The Greatest and Best Team in the World: Endgame

The Final Four

More important than our Final Four loss to DC Clap is the story of how we got there: playoff victories over #39 Destiny's Pants, #7 Boccelism, #42 Invasion of the Bocce Snatchers, and, in particular, an Elite Eight victory over #2 Spacebonk. 

The match against Spacebonk will go down as perhaps the greatest ending in sports history. As the huge underdog, The Greatest and Best Team in the World stayed close early and then unleashed an unprecedented 11 straight points over Spacebonk, who was clearly not mentally prepared to handle the mountain of expectations and the pressure of a #2 ranking. However, the pendulum always swings back, and Spacebonk gathered their composure, rattling off 7 points to trail by the slimmest of margins, 15-14. From there, The Greatest and Best Team in the World relied not on skill or determination but pure and simple luck to carry them to victory. On the final throw of the final frame, Spacebonk's sharpshooter knocked their own ball out of position--a ball that would have been their winning point--and knocked our ball next to the palina to give us the winning point. The Greatest and Best Team in the World joined together in sweet euphoria. One of member of Spacebonk spontaneously combusted, and the two remaining members have not been seen in public since. It was a wonderful moment in the world of sports.

More important than all of our playoff victories is the $100 that will be donated in our name toGreater DC Cares, the leading coordinator of volunteering and business philanthropy in the Washington DC region. 

More important than all of this talk of winning, spontaneously combusting opposition, and charitable giving is the unity of friendship and loyalty that our team fostered through the rigor of the summer DC Bocce League.  Though we did not take home the champsionship trophy, we will return next year with the same sparkling vigor and hyperbolic lexicon that you know and have probably been offended by.

The Beast, The Captain, The Closer, The Eye, Jennufine, and one other individual who has not passed our nickname vetting process. Together, we are The Greatest and Best Team in the World!!

Peroni Beach House Contest WINNERS

If you made it out to Top of the Hill and our raucous End-of-Season Party on 9/16 then you already know who won the Peroni Beach House Contest. Team Ticklebritches from Wednesday manged to pull away down the stretch and won a close race over the other teams with almost 400 tickets. Thanks to their dedication to a special Italian import they'll be enjoying a free weekend in Ocean City, Maryland, complete with a "stocked" room and gift certificates to Secrets Night Club.

These top contenders were in the hunt for much of the season, with all 6 finishing within 100 tags of each other after 8 weeks:

Ticklebritches
Garbage Plates Heart Shortalones
Full Snip
Everybocces Workin' for the Weekend
Snakes on a Pallina
John McBocce

In total 4,585 tags were handed out, which translates to over 900 pitchers of Peroni for the season. Nice work everybody!

Balls You Can Believe In

Yes We Did

With our two stars, The Eye and The Closer, unable to attend our Round 2 playoff match, The Greatest and Best Team in the World looked to the only person with enough passion and dedication to fill both of their shoes: Barack Obama.  Since he had intended to repay the "favor" I did for him a few years back by offering me a high-level federal appointment, Barack was initially reluctant to take on the challenge. Of course, this reluctance was immediately replaced with sparkling vigor and an insatiable thirst for victory after we introduced our patented, all-natural, delicious energy beverage. He was also pleased to know that the championship team is awarded donations for the charity organization of their choice. 

With Barack providing that extra competitive edge along with several "Try to hit the Palin-a" puns, The Beast, Jennufine, and The Captain cruised to consecutive 16-10 victories over two worthy opponents, #7 Boccelism and #42 Invasion of the Bocce Snatchers. It turns out you can put lipstick on two losing bocce teams but they're still two losing bocce teams. Nobody knows what that means. When Barack says something, you just laugh and try not to make too much eye contact. 

On to the Elite Eight! 

Ouch.

The Captain Returns for a Round 1 Playoff De-Pantsing

Epic De-pantsing

When Not a Good Team Name dispersed into two equally talented teams for the summer DC Bocce League, we all envisioned an ultimate Finals showdown between the two spin-offs. Fate, it seems, it not without a sense of irony. Indeed, Destiny's Pants and The Greatest and Best Team in the World would meet in this summer's playoffs, but their match would take place in Round 1, not the Finals. Anti-climactic doesn't even begin to describe how incredibly not climactic this news was to the two teams.

Still, each team approached this match like it was their last. There were no handshakes, buttslaps, or words of encouragement. Only stare-downs. Even our traditional pre-game partner stretching with aroma therapy was replaced with face-offs so intense (and sustained) that the match didn't begin until well after the scheduled start time. In fact, by the time we got going, there wasn't even enough light to capture The Greatest and Best Team in the World's 16-5 drubbing of Destiny's Pants. Indeed, it was an epic "De-Pantsing" of epic proportions.

Which brings me to my next topic of discussion: the act of forcibly removing one's pants, or what I have always referred to as "de-pantsing". Until just recently, I had never considered the genesis of this term. It always seemed natural to use the suffix "de-", which has a meaning that approximates "to remove" or "do the opposite of", in conjunction with the word "pants", which I could only assume meant to "wear pants". Putting it all together, to "de-pants" someone literally means to "do the opposite of wear pants" or not wear pants. Yet, my entire world was turned upside down when a friend of mine informed me that some aberrant sub-population of the planet actually refers to this phenomenon as "pantsing". That is, to "pants" someone is to forcibly remove one's pants. This is not a joke. People actually believe this. Beyond my simple explanation, I do not have the intellectual capacity or tolerance to further explore how a human person could justify abandoning all logic and rationality for the sake of forcibly removing one's pants. That's why I only DE-pants people. That's why I stick to bocce.

Fibobocce Fibobusiness

Well, our team, the Fibobocce Sequence (light purple) was taken out last night by Looking to Score, so the bocce part of our season is over. So sadly, no one will get to hear our team cheer ("One! One! Two-three-five! Eight, Thirteen - Let's go!") during the playoffs. However, there are a few other items to address:

1) A few of you who have not yet voted for superlatives may be wondering who to pick for Most Likely to Close Down the Pour House. If so, just think to yourself, "Self, have I ever left downstairs at the PH after all of the light purple shirts are gone?" The answer to that question will be no.

Also, if the nerds, geeks, and dorks of DC Bocce decide to vote us in as a dark horse for Best Team Name, who are we to say no?

2) Pop Quiz: Mike will be leaving the DC area after the end of this season to . . .

A) Check into rehab.

B) Move out of this jurisdiction before the indictments are handed down.

C) Go back to school.

D) Write the great American erotic novel.

Come to Hamilton's (233 2nd St NW) on Saturday the 6th to find out, and to bid me farewell. Everyone in the league is invited; we start at 7:00 and will keep going as long as everyone is still upright. If you know you are coming, RSVP in the comments, but you're welcome either way.

ROAD TO THE TITLE...GOES THRU SPACEBONK

NOT STRICTLY OVERRATED!!!