Left to right: PPB’s Travel Team Dan Stebbins, Tom Barrett, Dominic Borland, Jim Fabio, Joe Giammarino and Gary Barlow
Joe Giammarino
The Pool Players of The Brooke (PPB) would like to thank Sunflower Billiards Club, Terry Boren, President of the Sunflower’s Billiards Club and their members for the friendly competition and camaraderie. Another big thank you goes out to Dominic Borland and Gary Barlow, captains of the Pool Players of the Brooke Travel Team for organizing this event and making sure it was a success; they did a great job. On Saturday, April 27, 2019 at 9:00 a.m. the PPB hosted the Sunflower Billiards Club at the beautiful Catalina Recreation Center’s (CRC) Billiard Room for an 8-Ball Team Challenge. We were competing on three eight-foot Connelly pool tables for temporary ownership of a Bronze traveling plaque. The three PPB teams consisted of Tom “Blind Squirrel” Barrett and Jim “Shooter” Fabio, Gary “One Rail” Barlow and Dominic “The Doctor” Borland, Joe “Fast Eddie” Giammarino and Dan “Oh No” Stebbins. Our opponent’s teams from Sunflower were Terry Boren and Fred Jarzombek, Norman Ball and Al Tallakson, Jim Scott and Larry Toug.
SaddleBrooke Travel Team’s Tournament Director Borland remarked, “It’s great to be able to invite teams from other retirement communities to play in SaddleBrooke now that we have a competitive facility, particularly those communities who hosted us over the past three years. When we started the travel team, we wanted to play for a trophy and have commemorative plaques made for each tournament to be kept by the winning team. Our record is pretty good so our wall now has five plaques on it and we look forward to more. We have let a couple of plaques get away but we look forward to earning them back.”
The format was simple and interesting. Each of our teams would play each of their teams, four games of 8-ball, with each game won being one point for the winning team. There was a total of 36 points in the match. The first-round score was 8–4 in favor of the PPB. The second round was similar to the first as the PPB kept up the pressure with a 7–5 round in their favor to put the score at 15 to 6. In the third and final round the PPB mirrored the second-round score of 7–5 which made the final score 22–14 for the PPB. So we have added another traveling plaque to our wall in the CRC. Good job PPB!
Lastly, we enjoyed the competition and the luncheon at the RoadRunner Grill following the 8-Ball match with the Sunflower. Congratulations to all the participants! Rack ’em up!
You can also follow the PPB at https://poolplayersofthebrooke.blogspot.com/.