Bocce Balling on the West Coast: April Fool's Bocce

On Sunday I went to the Pacific Grove Art Center's 3rd Annual Bocce Tournament and had a blast. I got to meet Pacific Grove Mayor Carmelita Garcia, Johnny Aliotti—with whom I had been communicating for a few weeks about donating copies of Bocce Balling on the West Coast for the winners of the tournament—and, most exciting of all, the owners and publishers of the Pacific Grove Hometown Bulletin, Edie and Xavier, aka Professor X. I had been planning on taking notes on the event and submitting a story to them, not figuring that they would be there. But they were, I asked if they had it covered, and they said I could take the story. Our team was to be my dad, my friends Sarah and Kevin, and myself. Nic Coury from the Weekly came by and ended up playing on our team in place of my father who had to attend to non-bocce matters. An amiable rivalry developed between Xavier and Nic as representatives of free semi-weekly and weekly local periodicals. I took Xavier's side, naturally, now in his paper's employ; but then our team took on Xavier's and I, naturally, switched sides. We lost, however. My assignment went on hours after that initial loss, and our one win, and the final loss an hour later. I finally had to leave at 6, 7 hours after sign up, before the last match—between Xavier's PGHB team and one of the two Deboccery squads—missing the end result. I wrote this the next day and submitted it to Xavier:

When I talked to Johnny Aliotti about the Pacific Grove Art Center's 3rd annual benefit Bocce Tournament, the plan was that it would be played on courts brought into the PGAC's building downtown as it was the last two years. Only two teams had signed up, however, and with the cost of putting the courts in being $900, Johnny considered moving the event to the Custom House courts in downtown Monterey, and I concurred. It rained on and off the day before, continuing as I went to sleep, leaving me to doubt whether we'd be playing at all.

Perhaps it was an early cosmic April Fools joke to make us all wake up with dreams of playing Bocce in puddles, because April began with a glorious sunny morning, and when I got there for the 11 o'clock sign up the courts were already drying up with the help of a team of rakers, rollers and brushers. One anonymous joker suggested the politicians make some speeches by the courts to dry them up. I signed up my team alongside the 10 others which included two PG Hometown Bulletin teams, Mayor Carmelita Garcia's City Council team, called Removed from Consent, and the reigning champions of the first two tournaments, Aliotti's Victorian Corner, representing the Pacific Grove Restaurant.

Johnny announced the proceedings to the crowd of volunteers, passers-by, state park rangers and bocce ballers on a vintage-looking mic, like those used by boxing announcers. Mayor Garcia and Ron Chesshire threw out the first balls, and the tournament commenced with the first two matches. Victorian Corner was upset on Court 1 and Removed from Consent were victorious on Court 2 in simultaneous matches. Etiquette and rules were explained around the courts, and certain phrases were bandied about like "You gotta fix your divots," explained when a ball would displace enough decomposed granite to make the surface of the court uneven.

A few dozen matches, and as many generous pourings of wine later, our team—Bocce Balls of Wrath—was knocked out, along with the reigning champions and most of the other teams. By the time I left, seven hours after sign-in [began-BGM], the sun was going down, the wind was picking up and two teams were left, including Xavier Maruyama's Hometown Bulletin team. Mayor Garcia, who threw the first ball at the first tournament and played in the second, decreed the event a "great new tradition," and, when asked how it compared at the new location, she said she preferred it outdoors at the California State Park run courts.

It was a beautiful day with great bocce played by everyone from first-time rollers to seasoned veterans, and a great benefit for PG's Arts Center.

Xavier replied back with an account of the last game of the tournament:

[Update with Bragging Rights: The Pacific Grove Hometown Bulletin had fielded two teams, the women's team had to bring to everyone's mind that the food columnist, Roberta Brown was there, and they chose the name, “Hot, Sexy and Spicey.” This team managed to eliminate the City Council team, but came up short in the losers' bracket. The second team evoked thoughts of our paper with the the name, “Read and Right.” Read our editorials and you'll get the connection. PGHB beat the professionals “Deboccery” and had to stand around doing nothing for quite a while. That gave us a chance to imbibe and we lost our sober demeanor. In the championship match, “Deboccery” beat us twice and they took first place. PGHB however came in second – not bad for a team without an Italian in the bunch? XKM]

I asked Nic Coury from the Weekly for pictures from the event for this post, also if he wanted to profile Bocce Balling on the West Coast in the paper. I recieved no reply, but Sarah gave me the pictures he took from facebook.