AWVP

Amazing turnout for day 3, which leads to problems...

How do you pick your teams. Captains seem to be back in vogue this year. There's a point to that--2 experienced players who can assess talent can make for good games. There are variations of course. My main complaint is pandas are hard to herd, so you can miss someone if you don't see em. We did manage a minor miracle on that front--assembled all the "drys" and made sure they were picked first by captains.

My main complaint is that this all takes time, vs. making people get in the pool "get in where you fit in" then mixing and matching talent by general consent.

We also do shirts...

There is no perfect system, and ballchair knows we try to come up with some amalgam that balances participation, competition, and fun to the best of our drunken abilities.

Examples: I had a good draft to start the day picking vs Capt Marcelo. I asked Attorney Scott how he was doing--said he was still hurt so didn't pick him (turns out he wasn't as hurt as he made out). Took Ford first instead, and got Taz after Marcelo picked Scott. Added Navy, Jarrod, Tbone.

Excellent draft based on available players (of note, Mikey had yet to arrive). And then what happened? We went down on the scoreboard, before coming back to win in game 1. And went down worse, before Navy made us huddle up for inspiration, to come back to win game 2. And went down on the scoreboard once again, before almost coming back, but losing game 3--no dynasty.

I HATE that. Never like playing from behind (make your jokes). Why not build a big lead, after which there's more room to make mistakes or try something a little different that risks mistakes being made?

As new arrivals showed up, I ended up out of the rote. Which meant playing on how not to pick a team when there are captains. Won't say who did it, but Nate, me, Monkey, Tbone, Kent, and newish guy who looks like he could play like T2, but doesn't is probably not the most solid lineup when facing a team with 3 hitters. In this situation you have a chance to make a team better, and you've got a Nerds team's chance for victory. We scored 10 points! That's a victory in itself.

There were some truly epic battles I was not a part of. Nicky joined a team of waterbabies against folks with primarily sand skills, and pulled out the win.

I think 1-2 dynasties were eventually achieved. However, without a panda in the fight, it's almost better to have a team dynasty and the challengers lose on game 3 than not, given attendance, because that means 12 people are out and you refill the pool with all drys.

We also had a late scrub team appearance. And I was like, wait, I know these guys. They've done this before. This time a little less hammered, but the results were the same.

The fault, I suppose, is theirs--hubris, and putting your hand on the hot stove twice thinking there will be a different result, but also ours. Methinks we make the game look easy, when it's not.

For the new people in panda corps: your job in situations such as these is to teach the lessons ballchair has taught us as quickly and respectfully as possible.

Notable quote from sander Chris Jay--who returned to play this day:"This is so much fun, but so different" True. We've made water more like sand, but water will never be sand, nor should it be.

Nice to see Wings back in the lineup. He's learning. Patience and trigger time are important.

We have an official new recruit: Sravan has joined the FB messenger chat list. He's got skills, and will be a welcome addition.

Injured Nate had him a big ass block. As did Fish on one play. Glad he found something to do with his pinchers besides put them in the net.

I'm giving Ford a player of the day shout out. His swing is back in a big way, he plays clean ball, and helps others learn and do the same. Other great performances from Scott, Taz, and Mikey.

I didn't get to play with Scott or Mikey until the very end of the day. But so it goes when things get busy.

For those who care about winning %, I think I crawled back to .500. But the main point is to play hard on whatever team you're on, make it better, and do your best, always.

Be seeing you in 4 days. Approximately 146 days until weather might shut us down. Make the most of them. Every game is a banquet, every win a fortune. I love the Corps!

_________________
Chief

Death from above! Fire down below!