Crunch Time

Week 16- August 12th, 2010 Update
What?  You don’t say……another perfect week attendance-wise?  We had 20 of 20 golfers once again thanks to Roberto Astacio and Matt Sharp despite it being a little warmer than usual….just a little bit. Thanks guys!

Vince Lombardi, George Allen, Knute Rockne, …..Cuzin’ Joe?  So many memorable and motivational historical sports speeches throughout the years.  Who can forget the Miracle on Ice inspired by coach Herb Brooks’ words to his 1980 USA Olympic Hockey team just before they beat the Russians.  “Great moments are born from great opportunity……This is your time“.  Or Knute Rockne’s famous line, “Win one for the Gipper” during halftime to the Irish of Notre Dame in 1928 referring to the tragic death of former Irish player George Gipp.  But forget all those you’ve heard before, none of those speeches compare to the one Cuzin’ Joe delivered to his teammates via email just hours before tee time on August 12th, 2010.  We have the exclusive inspirational speech in it’s entirety, right here on the GCCGL website.   It will forever go down in the history books known simply as “Crunch Time”.
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From: Joe Cook
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 1:43 PM
To: Goldenberg, Peter; Don.Moore@cchmc.org; Metz, Shane
Subject: Crunch Time

Fellow ABB Teammates,

With 3 weeks left in the season its time to take over. No more holding back and no more excuses. If you’re not out there playing for yourselves play for me. Play for Cuzin Joe. Because the only thing that will make my life complete is if I beat Big Cuzin Mike in this golf league. This is his life. This is all he cares about. He eats, sleeps, drinks, and plays GCCGL golf.

Since Peter Goldenberg has been somewhat missing over the past few weeks, I’m taking it in my hands to lead this team to a league championship. Cuz that’s what I do. I played basketball for the Vipers the past 2 yrs and we won championships. I play softball for the RamRods and we win championships. I play golf for TEAM ABB and were gonna win us a damn championship.

They said last week that KBSOB had a comfortable 13.5 point lead, that it was all but over!  What?  “Over”?  Did they say “over”?  Nothing’s over until we decide it is!  Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

(Germans?)…forget it, he’s on a roll.

Hell, no!

And it ain’t over now.  ‘Cause when the going gets tough………(long pause) ……the tough get going!  Who’s with me?  Let’s go!  Come on!

We have 4 great matchups that favor us this week. Everyone take this serious and everyone stomp your competition. Were not friends with any of these guys anymore not on the Course. Only on the patio with pitchers of beer after we’ve beaten them down. When your playing this week, I want everyone to feel like you did when you watched Scott Rolen try to strangle Chris Carpenter. Or for Goldie, feel like you did when Pedro threw Zimmer to the ground. You need to be that fired up on #10 Tee box today. With all this said….get it done.

With Love and Leadership,

TEAM ABB FOR LIFE

CJ
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There it is, the now infamous Crunch Time speech forever ingrained in GCCGL history.  But did it work?  As with all great motivational speeches, it did work and it led to ABB grabbing 24 points this week and moving within 6 points of first place!  Meanwhile WOGD scored 24.5 points and moved within 8 points of first place.  Three teams, two weeks, only 8 points separating them.  As Cuzin’ Joe so profoundly stated in his famous pep talk, it’s crunch time!

Meanwhile, there’s an absolutely furious fight to the finish between the 4th and 5th place teams to NOT finish LAST.  It wasn’t long ago that it was a forgone conclusion that the Shaft Masters were going to finish at the bottom of the standings.  Well, they are only 1.5 points from overtaking the sliding Zingers.  This is the race within the race.  What a finish.

It’s here, Week 17, August 19th. Rayburn vs Berkley (after “the trade”). The price to be included in that foursome has been rumored to be fetching in upwards of $250.  Please see Cletus for details.

Around the league, the GCCGL ShoutBox got hacked, it was just a matter of time.  Harris is so pissed right now he’s considering jeopardizing his perfect attendance record dating back to ’07.  He’s considering letting CJ play his card since his card will shoot a 41 and he states he can’t shoot better than that on the Willows back nine.  Of course this is not true, he shot a 40 against Reinersman on week 8.  Rayburn, no doubt still fuming from being traded, threatened to not show up and not get a sub so that Don Moore (who’s on the 2nd place team) could destroy Rayburn’s card and grab a bunch of points thus hurting his former team.  In retrospect, I think it would have been more effective if Rayburn showed up and played left-handed with his right-handed clubs and let Don win 10 – 0.  This no doubt would add fuel to the proverbial pot of controversy and lead to the creation of a new GCCGL rule like the Syndrome Episode.  In the Mike Harris vs The League segment, Mike went 3 – 16 – 0 this week.  Ouch.  In another classic Cletus moment on hole #13 his foursome had all hit and were waiting on Cletus to hit.  He addresses the ball and does his usual 50 practice swings.  Just as he’s getting ready to take his back swing a cow lets out a huge Moooooooo to which he says to JJ your wife is calling and then proceeds to hack the ball about 100 yards into the weeds on the right.  Oh that Cletus!  Karma is real.

The low net winners were Goldie, Bedell and Cook (A/B) with a low net of 33 and Matt McLinn (C/D) with a low net of 31! Congratulations to the winners!

The schedule is set. Check out the new poll question. Last week on the back nine of the Willows. We look forward to seeing you on the golf course.  Good luck to all and as always……hit ’em straight!

George Almeida, GCCGL co-commissioner