Day 13: SJC 3, USNA 2, DWP 0

That’s zero, as in blotto. The last time I drank gin and tonics for an entire warm, sunny afternoon was? Maybe when I was in college. Maybe never. Probably never again.

Despite my inebriated state or, perhaps, because of it the annual croquet match between the St. John’s College Johnnies and the United States Naval Academy Midshipmen was as thrilling for me as a croquet match will likely ever be.

First of all there is the crowd.

Folks I don’t think I am exaggerating when I estimate that the crowd on the front lawn of the SJC campus was 3,000-plus. The front lawn is quite large and it seemed that every square inch that was not marked off for a croquet court was covered by a quilt or blanket where Gatsby-era-clothed picnickers swilled alcoholic beverages.

Seriously, there probably hasn’t been a crowd of White people this drunk and this amped up in downtown Annapolis since they stopped auctioning slaves down at the city dock.

Faithful blog readers already know this, but I have created a separate page that explains more about SJC and the annual croquet match and it may be helpful to read that for a more complete understanding of this annual event.

However, for the purposes of this post, suffice to say it is, by far, the biggest event on the SJC campus each year.

While I am sure that the same is not true for the Mids make no mistake about it, they do take this thing seriously. The admiral and the captain who run the Academy were on hand for the opening ceremonies (which featured a song written by a Mr. Francis S. Key, SJC class of 1796) and the kids competing for Navy did not just pick up a mallet that morning and decided to stroll across the street for an afternoon in the sun.

Clearly they were quite skilled at the sport, which is not all that surprising because croquet requires a blend of patience, skill, strategy and teamwork; all attributes that I suspect the Navy seeks to instill in its future officers.

Tex and his partner found this out when they lost in a close match that lasted about two hours.

Afterward Tex’s partner came over to us (Betsy and I were seated courtside on our little square of blanket that Tex and Laurel had staked out for us early in the morning) and apologized, telling us it was his poor play that caused the loss.

I could not say that for sure because I don’t have enough understanding of the rules of the sport to fully distinguish between luck and talent. However, I do know that at one point Tex took off and advanced his white and red-striped ball around the entire layout of wickets by masterfully hitting the balls of his opponents (sorry if that choice of words conjured up a negative image for anyone) and then (through some arcane rule I don’t understand) went back (unsuccessfully) to help his partner advance through the course ahead of the oncoming Mids.

Ultimately, the Mids won the match because they both advanced around the court ahead of Tex’s partner. Fortunately, three of the other four Johnnie pairs won their matches and St. John’s retained the coveted Annapolis Cup for another year.

At least, I think that’s what happened.

At any rate, it was great fun and I will allow some of the many photos that Betsy took to tell the rest of the story; along with this link to an article about the match in Sunday's Baltimore Sun 

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-04-30/news/bs-md-croquet-match-20110430_1_croquet-team-annapolis-cup-croquet-field

There are a few background factoids that may be helpful to readers/photo viewers.

Each year Navy wears the same, very traditional, all white croquet uniform while the Johnnie uniform changes each year, at the whim of the Imperial Wicket (team captain). The uniforms have varied dramatically over the years, including last year’s basketball uniforms (a play on SJC often being confused with St. John’s University in New York, which is well-known for its basketball teams). One year I think they may have dressed as Vikings and, during the Cold War era, as Soviets.

The design of the uniforms is a closely-held secret that is not revealed to anyone that is not on the team until the team members emerge from a campus building for the introductions at the start of the match.

Blake Myers, the 2011 imperial wicket and Tex’s good friend, chose to replicate the uniforms of the Midshipmen – including close-cropped haircuts for every team member that did not meet Navy regulations for hair length (look at Tex’s photo in an earlier post to see the change).

  

While Blake did an admirable (pun intended) job of replicating the Mid’s uniforms there was a very subtle change in the slogan on the sweater.

As of this writing I am not sure exactly what the Navy slogan says but I think it is goes something like “we are not here for a long time we are just here for a good time” or words to that effect.

The slogan on the Johnnie sweaters read; “Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education” a Mark Twain quote that Blake is said to favor. Each SJC uniform also carried the number 38, apparently for no reason other than that Blake likes the number 38.