The Perfect Game

We won again this week, and I’ll come back to that. First I’d like to talk about the New York Mets.

I grew up idolizing my grandfather. And so I was a Mets fan. The second fact follows from the first as inexorably as America’s western expansion. You see, in its early history, Baseball was an eastern sport. It made sense. The big markets were on the east coast and sports were already big business. In New York City, where my grandfather lived, there were three teams: the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants. Each team’s fan base had a unique character, and if you followed baseball, you drew a large part of your identity from who you supported.

My grandfather was a Brooklyn Dodgers man. If you knew him, you would understand. The Dodgers were the lovable losers, the Bad News Bears, Charlie Brown. They were talented but always coming up short. Their unofficial team motto, “Wait till next year” perfectly encapsulated the hope the team inspired in its fans. When the team relocated to Los Angeles, it left many fans, including my grandfather, adrift and without a team to throw themselves behind.

All that changed when Major League Baseball expanded to include the New York Mets in 1962. Although they were the worst team in the league, my grandfather thought they were the extension of the dodgers: a new band of losers to urge towards an unlikely glory. When I was old enough to choose my favorite team, my father and grandfather made it clear that I could choose any team I liked… as long as it wasn't the Yankees. They needn’t have worried, the Mets were my natural choice. I loved my grandfather too much to make any other choice.

If I’m to be honest, it is my love for the man, not for the team, which leads me to continue my fandom. More Wile E. Coyote than Charlie Brown, the current Mets are the unlovable losers of Major League Baseball. They spend more money and gain less in return than any team in the league. They sell their home grown stars and sign overpriced mercenaries from others. They have no defining trait, no real identity. For me, the Mets appeal is my grandfather. That and “the streak”.

Perhaps the most coveted accomplishment in baseball is the no-hitter. To record one, a pitcher must record 27 outs without giving up a hit. It is exceptionally difficult and rare. This year, there were 4860 starts and only 3 no-hitters among them. That’s fewer than one per 1000. Still, despite their rarity, almost every team has at least one on their record books. Up until June 1, 2012, the Mets had never thrown one. The streak was a whisper from the past, some measure of perfection the team could strive for, but never quite touch.

In every form of competition there is an ideal, a bar that stands above the rest. In pub trivia, like in baseball, it is the perfect game. You try to answer every question correctly, and sometimes you come close, but you always seem to trip when you come close. Needless to say, our team has never reached that particular peak. This week we flew through the first two sets of questions without as much as a second guess. In each game, there are 86 possible points: 6 rounds containing 3 questions, one halftime question, and one final question. I usually don’t even consider the possibility unless we get through halftime unscathed, but this week I had perfection on my mind.

The second question of the third round was “Name the president who started the President’s Council on Fitness”. We were reasonably sure the answer was Reagan or Carter. We went with Reagan. Unfortunately, the correct answer was Dwight Eisenhower. The reason the perfect game is so elusive is that no matter what you do know, there’s bound to be a question you misinterpret or flat can't answer. Once in a while, you’ll make a good guess or luck your way into a correct answer. It’s funny that in a game that is almost exclusively about facts there remains so much uncertainty. There is a lot of luck involved. Our own streak of futility continued.

We missed a few other questions over the course of the six rounds, including this one: “In response to the stamp act of 1765, who said “If this be treason, make the most of it”. (We guessed John Hancock, the answer was Patrick Henry). Embarrassingly we also thought that all bullfrogs were male. However, before the final question we led, once again, by a single point. Although, as I pointed out in my last entry, some large swings can and do happen, leading, even by a single point, is quite advantageous. Simply, if we knew the final question, we would win.

The last question was this: “What current Major League Baseball team that entered the league in 1969 is the only franchise to never throw a no-hitter”? Of course, the first answer I came up with was the New York Mets, but Johan Santana had, at last, broken their streak of futility on June 1^st 2012 and beside, the Mets came into the league in 1962. We began to think about other possible answers and quickly came up with the San Diego Padres.

I’d heard so often, watching another listless performance by my Mets, they were one of two teams who had never thrown a no-hitter, but I couldn’t quite remember that other team. When my teammate suggested the Padres, however, a bell went off in my head. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was likely to be the correct answer. This week we knew betting the maximum had to be the right move. The answer was too easy to figure out, many teams were likely to get the right answer, and we felt confident in our guess.

There was no suspense. After we handed in our answer we checked the answer and knew that we had it. Coming through by the skin of your teeth is certainly a more thrilling way to win, winning by guile rather than brute force. There is something to be said, however, for the sure thing. It is a lesser degree of perfection I think. And, for this week at least, it was enough.

Halftime Question:

On October 29, 1993 these are the top 4 songs on the Billboard Top 100 name each artist:

1.       “Dreamlover”

2.       “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I won’t Do That)”

3.       “Whoomp, There It Is”

4.       “The Sign”

Spiff

Spiff ordered the nachos again. Not that any of us should have been surprised. He wears the same shirt every week, though I remain fairly certain it isn’t the exact same shirt. I imagine his closet: a line of pressed red polos and blue jeans hung over wooden hangers waiting to be chosen, washed, rehung. He comes to the same bar at the same time every week to play pub trivia alone. If possible he sits in the same place, sipping an Orange Crush. He always orders the nachos. A few teams have asked him to join them. He has always refused. I’m not sure if he’s aloof or shy. But it is safe to say he is a creature of habit. He is also our great pub trivia nemesis. I have never spoken to the man.

Our group, on the other hand, is quite a bit more social… and flighty. When we can’t get together, we skip weeks at a time. We joke with the host, make him repeat every question. We worry more about our team name than our final score. One week we’ll be “Reptar Returns” or “Doug Funny’s Quailmen”, the next “The Flying V’s (quack quack quack)”. Our table has hosted school teachers, baristas, lawyers, engineers and professional gamblers. Pub trivia is a great equalizer. Here, more than most, the game is not about what you do, it’s about what you know. And despite our inconsistencies, we win as often as anyone.

It was halftime and I had already let the team down. I had known for a fact that Frank Robinson’s first job as a manager was with the Baltimore Orioles. I was so certain, in fact, that we wagered five points—the maximum—on the answer. The worst feeling in the world of pub trivia is, by far, knowing an answer with absolute certainty, convincing a table full of your friends to put their collective fate into your hands, and getting it absolutely wrong. Frank Robinson, much to my dismay, managed the Cleveland Indians first, becoming the first Black manager in MLB history.

A special kind of shame fills you when your sure thing turns out to be wrong. But shame is part of the game. One might be well read, or a genius scientist, or a pop culture whiz. But everyone has blind spots, and any question might expose one of them. No one likes to be exposed.

But that’s why you have teammates, and mine were killing it. Constitutional law, anatomy, Simon and Garfunkel, they made each question seem easier than the one before. By the time one of my teammates started singing Flo-Rida, I thought tonight had the chance to be something special. I looked at Spiff staring into the dregs of his orange soda. He had fallen hopelessly behind without a team to help fill the gaps in his knowledge.

At the midpoint we were trailing by 3, but by the time the last question rolled around, we were a point clear of the field. Like the great Nickelodeon game show, “Double Dare”, however, pub trivia comes down to a final bonus round that can, and usually does, make the preceding events almost meaningless. In this particular bar, you can wager any point value between 0-15. If you answer correctly, that number gets added; answer incorrectly, however, and you lose those points. Needless to say, some big swings are possible, and we only led by one point.

Here was the question: “Which Asian country is home to the bestselling brand of liquor by the case”. Now, sometimes you know the answer for certain, in which case, you can bet 15 without much fear. Other times, you can figure out the answer through deductive reasoning. Often, in those cases, you should still bet 15 if you think you’ve got a good chance at getting it, especially if you’re team is way behind. This time, however, we were pretty stumped. We guessed every country from India to Japan to New Guinea (Not an Asian country). We even floated the correct answer for a while (S. Korea). In the end we settled on India as our answer, but we also knew that was more of a wild swing than a well-reasoned guess. Now we had to decide how much to wager.

As it turns out, betting the maximum is often the correct strategy. Whether it’s because we know the answer, we need to make up some serious ground, or our opponents are so likely to get the question right, usually we end up muttering “eff it” as we scribble a half intuited answer beneath our wager. This time, however, we thought better of it. We were so unsure of the answer, and there were so many possible guesses, we decided betting zero was the right course of action. Obviously, the hope was that all the teams below us would fail to answer the question correctly and provide us with the win.

As the host read off the final scores one by one, we held our breaths. He worked his way up the list, from last to first. Team after team had missed the question, would our strategy pay off? This must be what the participants in “Miss America” feel like, I thought to myself. We had entered the round with 58 points; third place had a paltry 47 so we just needed to beat one more team. “And in second with Fifty-Seven points…” We knew what that meant. We had done it, and by a single point to boot. By the slimmest of margins, our bet had worked. I stood to give everyone high fives.

Celebrating a bar trivia win might be the most awkward, uncool kind of celebration there is, but damn it still feels good to win. Emerging from the bar a winner is as close as many of us will ever come to the high professional athletes must feel when they walk from the field of play victorious. For me, it’s all there: the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.

We tipped our server and burst into the open night.

 

Halftime question:

Match the game with the catch phrase (no cheating):

1.       The Colored Card Game

2.       The Royal Game of India

3.       The Game of Unspeakable Fun

4.       Skill Game Where You Are the Doctor