dismissed her opponent in straight games, but failed to scratch imaginatively. After that, things went a little sideways. On the other hand, we're only one game out of first.

Morgan did bring a lovely bûche de Noël, and Kevin agreed to ascend to the captaincy of our noble band of ball-whacking warriors. I have agreed to take over the thankless position of treasurer, with the proviso that I can be mean about it.

Here, by the way, is the scoresheet from Monday's game. I e-mailed a copy to Stuart earlier.

Next Monday, we're home at McSwiggan's and will be squaring off against the duplicitous denizens of Double Down. Bring your shivs.

New Season Starts Tonight

First off, a big shout-out to Stuart for letting us know about the upcoming season. To steal a line from Community, he is the AT&T of pool league administrators.

We start off on the road at Formerly Crow's, 85 Washington Place (near Sixth Avenue), playing Oh, Joe, Don't Coach Me. New York magazine describes Formerly Crow's thusly:

Couric lauded the singer-songwriter of the show’s theme song, Sheryl Crow, during her appearance.

“You turned 50 this year,” she told the second guest, “Can I just say you’re so smoking hot?”

Crow countered by describing how she felt seeing Couric at a recent dinner party. “When Katie walked in, I was like, ‘Whoa, look at those guns.’”

“It’s a girl-crush thing,” Couric explained to the audience. Then Couric and Crow, both single, came up with the legitimately brilliant idea of a dating reality show for “famous chicks” (Celebrity Bachelorette?) and the already-tried-and-failed idea of “Sex and the City for the over-50 set.”

Apologies, that's New York magazine on Sheryl Crow. New York magazine has nothing on Formerly Crow's. But here's a picture from their web site:

It appears to be a rather blurry bar.

In helpful news, here is the entirety of the spring season, with our team's (#4) games highlighted. As always, click to embiggen.

Home team is listed first. And here are all the teams, with their respective home bars.

So now you know every team and every where we're playing this season. You might want to bookmark this page.

Go McSwiggan's! Go big or get drunk!

Tied for Fifth

We haven't heard anything about rescheduling the match cancelled by the hurricane, so it looks like the season is over. We finished tied for fifth.

It's not where we wanted to be, but it's a huge step up from where we were last season, and we did finish in the top half of the league.

Individually, we did reasonably well. We had four players with better than 50% winning averages, led by Danny's 63%. And Tim racked up 29 points, which was good for fourth place in the league.

We should also remember that we had two newbies on the team this season, both of whom succeeded in racking (!) up their first victories. Additionally, two other members of the team went up in rank, which meant they were, typically, squaring off against tougher opponents.  It's fair to think we'll see improved performances from all of them next season.

All in all, it was a bit of re-building season, but one where we still finished in the top half of the league. Not bad.

We're #4 1/2!

Stuart's off the sauce and updated the league standings — all of them this time.

And things aren't as bad as I thought. We're tied for fourth, only one point out of second and a mere three points out of first place. And we're playing the first place team —Bad for the Balls — at The Edge next week. Might be worth getting there early and getting in a few practice matches. In fact, if anyone wants to play there on Saturday, let me know.

See you on Monday.

Victory, Thy Name is ... Hello? Hello?

Hi.

Yes, I'm trying to reach Winged Victory.

Oh ... I see. Well, did she leave a forwarding number? Oh —Okay. Um, well, if she does call back, could you let her know McSwiggan's One is looking for her? Yeah, we kinda used to go out. OK. Thank you.

McSwiggan's One continued to stink up the joint, losing a heart-breaking 3-2 decision to Call Me Darlin'. The evening started off strong, with Max "Old Man River, He Just Keeps Rolling, Yes, He Just Keeps Rolling Along" Ernst taking a 2-0 match. Our Surface-to-Air Missile looked good, but her opponent nailed a tough shot on the 8 to snatch victory away. Tim Malloy looked good, dispatching his opponent with ease. But the 8-ball was not kind to Kevin Tran, and the table appeared outright hostile to Morgen Peck. 

So this is another night where we should get three points. That's not going to help us, but it doesn't really hurt us — we should still be in something like sixth place. This does mean that our next match — or our next two, if the hurricane match is rescheduled — is super important. So make a burnt offering to your god and let's regroup.

Revised league standings will be posted when Stuart sobers up.

Victory, Thy Name Has Been Whoever We've Been Playing

Any rag-tag group of freedom fighters will count as one of their primary weapons the Surface to Air Missile, or SAM.

Now we've got one.



Sam Hubbell got off the schneid with an impressive victory last Monday. And against a boy! And a good one! Sam, who previously had been asymptotically close to winning, broke on through to the other side that night, proving the lethalness of the SAM.

Sam was not alone in victory. Kevin Tran returned from watching some band to wipe the floor with his opponent. His victory, while impressive, could not quite match Sam's win for sheer explosiveness.

Both Kerin "Convoy" Conroy and Morgen "A Bushel & A" Peck fought nobly  but did not fare as well. Tim Malloy faced off against Bob the Impaler, and while the two played well, shit counts in APA, and Mr. Impaler walked away with the win.

In related news, Stuart is brain-dead. New league standings are out, and once again he has failed to include our last two matches.

I think we earned three points each of the last two weeks, which should put us at 38 points and in a tie for fifth. There are only eight points separating the top nine teams, so it's still anybody's game.

Tomorrow, we're back at McSwiggan's where we'll be facing off against Call Me Darlin'. This is our second to last game — unless Stuart re-schedules the matches cancelled due to the hurricane — so now is the time to step up. If we finish strong, we should make the playoffs. And with the playoffs, fame and fortune.

And if we don't, I say we just blow shit up.

Congrats again to Sam.

Semi-Revised League Standings

The league standings have been revised and they're a mess.

So we're allegedly in 8th place, but if you add in the six points we've earned in the last two weeks, we should be somewhere around 7th. But there are four teams, in addition to ourselves, for whom a revised point total was not given. So it's anybody's guess. 

I don't know if this is Stuart's fault, but it is fairly annoying. 

On the bright side, it looks like we're only four points out of first place, so we can turn this around.

Next game is back at McSwiggan's, where we will face off against McSwiggan's 3.