Thursday, July 1, 2010

Crooks Steal Silver in Dupont

The final game of the season was a 1-0 stunner, featuring a rare goal by defender/captainess Breznay in the first half. After a classic boot up field, the Crooks looked on as the opposition bobbled the ball in front of their goal and let it roll on into the net. That’s right, an assist on an own-goal. (Folks, you just can’t buy that kind of talent).

So, the final stats are in, and the books are closed. The K Street Crooks have claimed second place in the District Sports Spring 2010 Dupont league with an admirable 6-2 record. First place was claimed by Deportivo Messi who never even had the privilege to play (ahem, lose) against the Crooks.

To wrap up the season, El Campo’s very own in-house statistician ‘Lou’ has come up with a number of interesting facts and figures about the season:
1.Attendance = Wins. It’s no wonder that very few Crooks recall the two losses this season. According to the 2010 data compiled, the Crooks had a 98% chance of winning when more than 4 players showed up.
2.Hair Gel = Goals. Originally considered more of a joke than a legitimate observation, El Campo has in fact concluded that players who used more hair gel than usual – more than 2 globs – scored on average 1.3 more goals than their ungreased teammates.
3.Strangers are Good. For an unprecedented four times this season, the Crooks were forced to beg rival goalkeepers to join their squad. While the idea of having an opponent guarding your own goal isn’t exactly ideal, the move by and large panned out for the Crooks – 3 out of 4 times (Thanks Mom, for telling me not to talk to strangers).
4.The Ref Effect. The attitude of the referee had a significant effect on the outcome of each match. At first it seemed to form a typical direct relationship of how much the ref cared about the game to how well the Crooks performed. This data held fast and true in each match, save the infamous ‘lady-ref-crushing-on-Bill’ match. The Crooks played exceptionally well that afternoon even though the referette could care less about the game behind her. If you recall, handballs and slide tackles fell way beyond her periphery while she focused solely on Bill’s baby-blues and curly locks. Stats from that game completely screwed up our nice, even line graph and therefore El Campo has chosen to remove the data from the system.

Offseason notes: Many of the Crooks will be taking a break this summer to go join in the global search for their long-lost striker Stefan Georg. At last facebook update, nearly 3 months ago, he was getting ready to go out to an underground hippie convention in the Australian bush. There has been no word from him since, and, even more alarmingly, no obscene photos of him have emerged on the internet either. The team is very worried and hopes to find their former teammate sober-ish and in one piece. Pending a successful rescue mission, the team will re-group for the Dupont league again in the Fall.