Tres Hombres has two major wins over Street Academy

This is the post Dan Smith has been waiting for.  Ever since I started up this Times-Union blog thingy, Dan and his team have been able to say to me, “Hey Chuck, you may have won Trivia Bowl (twice) and Summer Bowl (once) and a bunch of other things… but we got one on you.  Actually, we got two on you.  Nyah nyah nyah!!”

And in the interests of disclosure, he is totally right.

Spin the way-back machine to the summer of 2007.  Kevin Baker’s “Trivia Nights Live” company is hosting Thursday afternoon trivia matches at Saratoga Race Track.  It was a standard trivia game (20 questions of varying difficulty, points earned for correct answers, points deducted for incorrect answers, two skips, bet your chips on the final question), but the scores accumulated after nineteen questions would be carried over to the next week.  After six weeks, the team with the most accumulated points would get the following – lots of prizes and goodies from Time Warner’s family of cable channels, as well as a Labor Day barbecue for the winning team and 20 of their friends.

And the best prize of all.

One of the races that day will be named after the winning trivia team.

Oh hells yeah, I wanted to have a race at Saratoga known as the Street Academy Stakes.  I can just imagine Tom Durkin with the call…

“And coming around the clubhouse turn it’s Hoof Hearted by a length, followed by Bullseye Sticker and Rocky Mountain Film Lab.  It’s Hoof Hearted by two lengths.  Hoof Hearted at the wire.  Oh My God, Hoof Hearted Wins the Street Academy Stakes!  You can smell the victory all the way from here, Hoof Hearted!!”

So I went to the track on the first Thursday of the six-week trivia tournament, and who do I see there – Dan Smith.  Dan and his friends play as the trivia team Tres Hombres, and they were one of the top teams when “trivia” in the Capital District meant Tuesday night games at Hooters in Crossgates Mall.  But that Hooters shut down in June of 2007, leaving trivia teams spread throughout the diaspora.

Dan and his buddies, Rick and Bill and Jim, were at the track for what most people go to the track for – pari-mutuel wagering and such.  And they were pretty good at it.  Me, I usually bet on Horse #5 and whichever horse has the most significant nickname.  This is why, for me it’s not gambling – it’s “foolishly tossing my money into NYRA’s back pocket.”

Anyways, Baker hosted trivia at this white tent just next to the “Big Red Spring,” a fountain of mineral water that had more mineral in it than water.  Of the trivia teams that played at Hooters, Tres Hombres and Street Academy were the only ones to show up regularly at the Saratoga tournament every week.

And it was a close battle every week.  Tres Hombres would take an early lead, Street Academy would catch up.

By the end of the six-week tournament, Tres Hombres had a 40-point lead.  I was trying to catch up as much as possible, but the questions were not going my way.  In fact, one of the questions involved which Super Bowl team amassed the largest margin of victory.

I wrote down the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XX.

And I was as wrong as wearing white after Labor Day.  It was the 49ers when they beat the Chargers.

In the end, Tres Hombres won the first Saratoga Trivia Tournament, and they earned the coveted trackside Labor Day barbecue – as well as the first running of the Tres Hombres Stakes on Labor Day.

Me – I spent the day at home, mowing my lawn.

In 2008, Time Warner Cable sponsored trivia at the track for a second year, and Street Academy and Tres Hombres battled again.

This time, the battle was closer.  Tres Hombres leaped out to an early lead in the first two weeks, with the point totals based on the cumulative scores after 19 questions.  However, I was nailing the 20th question – and the weekly prize, which often included DVD boxed sets from various Time Warner cable channels.  And I kept creeping closer and closer to the lead.

One of the questions I nailed involved which film actor was the first to appear on the cover of Time magazine.  I correctly guessed that it was Charlie Chaplin; Tres Hombres went with Humphrey Bogart.  So I was winning the weekly prize, but Tres Hombres were just a few points ahead of me in the cumulative totals.

In fact, in the final week of the tournament, we finished after halftime with the exact same number of cumulative points.  Six weeks of play, and we were about as even as the Bonneville Salt Flats.

And Time Warner Cable was scared.  See, they were expecting only one team to win the tournament – no one had a contingency plan for two teams tying at the end.  There was talk of having both teams share the race name, or sharing the number of invites to the Labor Day barbecue.  That, or have a tiebreaker question.  Dan and I both talked it over.  We discussed whether we wanted to share the prize should we tie at the end – and we both agreed that no decision should be made unless a tie really did occur.

Then came the final batch of questions.

One question involved which city in Texas was named after a vice president.  I had no clue.  I put down Galveston and I was wrong.  Tres Hombres put down Tyler.  Baker had the answer as Dallas – for vice president George Dallas.  But Tres Hombres successfully argued that Tyler could be associated with John Tyler.  Baker conceded.

Then came a quadruple bonus question – name the four Olympic sports that begin with the letter T.  Well, Tres Hombres came up with four sports – and I came up with four sports – and between us, we were able to name seven different Olympic sports that began with the letter T, including the triple jump, trap shooting, tae kwon do, trampoline, tennis, and others.  Baker eventually gave everyone credit for four correct answers.

Then came the McDonald’s question.

In what state was the first McDonald’s franchise opened?

Now if I didn’t completely mix up the fact that although McDonald’s had an office in Illinois, their first franchise was in California, I would have been fine.

Unfortunately, I screwed up and wrote Illinois, and it was California where the first franchise existed.

And in the end, Tres Hombres won the second consecutive tournament – and with it, another race named after their trivia team.  And I spent another Labor Day trying to get the weeds out of my garden.

Unfortunately, I would not get a chance to stop Tres Hombres from a three-peat; Time Warner chose not to renew their sponsorship for a trivia tournament for the 2009 season.  So, for all intents and purposes, there would be neither a third running of the Tres Hombres Stakes, nor a possible first running of the Street Academy Stakes.

And in terms of championships, the Saratoga Trivia Tournament should be considered at least a Grade I trivia tourney, similar to the Elbo Room Trivia Tournament in that it took weeks of qualifying to reach a championship.  So hats off to Tres Hombres for winning two major trivia championships.

Maybe some day, however, we’ll get a chance to try this tournament again.

Hey Time Warner, throw some cash Baker’s way so that we can do this in 2011.

And send some of the YNN people up to play at the tournament.  I hear that Joe Calderone is an ace at Trivial Pursuit…