Team Names

Last night I was walking along St. Mark's Place and noticed that nobody was sitting in my All-Time Favorite Spot To Read In A Bar, which is by the lone window at Grassroots Tavern. So I ducked in with a crossword puzzle for a couple pints. Grassroots does not have a pool table, but rather an exquisitely worn-down dart area in the back. Next to one of the dart boards was a sheet that had schedules, standings and a list of names of the teams in the New York Dart Organization. I found myself laughing out loud when I read some of the names, which I'll get to in a second.

It got me thinking about how for some reason Sophie's does not participate in the tradition of giving its pool teams names. In fact, the names of the teams I've played on at Sophie's are purely perfunctory: Sophies III, which was later changed to just Sophies and now I'm playing on Sophies 2. It would seem that with the correct inclusion of an apostrophe, along with a word from a billiards glossary, there would be a ripe scenario for a possessive team name like Sophie's Strokers, or Sophie's Scratchers. But I've never really been a fan of this cuteness. Maybe next season we'll just call a spade a spade and name our team what it is, Outdated Team Roster.

I downloaded all the PDFs from the NYC APA website and came up with a nice variety of my favorite names for pool teams. Here they are in no real order: Chalk is Cheap, Poolhall Drunkies, R U Kidding Me?, Tap Diss, Tap That, DV-8, Based on a True Story, ESL, Of Course We're Drunk, That Guy, Pigs Might Fly, What Ball Am I?, Can I Play First?, Amphibious Assault, Highs and Lows and Warriors of the Glen. The last one makes me chuckle the most. But I detect a slightly more irreverent sense of humor from the dart throwers than I do from the pool players. As for their team names, here goes.

Some dealt directly with the word dart:

Dartbags
Poison Dart Frogs
Dartles and Jaymes
Starving Dartists
Britney's Spears

Others dealt with hitting the bulls eye:

Bullistics
Shootin' the Bull
The Big Lebullskis

Some dealt with double and triple scores:

The Double-Inners
Big Triple Hunters
The Dirty Trees

Others dealt with the booze factor:

Bailey's Total Fitness
Armed and Hammered
The Wasted Mondays

Some had a hint of self-deprecation:

Nothing But Wire
No Clue
The Cork Suckers
Flight Risk
Blinded Sniper
Abusement Park

Apparently, a couple teams came up with names in the wake of the scandal involving our ex-governor:

Client #9
Spitzer Swallows

In the end, here are the ones that I think are funniest:

No. 1, No Onions
SweepTheLegJohnny
The Rabbi's Sons
The Taint
Mud on the Helmet
This is Why I'm Hot
Operation Bear Catch
Conker Hill Has Eyes

Vasmay Lounge has moved

It's funny how every July when I go away to Kansas for ten days I come back feeling like I've been gone three weeks. I guess by now it's old news to report that Vasmay Lounge has moved two blocks west and now occupies the space formerly known as Essex Ale House (which was formerly 12" Bar, which was formerly Filthy McNasty's and on and on). I didn't know anything was up until a few days ago as I was walking up Essex Street and noticed a pool table inside the bar where there hadn't been one before. Yesterday I walked by again and stopped in to play a quick game. Something about the table felt familiar, I could tell that it was the exact same size and kind as the table at Sophie's. As I was leaving I noticed the chalkboard outside the bar said "Vasmay Style." Hmmm. So today as I sat down and started googling it wasn't hard to find out what had happened. I teeter between thinking "This bar is way too small for a pool table," and "Wow, that's cool they'd put a pool table in such a small bar." Of all the pool tables I can think of, this one takes the cake in terms of the space it occupies in relation to total floorspace of the bar it's in. But the fact that they have 2-for-1 until 9PM is quite nice. I figure it could very well go onto my list of places for night capper games. Although I haven't been by at night yet, when it's possibly too crowded to play, so the verdict is still out on the new Vasmay Lounge. Check out Mike Elwood's blog to get one insider's perspective on the transition. He's an avid pool player so I'd be curious to get his take.