"Oh my gosh," Linna says, "I just played with him on Monday."
In the morning, the Jules Beaupre No 2 Pros Doubles Tournament is delayed briefly due to heavy fog. Sixty-six shufflers -- 33 pairs -- arrive carrying their cue sticks in special cases and wait out the fog over coffee and doughnuts. While sitting in the grandstands I meet Bud Maloney, who's driven over from the rival Clearwater Shuffleboard Club, the second largest shuffleboard club in the world, with around 80 members. "That shows our decline," Maloney says. "Five years ago, we had 270 members."
Pinellas Park shuffleboarder Stan Budin.
(Kyoko Hamada)
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Maloney, a former antique dealer who owns racehorses in Kentucky, says he's been playing for 16 years, and he's sad about the game's waning popularity. "There people in this game are getting older and there is no new blood coming up," says Maloney, 75. "It's hard to attract new players. A lot of times a new player will come in and an experienced player will just grind them into the ground. It's very difficult to take a new player out and teach them. It usually takes about three or four years."
As the fog clears, Maloney's friend, a 62-year-old Canadian named Wayne Engell walks over and say the tournament is about to get underway. Engell is the new president of the Clearwater Shuffleboard Club. "He's just a kid," Maloney says. "I've got shorts older than him."
By 9 o'clock, the fog burns off and the opening ceremonies begin. The competitors say Pledge of Allegiance. Then people are invited to sing "Oh Canada." Eldridge reminds people to turn off their cell phones and not to smoke. Engell leads everyone in an invocation to remember those shufflers are absent due to illness. Jules Beaupre, the octogenarian sponsor of this tournament, is one of those who are ill. "Some of you know Jules," Engell says. "He has not come down from Montreal this year."
The players draw their game positions and spread out over 16 courts. In doubles play, partners arrange themselves at opposite ends of each court, and partners are not allowed to communicate with one another during the game. The pre-game practices are very intense. Each player shoots all four of his or her discs to check the speed and the responsiveness of each one. They also study the drift of the courts -- the way a golfer might read a green. I see a number of players scribble notes on cards, for consultation later in the match.
I take a position next to Mary Eldridge, and she offers a running commentary on the game we're watching. When the elderly woman in front of us fails to score a point on her hammer, Eldridge sighs. She tells me that this is the cardinal sin of doubles play. "When you have the hammer, it's your job to get some points," she says. "You let down your partner otherwise."
"That's such an amateur shot," she shouts at another miscue by the woman. At the other end, an elderly man comes in for a score on his hammer and rests just on the line between a 7 and an 8. "Ah, the heartbreak," she says. "When players reach the end of their playing days, they know all the strategy, they know what shots they want to make, but their skills have fallen away and they can't make the shots anymore."
A few frames later, the man's partner clears the board so hard that a black discs flies off the court. The crowd watching has to quickly jump out of the way. A frail woman marches up to Eldridge, points a bony finger at her and says, "I think they ought to have a class on how to clear the board without flying your disc into the next county."
"Hard shooting has always been part of the game," Eldridge says.
"Well, I don't think it's necessary," the woman says. "I saw a woman get hit in the shin one time. It left a bruise."
Eldridge smiles mischievously. "I can put a hard shot up into the third row," she says. "A lot of women can't, but I can. Every year people complain about hard shooting. Of course nobody wants to see anyone hurt their shin. But I'm sorry, sometimes you have to clear."
I leave Eldridge and go looking for some of the star shufflers. I overhear two men who've just been eliminated say, in a reverent tone, "Oh well, we would have had to play Mickey Henson anyway."
"Who's Mickey Henson?" I say.
"Oh," they say, "you don't know Mickey Henson?"
