2009 Flip Cup Tournament
Flip Cups to save the Cups
I don’t even know where to begin
recapping this one. It is hard to re-count a night like that in words when many
parts of the night are permanently lost from your memory. But before I get any
more into this, I suppose I should do some background. Friend of D7 Janelle
organized this tournament with the idea of raising money for the Susan G Komen’s
Race for the Cure. Once we caught wind of it, we decided to throw our hats into
the ring. Actually Chris decided to throw his hat in the ring, and once he
commits from Boston, it’s hard not to join in, I mean if he doesn’t have an
excuse, who does? So Bob, Pete*, J, Jason, and Surin all signed up for the
cause.
*(Pete is actually someone from D7 we know and love. I was going to use his original name in this, but he is worried about being Googled, so for his personal safety, the safety of his career…and because I think it’s much funnier, I’m going to refer to him as “Pete”.).
We started out the evening with a nice lunch/dinner at Mothers in Federal Hill. We figured we’d need food in our belly and a few beers to steady our courage. I mean realistically we are pretty well into the drinking day when we play flip cup at our tailgates so no point showing up sober. The merits of this decision could be debated.
Once we arrived at Taps in Baltimore, someone, not sure who figured it would be a great idea to order some 32 oz beers to further solidify our courage, again, the success of this strategy could be debated. After warming up for what seemed like forever, the brackets were finally announced. Nine teams overall, double elimination. D7 would be facing for their first match a group of Catholic School Teachers called Bad Habit. Things did not start well.
First before I go much further, let me clarify the rules. In D7 Flip Cup, we fill the solo cup up to the first line, or at least make a half hearted effort to. For these cups, the line was most definitely covered by beer. When I play at tailgates, I pour the contents of said cup into my mouth, and then swallow the beer with one gulp. In the Tournament, that was not an option. You need to either continuously chug, or fill…swallow…fill swallow. I didn’t do to good at either. In fact, I definitely under achieved for basically the whole night.
Going back to our first match up. Because of…I’m guessing me, we actually came up short in game 1. Luckily that was exactly the slap in the face we needed to get things going. I don’t know the details of what happened next, but we were able to pull it together enough to win the next three. D7 had arrived!!
Moving on in the winners bracket, we faced the Breast-aholics. This team was lead by D7 original member Andrew’s sister, Muffy…or Jen as the rest of the world calls her. They were geared up and ready to go. With Muffy’s help we were able to induce the rhythmic clapping we’ve all know and love, and in a way this helped us feel right at home. But this was no walk in the park. The Breast-aholics went toe to toe with us. In fact, the team on the inside of the table won every game (we switched sides after every game to combat this bias which apparently had some truth to it). We played the decisive game 5 once again on the inside, and the results once again held true.
Before we began this deciding game, I hit Chris in the chest and told him “Just get it to me, and I’ll take care of the rest”. I was so right, yet at the same time so wrong. The first 5 members of our team did just that handing me a sizeable lead, which was good, because I had a major case of the “yipes” in the anchor spot. Now I would like to say how I pulled one out of the fire for us, but in all honesty, I had so much time to calm myself, that by the time I was settled, we still had a comfortable margin. And the ending turned out to be anti climatic.
And that’s where things turned. In the Civil War, it was the Battle of Gettysburg. In World War Two, it was Midway, and Hitler’s decision to invade Russia. In the Persian Gulf War it was…well the first 2 seconds of the war. But regardless of the time period, the point is, there comes an event that occurs in which you can circle and say, “Yep, that’s where it all went south”. For us that was the Semi Finals.
Going back to the rulebook, there is a rule in the tournament where all semi final matches will have a feature where a team has to go both up and back. This sucked. First you have the logistics. The anchorman can not fill up his 2nd beer prior to the start of the game. So the lead off man basically has to drink, run down fill up his cup, put it down for the anchor and then the anchor once they are done with it, have to run it back up to the first person. It’s chaos! I still say, you don’t play 6 quarters in the Super Bowl, why change the rules in the Semi Finals! Then there is the fact that you are basically drinking about half a beer a game.
So for our first semi final game we had to face the other undefeated team. It didn’t take long to figure out why they were undefeated. I think everyone struggled in this one and before we knew it we were down 2-0. Then came game three, where I had my most chokingest moment of the night. I don’t know the final damage but I probably had a 20 flip. In hindsight it was probably for the best. We were not going to beat this team. Not tonight anyhow.
All this time while we were advancing to the semi finals, the “Bad Habit” team was chewing through the losers bracket. They finished off the Breast-aholics and reached the semi-final in the losers bracket where they got another crack at D7. For us, this was our second straight game of up and down. For Bad Habit, by this time in the evening, they were subbing people in and out while members of their team went to the bathroom to purge. We did not have that option. By now I’m not quite sure what happened, but we somehow forced a game 5 after being down early. But things were not meant to be, as Bad Habit took their rulers to our knuckles and finished us off. Again, probably for the best.
The moment we realized the dream was over was pretty surreal. Everyone kind of hung their head for a moment or two, but then came one of the most infamous quotes in all of drinking history “Who wants some shots?”.
From this point on, everything was a blur, punctuated by a few key moments. –
-First Chris and I played perhaps the greatest game of beer pong that either of us ever played (We may have thrown 10 balls between the two of us).
-Then we challenged Tayo and Michaelson’s team to flip cup….I have no idea how we did.
-Then “Pete” and Chris both sat hunched over on the end of the bar.
-Then apparently Chris threw up in the bar.
-Then Surin and I challenged a member of the winning team and some girl to a two on two flip cup game. Again I have no idea what happened, but I do remember thinking that the dude we were playing was a major league d%)#.
-Then “Pete” disappeared
-Then we found “Pete” on the street sitting on the curb between two cars.
-Then we took a cab, I have no idea how we paid for it, I was in the front, but I know I did not have any money at this point of the evening.
-Then “Pete” walked past our bathroom to throw up on the hotel room floor
-Somewhere during all of this I called John F.
-After “Pete” threw up I think I called or talked to Justin…I can’t stress the “I think” enough.
-Then we went to bed.
Overall it was a crazy night. Just to put things into perspective, here are a few numbers to ponder:
2-2 – Our overall record
3rd - The place we finished in
0 – the number of up and back series we won
3 – number out of 6 (50%) on our team that hurled at some point
5 – The number of people on Bad Habit who I believe hurled.
100 – The amount of money I spent at an all you can drink for 30$ event
0 – Number of teams we faced that did not finish in the top 4
$800- The amount of money Janelle was able to raise
16- The number of square feet I let Jason have on our bed
I think that is it. Overall, I can’t stress enough how much fun I had (Of course I was one of the few who didn’t recycle their last meal). In terms of actual flip cup, I would give us all a C-. I think we all struggled, I certainly can’t point any fingers, but no one had a night where they could say “I was money, it was everyone else who sucked”. And we never really had that 100% everyone on the same page series.
I am a little disappointed we came in 3rd, but at the same time, not really. After all, the team that beat us in the losers semi’s were a bunch of troopers and I don’t think we were ever going to beat the champions on this particular night. So by coming in third we just saved ourselves 3 more up and backs.
If they hold the event again next year, I’d love to do it again. I no longer think I would be one of the better players so if anyone else wants to step in, I’m guessing the other 5 guys could offer up my spot. Not sure how everyone else feels, but if the team wants me back, I’d do it again in a heart beat.