, so I hope you can hang with me while I get my bearings! There's a lot of
cool news items popping up before the next scheduled installments from regular
writers James "Cobra" King and Casey Nelson, so I
thought I'd jump in here right quick and send them out myself! (Hopefully those guys will be able to gracefully recover from the brief incursion...)
First Ever "Upside-Down Monster Bash"
Are you ready for a big foosball experiment?!
This Wednesday at Main Street Billiards in Mesa we will be hosting the first-ever event using a new Tornado table innovation! This is something that I've considered for many years and have discussed with several of you, but never had the opportunity to actually give it a try. It involves a change to the Tornado table setup that is quite radical, but IMHO, possibly revolutionary as well. Though I could just state what it is and end this post, I think it would be best if I added some context to it, because I promise you, you're initial response will likely be "has Billy lost his G.D. mind??!". LOL! Bear with me...
THE ACTION:
Invert the player figures on both ends of the rear goalie rods (3 bar).
THE EXPLANATION:
As many of us old-timers know, most foosball tables before the 80s came with a single-player-figure rear goalie rod and side ramps to help fetch the ball from the corners. In 1981, the new design came out with a 3-player-figure rear goalie rod, which in effect, served several purposes:
- It sped up the game, as players could now instantly get control of a ball in the corner without having to bounce the ball up and down the ramps several times to get it in position.
- It made the tables cheaper to produce (and purchase), as it eliminated the need to produce ramps and a rod with special bumpers to hold the single-figure rod in place.
- It made the tables more resistant to damage and "down time", since the ramps and special rod were prone to damage, and harder to obtain and replace.
In my opinion, this was an excellent change, and I think most players would agree. However, as with most things in life, there are some PROS and CONS, and despite the various positive effects stated above, this change did come with a (minor?) downside:
More "junk" goals!
I don't have official statistics, but just from 30 years of experience I am going to make a wild guess and estimate that out of all random/lucky/junk goals that happen in a typical match, 3/4 of them probably involved one or more ricochets off corner player figure(s) on the rear goalie rod. Think about it - you know it's true!
We all remember that nail-biter of a match just last month in the second set of the finals, where the action came down to "meat ball" and our opponent fired a rocket at our goal. Unfortunately for him, we were ready and made a great block, only to have it bounce into the corner goalie figure and carom back into our middle goalie and into the nets for a heartbreaking loss.
So when you think about, you realize that the overwhelming majority of use-cases for those two corner goalie figures is to retrieve balls off the wall and into play. But when we are playing defense, we would prefer that those two fellas would just get off the damn field and let you block!
THE EXPERIMENT:
So with all of this in mind, we have come to an exciting new plan to see if we can have the best of both worlds.
Can we have the PROS without the CONS?
Can we have our cake and eat it, too??
...And the answer is: heck if I know!!
Of course, playing goalie with this configuration will take a little adjustment. One would need to get comfortable with knowing when and how to proficiently invert their goalie figures depending on the situation. So while we could continue to discuss the various pros and cons of the new configuration, it seems to me that the only way to truly decide if it is an improvement or not is to GIVE IT A TRY! And naturally, I expect that we each will hit a few bumps in our initial ventures (and possibly an own-goal or two), but I wouldn't be surprised if the learning curve wasn't so bad, and after a tournament or two, we started to think "hey, I kind of like this new rig, and maybe Billy isn't so crazy after all!"
Action begins
7pm Wednesday, March 26, at Main Street Billiards in Mesa. It is a Monster Roto DYP with league handicaps. But as I'm sure you will agree, it will be like no other tournament you've ever played! Come out this week to try it out with us, and perhaps be a part of foosball history! :)
Well, that about sums it up. I'm glad to see you made it this far and I hope that translates to seeing you at the tournaments and leagues in the near future!