Congratulations to Marshall Chambers and Ken Sayre for winning 1st place in the Team Captain’s Tournament. We separated the boards and Marshall edged out Ricardo Ramirez and won the 5-7 Board to win $270 and Ken Sayre beat out Steve Credle for top honors on the 2-4 skill level board. Ken won $120. In all, 81 Captains from all over San Diego County converged on the Hungry Stick to compete for $1750 in prize money. We also gave away nearly $2000.00 in free raffle prizes. The prizes involved were pool cues, and accessories from Billiards Direct and Quality Billiards and some APA shirts and other items courtesy of the San Diego APA. We thank everyone that participated and we look forward to doing this event again next year. Results of the tournament have been posted to the web site.
The 8 Ball Blast will feature the new 3 point scoring system for determining winners. We are also using a new Sudden Death format that will be explained in your Blast rules and can be found on the message board section of our web site in the Tournament forum. Blast rosters and schedules will be posted soon. Schedules will be posted first.
The Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday divisions are all playing their 4th week, and that’s when all players must be paid up in membership fees. If we do not receive membership fees for players that still owe, they will be dropped from the roster. You can still add players to your roster on week 4 or after week 4, but all new members must submit membership fees before they play. If you add a new player and they do not pay and you do not play them, they won’t be added to your roster. If you add a new player and they DO play and do not pay, we will submit their fees to APA and your team will be marked past due for the amount of those membership fees. The simple solution is to collect their fees before you play them.
I’d like to take the remainder of this newsletter to remind everyone about good sportsmanship. Each and every player in our league joined this league for some competitive pool and the opportunity to have some fun. I can totally understand when some people get so caught up in their own lives that they tend to forget why they joined the APA. However, regardless of where you currently are in your own life, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DISRUPT OTHER APA MEMBERS FROM HAVING FUN. There have been some recent incidents that have done exactly that, and we are not going to sit quietly by and let people do this. Often times it’s a repeat offender, and we are to blame when it continues from the same people over and over again. We will not let this continue to happen by the same people. It might mean that some people are not allowed to play in the APA anymore, but the only way to really stop poor sportsmanship is to remove the people who refuse to adhere to our rules and respect the people around them. The thing that is most unsettling is that really nice and respectful people might quit the league because of these antagonists and therefore they must be dealt with accordingly.
We have mentioned time and again that if you are having a bad day or night, GO HOME. Let someone else run the team that night so that your bad night doesn’t make everyone else’s night miserable. If you are just intolerable to everyone else, just QUIT. APA is not your job. It’s a game. It’s a game that requires skill and strategy, like a game of chess. Your opponent is not at war with you. They are a worthy adversary that has approximately a 50% chance to defeat you if they play better than you or you make too many mistakes. They are someone with whom, at the end of your match, you can shake hands and then declare a nice match, whether you won or you lost. A close hit that two teams see differently does not change that it is a game. Be respectful of the rules, the spirit of the rules and why they were written, and your opponent and all of the people around you. Taking a GAME as seriously as some people do is partially why tempers tend to flare up. They start treating a game like a job instead of just treating it for what it is. A game. You might find more people wanting to play on your team when you give off the impression that you are having a good time. Good times are contagious. Everyone wants some of that. Bad times, not so much.