week eleven

The Rockaway Beach Volleyball League completed the final match of the 2014 season Wednesday night and all nine divisions crowned regular season champs – Freedhand’s, Miley Home Improvement, Pico, Diggin ‘n Swiggin, Wharf Rats, Kobeyaki Got Kills, Simba’s Pride, Bungalow Baranha’s and Rathbones. Congratulations to all. Now the real work begins. The last Wednesday night became the best night of the year, weather-wise, with no wind, no dampness, no ominous cloud formations and only beautiful skies. It must be Aruba. No, no, no, Nanette, you are on the beach in Riis Park for Wednesday night Rockaway Beach Volleyball. Finally the weather handlers decided to stop the Wednesday night beat down and let the players enjoy one fine night. It may be hackneyed but, “Better late than never.” The RBVL 2014 Playoffs will be played by all divisions on Saturday, August 9^that 10:30 a.m. sharp. 10:30 is both the start time and the forfeit time for game #1. Nets will be available for set up and practice at 9:30 a.m. and must be up by 10 a.m. All matches are best of 5 games to 21 points – win by two points and no cap. Round 1 - 10:30 a.m.: 1^st place vs. 8^th place, 2^nd place vs. 7^th place, 3^rd place vs. 6^th place and 4^th place vs. 5^th place. Round 2 - 12:00 p.m.: 3^rd/6^th winner vs. 2^nd/7th winner and 4^th/5^th winner vs. 1^st/8^th winner. Round 3 - 2:00 p.m.: CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES. Some sandwiches will be provided for lunch. Please bring any other beverages you require but remember that officially, alcohol and bottles are not allowed on the beach. Make sure that you bag and clear all of your garbage from the beach when you leave. A rainout on Saturday is very rare. We may be under the buildings for a while if there is lightning but we are likely to play through the rain. With 40 6-ft. heroes ordered, 37 referees contracted and a DJ it is very hard to postpone. Of course, check your e-mails and the website for updates. The RBVL then concludes its 2014 season. Say it ain’t so, Joe.

Only two teams failed to qualify for the playoffs and they will both be asked to attend the playoff extravaganza to play a fun match with each other. Traditionally, the winner of the match walks off with a case of beer for their trouble, which is not half bad and better than 63 of the other squads. Hopefully, both Kerry Hills Pub and Kiss My Ace from the Wave Division will take part and eat and drink heavily along with everyone else. Winter teammates and Summer foes, Ryan Ford and John Begley, hammered away at each other with John gaining the upper hand as Casino Auto Body beat their old rivals the Federation 3-2 in five extremely close games. Even the wily veteran Rocky D. hammered away and Greg Tracy couldn’t block him even once all night. Perhaps that was because Greg was hundreds of miles away on vacation. Rocky forgot to mention that in his post-game celebration, where he once again led the team, this time in the 12 ounce curl competition. Saturday, the two teams will face off again for the third time this year. Right now they have split the 10 games played in 2014 and only one will advance out of the first round. It promises to be a real battle. TBG/Murph, wordsmith non-parell and league vocabularian (sic) redeemed himself Wednesday night by serving thirteen points in a row. It was quite an accomplishment, though the opposing team had not come onto the court during his run. Patrick “Bagel” Goldberg (wannabe Brian Bagley) and his brother Alex promised TBG a sweatshirt. TBG will be apprised where the nearest Modell’s is. Odder than the nice weather tonight was the appearance of Tom Last, who actually showed up first for the first time. Joe Moore says it’s nice to have family support. His family tip of the day is, “It’s cheaper to buy beer in Rite Aid than Waldbaums.” Now there’s some family support you can really use. It’s still all good with It’s All Good and that’s good for everyone. Cement Shoes has been playing great ball this season and running and jumping and terrific playing has been reported by his teammates week after week. Ergo, the famous Cement Shoes may be transferred from Flanagan to Murphy (to Chance?) at the end of the year. We shall see. Some folks say a mail carrier wearing cement shoes is not very unusual at all. Either way Dickie will still be Murph’s CFF (Concrete Feet Friend) not BFF.

The RBVL committee would like to thank the overwhelming number of players who have cooperated with the “no bottle” policy. Unfortunately, bottles have been noticed on the beach and we are forced to play bottle police. It’s not fair to us or the league to do that. We have a comfortable but precarious relationship with the custodians of the park. Some of the common excuses are: We take them with us and/or I couldn’t find cans. Gateway and the RBVL don’t care. The regulation doesn’t allow for excuses to determine who qualifies for an exemption. No one qualifies. And the beach has not been spotlessly clean the last two weeks. Make sure to clean up when you leave and help out by picking up any stray garbage even if it wasn’t yours. Everyone is in this together. Consider this practice for the playoffs, where everyone must be on their best behavior since all of Gateway will be watching. A few weeks ago Gateway spotted people on the beach with a bonfire going late at night. They were taken into the station house and fined. Luckily it was not any RBVL players. Let’s keep it that way. For the first time this season Rathbones, the former Brooklyn Transplants, is going to comment in the Wave article. This is equivalent to Sir Edmund Hillary’s first. (Google Mt Everest.) The reason is quite simple. They finished first for the first time in their ten year history in the league. It was all thanks to the new additions to the team, Erin and Anna Charles. Management has called for a ten o’clock curfew on Friday night. Good luck enforcing that.

Simba’s Pride won all five games and clinched first place in the Sun Ray Division. They are looking forward to their sweatshirts, err, Saturday’s playoffs. Lou Maiocco’s spike was as sharp as a pincer, according to Caroline Clark. (Would that be known as a pincer movement?) Alix Blutstein boasts Simba’s Pride has the winner of the 2013 musical chairs on their team, legendary musical chair maestro, Tommy Ray. Who wouldn’t like to have that on their resume?

The Beach House took three out of five from the Beach Bums and relied heavily on Jane McNoble to set the mighty Oldstein. The strange thing is Jane is not a setter. Yet, she is the only person on the team who can set. It sounds like the team needs to re-think some positions before Saturday. EZ Company completed their tenth season by snapping to attention with four wins. The passing game finally came together with TJ, DQ, and BK leading the charge. Senior Spike continued her winning ways and Mike M. continued to dominate with his serve. Dan E. made a great comeback and Devon remained strong. The strategy was planned by Sheila and Sally. (What? No nickname or initials?) Confidence is high for Saturday’s playoffs. William J. Lachner would like to say happy birthday to Conor McHale. Robert McHale says he always plays the last game of the season because he dances the last dance of the season. Shout out to Dancer and hopes that everything is OK in the health department. Katelyn Stone lost a gold chain with a gold watch wedding band on it; it was her grandmother’s wedding ring. Hopefully, someone finds it and returns it to the league or directly to her. Rincon Gringo’s’ Jimmy Matuzzi had a uniform malfunction causing his shorts to tear open at a sensitive seam, exposing Jimmy to the world. Jimmy was heard to yell out, “They’re a size 40. I will never buy clothes from a U.S Marshall’s sale again. I want my dollar back.” The strangest thing was Connolly’s won the first three games but then lost the next two after the ripped shorts incident. Apparently, Jimmy exposed Connolly’s weaknesses as well as his own. The game was placed under protest by Glenn Pfister, claiming overexposure south of the border. Glenn felt it distracted and unnerved his team’s setters.

Spirit plus spirit equals explosive volleyball. The Bungalow Baranha’s vs. the IFMA’s was a love fest of epic proportions. We’ve been each other’s biggest fans for some years now and to play each other on the final night of the 2014 season was utter bliss. Camaraderie and good sportsmanship was the name of the game as IFMA’s took 3 from the first place Baranha’s. Saturday is another beast for all to tackle, see you there Mooners. Pico got a good laugh from Jim McDonough who used his head to re-direct a ball over the net. As you can imagine, the comments went on for several plays. The RBVL welcomes first time player Jennifer Riso from Bay Ridge. She is enjoying both the play and the party. Leo wore one white sock tonight to get a leg up on the competition. Perhaps it was more of a tribute to Michael Jackson. Kevin Quinn has been missed due to an ankle injury but his team is keeping its collective fingers crossed that he will be back for the playoffs. Pico would like to wish everyone in their division good luck, when they are playing against each other. It is an historic fact that the refs are first on the food line going on twenty years. As is tradition, it occurred again Wednesday night. However, there was almost a brouhaha amongst the refs when Ed and Vinny allowed two young ladies to cut in front of all their fellow refs and go to the front of the line. In a conspiratorial hush-hush discussion, several of the refs plotted a roller derby move on the hungry waifs but then one ref stated, “Hey they look in shape,” and the plot faded. Ref Tony Carty started hyperventilating because he thought there might not be any food left for his third trip to the buffet, otherwise known as his, “Next day breakfast to go plate.” Flashing lights and sirens were seen around the west side of the boardwalk. Don’t worry. The Big Mahooshkas were questioned and released. However, they will be subject to stop and frisk prior to stepping onto the court. For all their supporters, they will be signing autographs now through 2015. We are playing for you Chris D. Captains and players are reminded that they can have team items entered in the weekly Wave article by showing up at the sponsor bar or by e-mailing Joe at jmcgivney2@nyc.rr.com by 11 PM on Wednesday night. The RBVL has a Facebook page and, if you like it, you will receive timely updates, whoever you are, captain or not. If you have any questions please call Patty Moule at 917-613-0908. (Call between 10 AM and 9 PM.)

See you on the beach 8/9 for the Grand Finale!