Watercooler: Throwdown in Queens

The other morning, I was walking down Columbus Avenue after dropping Cowboy Luke off at school. I was lost in thought, so I didn't notice the hombre walking toward me until he called my name - Hey, Pete! I looked up and immediately thought: "Hey, that's Brad Pitt, and he knows me!"

Well, it turns out not to have been Brad Pitt, but a similar-looking guy who introduced himself as Ryan B. and told me he was a daily reader of TennisWorld. We shook hands and I said he should have come out of lurkerdom to attend our TW US Open gathering; he began to answer but broke off: "Hey, that's my kid running down the block!" And off he bolted, no doubt to wrangle that squirt and get him to school on time.

So let's make today Lurker Amnesty Day. If you're a lurker, how about dropping a Comment?

I love moments like that - coming face-to-face with the tip of the iceberg of tennis fans, Tribe division.  This is a real community here, and for the rest of this week and the next, we'll have a fair number of Tribe-related posts (including a first-person account of the Viv Spectator Slam). The other day, Rosangel reminded me that it is the anniversary of the First Annual Bec Cartwright Armadillo Poetry Slam. You all know how that ended, with Ray Stonada/Asad Raza crowned TW's Poet Laureate (although Madame Highpockets has since emerged as a formidable Shadow Poet Laureate). The contest was a hoot - should we do it again?

Speaking of Ray/Asad. You all may know that he and Rolo Tomassi/Andrew Friedman have been engaged in mortal tennis combat recently, on courts all over New York City. A few days ago, they went out to the USTABJKNTC with the new Big Dawg in Town, Tomahawk Perrotta, Tennis magazine's new Instruction Editor and the New York Sun tennis correspondent.

At the office the other morning, Tom was walking around with his chest all puffed out, whistling. I asked how the battle of the TennisWorld Literary All-stars went the other day, and Tom said they had "fun".

"Fun? Fun! Tennis isn't about "fun!", I snapped.

I thought that maybe this was going to be a reprise of the now-historic Debacle in the Desert (last year at Indian Wells our other, original Andrew and Asad played for 90 minutes and when I later asked who won (Is that such a gauche question?) they smiled and said that  - get this - they didn't keep score!). So I pressed Tom, who's a pretty modest guy for a big lug, and he finally admitted that they had indeed kept score, and Tom lost a grand total of one game in their three-way workouts. How's that for a beatdown?

Anyway, I asked Andrew F. and Asad to file Battlefield Reports on the massacre, and here they are:

Asad wrote:

Now, Andrew Friedman:

I like the way Asad praised the properties of the playing surface to high heaven and then found a way to  blame it for his level of play, and also how Andrew took the It was a loss, but a good loss! route. That's the Tribal way (as Codepoke, Steggy, and others can attest)!  As I went to press Tomahawk was unavailable for comment, but Steve Tignor claims that our colleague now hates the media because we are "insensitive"  to the unique demands of his Dawgness.

PS - That's Asad up top, and Friedman unloading that big kicker, below. Perrotta's people were asking too much for the photo rights. You're on your own.