BEVERLY HILLS, MICHIGAN – The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen almost collapsed this week. We had plenty of fireworks, but most of them were related to fighting among league members.
The testiness started right away in Game 1, where Erik and Coach squared off against Galz and KP. In the first frame KP drained a cornhole and added another bag on the board to take a 4-0 lead against Coach Mike, which put Coach on edge. Then in the second frame, Coach managed only 1 of 4 bags on the board and Erik, his TEAMMATE, foot snagged him. Guys, I cannot describe Coach’s fury in my own words. He MF’ed Erik for several minutes, yelled, complained, pleaded to KP about how bad of a move it is to foot snag a teammate. He even threatened to call Erik “Sam” until he earned his real name back with better behavior.
The atmosphere was tense, and that’s when Galz saw an opportunity to make it even worse. He and KP built a 9-0 lead while their opponents fought each other. On the ropes, Erik decided to finally break the scoring drought and seemingly broke some of the tension with his partner. Coach was happy to be off bun run status and vowed that the first point would not be the team’s last.
Insert Galz…attempting to break Coach’s mental game, he taunted him with an offer to bet Coach that they will not score again. A fuming Coach barks that he’ll bet 400 bucks they score again, and Galz propositions his checkbook, suggesting it has unlimited funds.
I’ve never seen Coach so rattled. “Sam” and Coach never scored again, losing 21-1. Coach reneged on Galz’s proposition, claiming a formal bet didn’t exist because hands were not shaken. Galz still got what he wanted, a win and a frustrated Coach.
Sadly, the foot snag topic was just gaining momentum. Bushie watched as all of this unfolded and after the game used the opportunity to make his monthly soap box moment about the bullshit that is a foot snag. He complained about how disruptive the foot snag is to his throwing accuracy (even though the foot snag doesn’t happen until the bag has already caromed off the board) and said the foot snag is banned from the league. KP reminded him that there is only one commissioner and he does not have the power to rescind the foot snag rules. With things on the verge of falling apart, Bushie threatened to quit the league and never host again if the foot snag rule continued. KP called his bluff, saying he can quit over something as stupid as a foot snag, if he chooses.
The entire group was so tense that a bun run happened and wasn’t even communicated to the entire group (we had two boards going, so not everyone saw the shutout). Joe and Erik lost to Coach and Marco, 21-0, and nobody knew about it besides those 4 guys until Friday morning when KP was reviewing the scores for this recap. I assume it was a combination of shame and fear for what Coach and Bushie might do to two nekked men frolicking through the backyard.
Joe and Erik – you will not avoid the consequences of the bun run, so expect to pay the piper in the coming weeks.
Galz made his regular season debut by dropping hammers throughout the night. He averaged a ridiculous 6.4 cornholes per game (best of the night) and 0.72 cornholes per round on the way to an 11.9 KPM (second best of the night).
Galz flexed his muscle in Game 6 when he partnered with Coach Mike to battle Joe and KP. The entire match was a street fight, with Galz and Coach racing out to a 9-4 lead before KP posted a 7-0 advantage over Coach in the fourth frame to give his squad an 11-9 lead. Galz and Coach responded with a run of their own to earn a 14-11 advantage and that’s when Galz took over.
He outscored Joe 7-1, taking a 20-11 lead and putting his foot on Joe and KP’s neck. KP felt momentum punch him in the face, and did his best to keep the team in it. Down 20-11, KP’s first two tosses were cornholes and his third found the board. Meanwhile, Coach had only found the board with one of his bags and KP needed a cornhole to tie the game at 20. On his last toss, KP landed on the board, closing the deficit to 20-18 and needed Joe to somehow silence Galz. But, that didn’t happen…not even close.
Galz put the proverbial teabag right in Joe and KP’s faces by dunking his first two throws while Joe missed his. But Galz wasn’t done. He hit cornhole with his third shot to clinch the match, but now he was chasing rare air…a 12-point round. On his fourth and final toss, Galz found the center of the hole for another cornhole, giving him the first 12 point round of the season and only the fifth in league history. That earned Galz his first Mushroom Stamp Moment of his career.
Galz also had a 10 point round in Game 7 against Erik. Although Erik weathered the storm with a 7 of his own in that round, Galz still led his team to a 21-17 victory.
The Game of the Night was a showdown in game 3 between Galz and Marco vs. Coach and Bushie. This was an intense game of runs, and just when it seemed one team had the advantage, the other team stormed back.
Galz and Marco used a 5 point advantage in the second frame to propel them to an early 7-2 lead, but then Bushie and Coach went on a 13-3 streak of their own to gain a 15-10 lead. Bushie was unstoppable during the run, outscoring Galz by 10 net points (16-6 gross point advantage) and Coach Mike drew even with Marco during the run (16-16 gross points). Marco snagged one point to close the gap to 15-11, but Coach Mike used the back-handed taint tickler to drain a cornhole and another bag on the board, upping the lead to 18-11.
Needing a run in the worst way, Galz started the 10th frame with two cornholes on his way to outscoring Bushie 6-1, and Marco kept the momentum going in the bottom of the 10th with two more cornholes as part of a 7-4 advantage over Coach Mike. In the blink of an eye Galz and Marco used an 8 point frame to take a 19-18 lead. In the top of the 11th frame Galz closed it out against Bushie with a cornhole and two bags on the board, outscoring Bushie 5-3 to win the game 21-18.
Bushie and Coach Mike were extremely accurate and impressively hung in the game despite registering only 8 total cornholes (Bushie with 6, Coach with 2) compared to 18 total cornholes from Galz and Marco (9 for each guy). But Galz and Marco were too much to handle in the end.
Did you notice a theme? Again, it’s all about Galz. He was a bad, bad man this week, earning the MSM, posting a 12-point round, posting a 10-point round and closing out the Game of the Week.
News and Notes:
- Marco deserves some love for his performance this week. He didn’t have as many loud moments as Galz, but he was a stud. He recorded the highest KPM, a ridiculous 12.5, while also earning the highest cornholes per round (0.75), gross points per round (4.0) and second highest accuracy (64%). He also dominated the win-loss column, going 7-3 for the night.
- JV also had a very good night, going 7-3 overall and recorded a 9.7 KPM. He crushed Joe’s spirits in game 11 with a 10-point round, and repeated the 10-point round in game 13 against Bushie to close out the game. It was arguably a Mushroom Stamp Moment of the night, but not quite enough to top Galz’s 12-point round. JV had is most accurate night of his career at 64%, but struggled with cornholes per round (by his standards) with only 0.37. JV is a perfect example of where the new advanced metrics are interesting to analyze – he was great from the right side of the board where his KPM was 10.0; while on the left side he struggled with only a 5.8 KPM.
- KP had another steady night, going 8-4 overall with a KPM of 11.5 (third best of the night). His accuracy continues to be stellar this year; he was 74% for the night and impressively threw 28 straight scoring bags during game 15. In total, he was 31 out of 32 (97% accuracy) for game 15.
New Advanced Metrics:
We are introducing even more advanced metrics, with the ability to now track gross points scored head-to-head (both weekly and cumulative) as well as tracking all our or normal statistics based on a player’s performance on the right and left side of the board.
These advanced metrics will help analyze player tendencies, weaknesses and how they perform head-to-head against other players in the league. Below is a summary of how to navigate the new metrics.
Head-to-Head Metrics
- Cumulative Head-to-Head
- Columns AM through AP of the Excel file statistics
- Cell AM3 select the dropdown for the player you want
- Column AN then auto-populates that players cumulative gross points scored against every player he’s played, while columns AO and AP show the cumulative gross points scored by all the other players when matching up head to head against the player selected in column AN.
For example, if I select Marco in cell AM3, the results I get show his gross points scored compared to each of his opponent’s gross points scored against Marco. He scored 104 gross points in head to head matchups against Galz, while Galz only registered 89 points against Marco.
- Weekly Head-to-Head
- Columns AQ through AS
- Cell AQ4 enter the week you would like to analyze
- Cells AR4 and AS4 select the players you want to compare
- Cells AR5 and AS5 then auto-populate the head to head results of the players you are analyzing for the week selected.
For example, if you select “2” (for week 2) in cell AQ4, “Marco” in cell AR4 and “Galz” in cell AS4, you will see cell AR5 reveals 104 gross points for Marco and cell AS5 reveals 89 gross points for Galz…the same as you see in the cumulative head to head example above because so far both of those players have only played in week 2.
- Side of Board Performance Metrics
- Cells B32 and B33
- Cell B32 select the week you want to analyze and cell B33 the side of the board you want to analyze (right, left or total).
- The standings and statistics table auto-populates above based on your selections. We began this in week 2, so in future weeks you will also see the cumulative results based on side of the board.