Author: Paul Adler

Another message from our League Operator

The League Operator has a wide set of poor health over the past few weeks.  It looks as though it will continue that way for a while.  Notice no end date is predicted yet.
The underlying cause turns out to be a rare condition.  Although treatment has begun for that, other complications have also arisen.

The purpose of this announcement, though, is to highlight that through the collaborative work of the League Operator, his spouse, and Shooter’s personnel the raffle and league scoring continues uninterrupted.  Yes, there were icky scoresheets in Week 01 and the Creepy Bullys were misnamed for a little while, but timing consequences like these do have accurate outcomes.
On a personal level, the League Operator is greatly appreciative for all that the league has done with best wishes and expressions of hope.  There is really nothing else to be done.  Time and healing is what’s needed.

Noteworthy events from 2024 Spring Week 01

Outstanding outing(s):

  1. Mona T scored the only perfect 80.
  2. Kevin C shot a 77.
  3. Kyle B tallied 76 points.

RAFFLE Status:

  1. Ramiro G from Scorpions was selected and cashed out for 2/9ths of the available pot.  41 different people invested this week.
  2. Mike M was the second person selected and did not reap a reward for it.
  3. The remaining raffle pot rolls over to Week 02.  

OTHER:

  1. Roster alterations since sign-up night:
    • There Goes My 80 replaced Matt S with Ricky R
    • Free Agents added AJ N as a sub
    • Vatos Locos added Ramiro G (yes, another one, but this one is not known for selling Girl Scout cookies like the Ramiro G on Scorpions)
  2. League debuts included:
    • John C of Vatos Locos
  3. Steve J returned from a season or two of non-participation.
  4. Ricky R returned after a far longer absence.
  5. Creepy Bullys had one absence causing a HCP decrease thereby awarding 16 bonus points to their Mother Hustlers opponent.
  6. Last Game had one absence without a HCP impact.
  7. There was a barrage of mis-prepared scoresheets this week. The primary cause was an oversight by our League Operator who normally checks
    those things before printing. But his routine was significantly altered as explained in the Message from the League Operator post which immediately precedes this Noteworthy events from 2024 Spring Week 01 post.
  8. Zero individuals invested in the Top Shooter side-pot competition.  The deadline to enroll is 11pm on Week 03 – April 25th.  This season will require playing a minimum of 13 weeks to qualify.  See rule 24.B for more details.

A message from our League Operator

Some to many of you in the newly-begun Spring 2024 Season have noticed the absence of our League Operator.  It is due to a set of health-related issues.
The issue that caused my trip to the ER early in the morning of our Apr 4th Signup Night has been resolved now.  I will, nevertheless, likely return to League Night attendance on Week 05, May 2nd with the delay due to my greatly-reduced ability to fight off infections – a side effect of the health issues that remain.
In the meantime, there are some individuals on Shooter’s staff, especially Alex B and venue owners who have picked up one or more of the gears to propel the League forward with only minor impacts. Two minor impacts are:

    1. Raffle money winners will need to wait a week to be paid in full, but the 1st winner on a given night will have availability to the raffle investments that were made on that night.
    2. Individual Stats, Team Stats, Team Rosters, Current Schedule, and Latest News updates to the shooters8ball.com website will likely be delayed until Sunday instead of Saturday each week – to allow for the data to flow to the correct places as efficiently as possible.

I extend my deepest thanks to all of you who have been concerned whether or not you’ve notified me of it.
Please also be assured that I am taking time now to enhance documentation describing  how to do the League Operator responsibilities and how to use the tools on which the league relies for tracking all of its data.  There will eventually be a day when someone else or a team will need to replace me in that role.  I continue to work for and hope for that day to be at least a couple years away from now.

Noteworthy events from 2024 Spring Signup night

The official signup for the general public concluded with 18 teams enrolled.  The season will end on 15Aug2024’s Party night.  Also, because we’ll have more than 14 teams playing each week, there will be 7-foot tables included in this season’s schedule.

If any other individuals are interested to join in, please notify the venue (Shooter’s Sports Bar and Billiards, Grayslake Illinois)  before Tuesday, 09Apr2024::7:00pm.  The venue will, in turn, notify the league operator by the final deadline of 8pm on the same night.

The season’s match play officially begins on Thursday, 11Apr2024 at 7:30pm.

The captains/delegates at the meeting participated in a rule change discussion and vote.  Summary of the discussions, but no changes were implemented:

  1. Earbuds – at least one brought up a dislike for them, but the league voted not to restrict them.
  2. Scotch Doubles. The concept of switching our weekly matches to Scotch Doubles format was voiced, but will take some more detailed discussion and planning if we eventually choose to adopt that drastic of a change.
  3. Someone brought up a dislike for the no-jumping rule, but that remains a venue rule with which we must comply.

RAFFLE Status:

There were 299 chances invested in this evening’s raffle opportunity.

  1. Steve V was picked and sank three balls before cashing out for one third of the available raffle pot.  His prize money was delayed due to the League Operator’s absence on this night.
  2. Jim S was selected and didn’t get the opportunity to cash out any prize money.
  3. The remaining raffle pot rolls over to 2024 Spring season’s Week 01.

OTHER:

  1. The League Operator was unavailable to attend this night due to being hospitalized.  Great replacement coverage was enacted by a combination of Alex B for raffle conduct, Jesus for table-time fee collections, and Nancy K for facilitating the rules discussions and voting.
    • It is uncertain whether or not the League Operator will be available again in time to attend Week 01, but be assured it is not even close to being a life-threatening condition.
  2. One teamless individual signed up (Gary M) and says he’s a good player.  We’re hoping that a team with one or more sub openings will pick him up on the roster on Week 01, but the deadline allows for Week 03 at the latest.
  3. 15 of our 18 teams were in the just-ended 2023_4 Winter season, although a one or two-person switch was implemented by some.  One completely new team has now joined  The other two teams are a hodge-podge of players from the past.

Noteworthy events from 2023_4 Winter Week 20 (Party)

Outstanding outing(s):

  1. 40 individuals were paired into 20 teams for the Scotch-Doubles tournament.  The two teams that earned the finals match agreed to split the pot evenly.   Kevin J and Stan G was one team and Lito G and Sharon W was the other.
    • Lito & Sharon were victorious in the preceding three matches against:
      • Brian C & John G
      • Nancy K and Ed G
      • Ramiro G and Sultan S in the semi-final – thereby breaking Sultan’s streak of having reached the finals the past three tournaments.
    • The team of Kevin & Stan won their preceding three matches against:
      • Norberto E & Jerry W
      • Bryan W and Nestor C
      • Dennis S and Dave G (Goose) in the semi-final

RAFFLE Status:

  1. Sean B was selected for the 2nd time this season. He had a dry break on Table 15.
  2. Fermin A was also picked for the 2nd time this season, but unlike the 1st time, was unable to cash out any prize money tonight.
  3. The entire raffle pot rolls over to next week’s official 2024 Spring Season sign-up night!

OTHER:

  1. By night’s end, 6 teams were listed on the signup sheets for the 2024 Spring season, but the sheets weren’t made available until pretty late in the evening.  Next week is official sign-up night to the Open Public, so we’ll expect at least a few more teams to join in then.
  2. The end of season ceremony included the following announcements:
    1. For at least the 2nd consecutive season, the team that finished 2nd in the preceding season, finished 1st this season.  This season they are named Last Game!!
    2. Larry P was the league’s official Top Shooter with a 9.042 points per game average. Mona T won the Top Shooter side-pot (as described in the current rule 24.B), but was the only competitor.
    3. Eric C was recognized with the greatest average-per-game percentage improvement (10.51%) when comparing final average to the average heading into Week 01. Mike B was 2nd at 09.25% and Mike K third at 08.87%.
    4. Tony L was the player whose final average points per game was closest to what it was at the season’s onset – finishing at 6.681 and having begun at 6.667.  Tony was also recognized in the 2023 Summer Season ceremony for the same achievement – so two seasons in a row!!
    5. Other stats from this season:
      • 106 of our 111 rostered players had at least one week played, and 22 people played all 18 possible weeks.
      • We had 9 players make their league debuts.  Three were from the Free Agents roster (AJ N, Kyle B, and Kevin D) and two each were with Pool Sharks (Jeff L and Nestor C) and TBD’s (Jon S and Ron M).
      • 24 different people were selected in the raffle draws this season.
        • Mike K and Nancy K were each picked three times and Norberto E had the most with four.
        • There were 11 different cash-outs totaling over eight thousand bucks.  Kyle B had the largest prize after sinking five balls in Week 02.
  3. The league operator has no prize money left over, so contact your team captain if you didn’t collect your prize money yet.
  4. Eleven 18″ pizzas were served and none remained at the night’s end.
  5. A Scotch Doubles Tournament was conducted and was much improved with our modified rule 24 limiting one timeout per game per team.   There is still room for improvement though to figure out a way to get the tourney started earlier.
  6. Trivial stat of the season: Excluding Week 01, the team that played against Road Warriors each week had a BYE scheduled for the following week. Week 01 is excluded because Week 02 was the Road Warriors’ BYE week.

End of season standings in reverse order:

  1. TBD’s– featuring members of the Scott family.
  2. Pool Sharks– featuring members of the Dogan family and friends.
  3. Sharp Shooter’s – featuring 8 different roster lineups during the season.
  4. Should Be Out – a team that only used a substitute in three of the 18 non-BYE weeks.
  5. Scorpions a team greatly admired by the League Operator for having paid their full weekly fees before the 2nd half of the season even began.
  6. One Way- Upward, true to their name finished higher in the standings than in the preceding season.
  7. Crazy Crabs – the primary team to take advantage of the ACS Illinois State Tournament this season.
  8. There Goes My 80 – also highly regarded by the League Operator for getting the full fees paid each and every week of the season – whether or not all the players were on site.
  9. Behind the 8-Ball – the only team that began the season with a BYE week and ended the season scheduled against Road Warriors.
  10. Racking My Brain
  11. Pocket Rattlers
  12. Creepy Bullys
  13. Double Focus
  14. Road Warriors – their furthest distance ever from a 1st place finish.
  15. Free Agents – although the team name is familiar from the past, the majority of their team membership was formed on sign-up night.
  16. Big Slick – A team that only used a sub in two weeks and was satisfied using  only three players on four other weeks.
  17. Wolff Pack – in the hunt for most of the season.
  18. PhaCues – It seems like they were in each section of the standings at one week or another throughout the season and had a significant thrust in the final four weeks.
  19. Last Game – finishing with an average of 310.94 points per week.  The team members were captain Fermin A, Esteban Q, Norberto E, Alejandro T, Guillermo G, and Edgar A.

Congratulations to all!!