Ever Listen to K-Billy's Super Sounds of the 70's?

It's my personal favorite.

All of which is a long-winded way to say that the pool gods were with us, we cobbled together a win and we're stuck in the middle of pool league standings ... with you.

Your humble narrator started off the evening with a cunning display of lousy pool, but somehow managed to scrape together a win (in consecutive games, no less). Sam "Enchanted Evening" Hubball fought above her metaphoric and literal weight class, squaring off gamely against a 3 before succumbing. Tim Malloy looked like he was back on his game, polishing off his formidable opponent 5-1. Captain Trantastic started off strongly, but his opponent fought back admirably and eventually prevailed. Finally, Nina "Pinta and the Santa Maria*" Amster squared off against a 5, and pushed the match to a sixth and deciding game. The decision was "boo-yah, motherfucker" as Amster sank the 8 on the break, and won the night for McSwiggan's!

And the gods were happy.

In related news, I've sent Stuart all the info he needs to open up accounts for us.

* It is really hard to come up with puns for Nina's name. Any help would be appreciated.

Division Standings

Forget what I said in the last post; we're not in second place. We're in sixth. Shhh.

See you on Monday. Get your game faces on.

Tim Malloy, from a few years back.

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.