Eagle River

This past weekend I spent my time in a lovely town in northen Wisconsin, Eagle River. Hanging out with a bunch of college friends is always good times, and even more good times are had when we are sitting around a campfire telling stories by night and playing yard games by day. I have played bocce ball and cornhole many, many times, but this weekend was introduced to two different games which definitely fit the mold of great games you can play while still holding a beer in your hand.

The first was a game called testicle toss (I think the name needs work), but basically involved throwing two golf balls which were teathered together (with about 12 inches of rope) at pvc piping. The "goals" were approximately 20 feet apart and consisted of a pvc base, and then three different rungs going up a total of probably 3 feet. The bars were equi-distant apart and the object was to throw the golf balls so the would wrap around one of the horizontal bars. If you could get your balls to wrap around the bottom rung, you received 1 point, middle rung, 2 points, and top rung, 3 points. First to 21 wins, as is usually the case in yard games.

If you can't understand the description, that's okay, if you saw it, you'd probably know what it was. Basically, the scoring works such that the person or team with the balls wrapped around the highest bar gets the points and the other person or team doesn't get any. Each team throws three sets of balls, so if I threw over the top, middle, and missed my last throw, and the other person threw all three over the bottom rack, I would receive 5 points. How ever many points the scoring person or team has on higher bars than any one of the other persons is how many count. If you go over 21, your score drops by as many as you went over. Let's say you had 16 points, and got 6 points in the round, you would go back to 10 points.

Understand it or not, it is another in the long list of great yard games you can play with minimal amount of money put into the production. You will enjoy it.



By the way, as I'm writting this, the Brewers had the bases loaded with one out, Ben Sheets at the plate and Geoff Jenkins on third. With two strikes on him, the Brewers call for a suicide-squeeze attempt. Let me repeat that, with TWO strikes on Sheets, the Brewers try a suicide-squeeze. Of course, Sheets popped up the bunt and the Diamondbacks turned the double play, throwing out Jenkins at third. Wow, I can't believe Ned Yost sometimes, and especially this time. "Hmm, it's the 4th inning, we're tied at 2, there's only one out, and my pitcher has two strikes on him. Let's try the suicide-squeeze!" I will now throw myself into oncoming traffic.

-Until next time...