Scribbled Notes on a Cocktail Napkin, part XX
Knockout Edition: the simple game that’s a Summer Camp institution and how inventing new games with your friends are the best games
"Scribbled notes on a cocktail napkin" is my weekly Sunday feature that's a tribute to the sports columnists I grew up reading who penned Herb Caen-inspired three dot columns. It's an excuse to shamelessly plug my other side projects, post my favorite Immaculate Grid from the week with a story about one of the players, link to stories I found interesting, and string together loose topics on my mind.
Scribbling from Albuquerque
The first time I ever played “Knockout” was at the Bill Cartwright summer basketball camp, held on Sonoma State University’s campus, in the mid-1980s. “Knockout” is the simplest game that is a staple at basketball camps and clinics, and with Summer’s arrival, these games will take place all over the country over the next few months.
The rules are simple. Players lineup at the 3-point line. (Maybe the free-throw line if the kids are little.) You have two balls. The first person shoots. If you miss, get your own rebound and try to make a shot (usually a layup) from anywhere before the person behind you makes a shot. Then you pass to the next person in line. On and on it goes, until only one player remains.
This emphasizes shooting, rebounding, dribbling and passing. Yes, passing. You can tell which kids are jerks when they give the next person in line a bad pass. Set them up for success, ya know?
Sometimes a game has 10 players. Sometimes it has over 100 players and you’re waiting for what seems like an eternity before you’re up, and you better be ready.
“Knockout” is basketball camp. It’s how you start each day at camp. It’s how you end each day at camp. It’s how you fill the idle time at camp. It’s the ultimate in bragging rights, how you get the competitive juices flowing, how the energy builds in the gym.
It’s equal opportunity. Height doesn’t matter. Weight doesn’t matter. Gender doesn’t matter. If you make your initial jumper, it’s impossible to get eliminated. If you do miss, you’re at the mercy of how long your rebound is, how quickly you get the ball, and your ability to make a layup (or anything) before the person behind you makes a shot.
There is agony when the person behind you knocks out you.
There is ecstasy when you knock out someone, especially when you drain a dagger, just before they can make a layup, and they turn around and give you that “really?” look.
Here’s a video of some kids playing at a camp.
You don’t need to be at a camp to play it. I’ve played it everywhere. We played it at my friend Ryan’s house at a Super Bowl party, even when we only had like 6-7 dudes. We played it during our baseball spring training pickup basketball games in Arizona.
One of the joys is simply asking, “wanna play Knockout?” and seeing eyes light up, as others remember their summer basketball camps and the epic games they played as kids.
In 2019, Grand Canyon University get a new Guiness record with 728 participants in a game of Knockout. It took two hours and 33 minutes to complete.
Dang, I wanna play a few rounds of Knockout right now.
Knockout for any sport
I’m reminded of Knockout because yesterday the Albuquerque Isotopes hosted a Youth Baseball Clinic and one of our players, Stephen Gonsalves, used a version of Knockout at the infielders station. First, he worked on different drills and techniques. This is him helping one of the participants.
Then at the end, it became a Knockout game, Stephen throwing grounders to the kids. If you fielded it cleanly and threw accurately to second base, you stayed in the game. If you bobbled the grounder, or made a bad throw, then you’re knocked out.
“And I don’t believe in Participation Trophies,” Gonsalves told me. “If you’re out, I tell you to go sit down on the bench.”
I decided to turn myself into the Hype Man, cheering on kids after they made a play. One kid was wearing a Colorado Rockies t-shirt, so I just kept calling him Tovar, for the Rockies dazzling young shortstop Ezequeil Tovar.
It got dramatic when it was down to the last four. These kids were pickin’ short hops, in-between hops, and bad hops. The tension grew. Their faces changed. They were nervous, yet focused, then relieved, when they made a play and stayed for another round. The knocked out kids got into it, cheering and reacting after each grounder.
It was one of the highlights of the day.
Inventing crossover sports
I once invented a 3-person version of basketball Knockout with my cousins Grant and Cameron when I stayed at their house in Modesto. They had a hoop in their backyard, but not a lot of space. It was only about the size of the painted rectangle – or “the key” – on the basketball court.
So we positioned two shooters at approximately where a free-throw line would be, separated left and right of the available space. The third person started as the rebounder. Then we rotated in a triangle. You shoot on the left side, then rebound, then shoot on the right side.
The idea was we’d play as fast as we could. That kept our bodies moving. Cardio and shot making. First person to make 10 shots was the winner.
Inventing new sports with your friends, especially a crossover sport, are among my favorite childhood memories.
I played something called “Pool Ball” in Pleasanton, with my friend James, Jeff, Jeremy and some other dudes who names didn’t start with a J.
It was a version of baseball, played next to a pool, where we had to change the rules based on the available space and the quantity of players on a given day. I think we used a whiffleball bat, a tennis ball, we all had to bat lefthanded, the pitcher doubled as the first baseman for force outs, and we had liberal uses of how fast “ghost runners” could advance.
The rules aren’t the important part. The memories are.
If we were filmmakers, we’d have made a movie out of it.
In 1998, David Zucker made a movie called BASEketball that starred South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, about a crossover sport of Baseball and Basketball. The cameos from some of the biggest sportscasters are probably the most enduring legacy of the film, including this clip of the postseason format.
Inventing sports never gets old. But the older you get, the more likely to involve alcohol.
In college, my roommates Tom, Lamar, Roland, Eric and I had a ping pong table in our garage. We invented Beer Pong. Our version of Beer Pong was totally different than the popular version that you’ve probably played, where you throw the ping pong balls into plastic cups of water.
Our version had an actual ping pong table, and used actual rackets to hit actual ping pong balls, and played a somewhat actual game to 21. But we also setup plastic cups filled with beers at various places on the table. We had various points for hitting the cup, or landing the ball inside the cup, and lots more rules for drinking and chugging based on your accuracy.
Again, the rules don’t matter, especially since I’m sure we changed them frequently. The memories matter.
I’ve just decided I’m bringing back this version of real “Beer Pong” for my annual All-Star Game party.
This week’s not-so-random Immaculate Grid: all Doyers
This morning’s Immaculate Grid featured a row for Rookie of the Year. My mind immediately went to the Dodgers because they’ve had so many, including four in a row from 1979-82 and then five straight from 1992-96.
Even though the grid didn’t have a row for Dodgers, I decided to try for all nine spots to be former Dodgers. You might say it was my own personal version of Knockout.
I send my grids each day to my friend Matt Hurst. Without us planning, he did the same thing with his grid! All nine were Dodgers!
Today, I sent my grid to my friend Josh Rawitch. Again, without us planning, he did the same with his grid! All nine were Dodgers!
Sometimes, you and your friends invent the same game, at the same time, without even telling each other in advance.
Roy’s and ROY’s
ROY is the shorthand for Rookie of the Year.
Baseball’s never had a Roy get named the Rookie of the Year, although I think we can all agree Roy Hobbs deserved ROY and MVP, after his debut with the New York Knights in 1939.
There’s been a Rod, a Rick, a Raul, a Rafael, a Randy, and two Ryan’s win ROY. But never a Roy, except in basketball, when Brandon Roy won ROY in 1996.
The closest in baseball is when Roy Oswalt finished second in ROY voting in 2001.
The best would be if someone named Roy Oliver Young won ROY.
There’s never even been a Roy Young to play in the majors, although one played Class D minor league baseball from 1952-56, and another played from 1913-15.
I’m going to spend far too much researching a scenario where a player with the initials of KO knocks one out of the park to end a game and I can say, “KO has KO’d the _____.”
Let’s get Ken Oberkfell out of retirement.
What’s a crossover sport that you invented with your friends?
Leave a comment.