The Forgotten Match
Believe it or not, for a few minutes in 1996, Patrick
Casserly was the HFT champion
The 1996 Halloween Foosball Tournament has always been remembered for many things. It was, after all, the first ever Halloween Foosball Tournament and thus, the birth of the tradition. There also was the controversial finish to the tournament where James Ostis opted not to take part in the finals against Greg Ouellette and instead watched the World Series and gave his spot to Greg's nemesis Patrick Casserly. From there Greg would capture the first ever HFT championship. But what happened in between was often overlooked, before ultimately being more or less erased from the public record. It is true that Greg beat Patrick twice in 1996 en route to claiming the first ever Halloween Foosball championship. But what many people do not know and several others have probably forgotten is that Patrick did beat Greg once before Greg beat him twice.
The setup: Greg and Patrick both advanced to the semi-finals with first round victories. Greg defeated Steve Ostis while Patrick's win came against his brother, Jonathan. That set up a semi-final matchup between the two that had become bitter rivals during their days at the Bartlett Middle School. The second round game was hard fought and close. Greg pulled off the victory, but only after Patrick had come very close to pulling off the upset.
The story: Jim, who had advanced to the finals of the HFT by defeating Chuck Allen and then Brice Gallagher, wanted to watch a World Series game between the Atlanta Braves and New York Yankees. Jim gave his spot to Patrick in the finals and Greg beat Pat and became the HFT Champion.
The truth: While Jim did want to watch the World Series, "the truth was I also wanted to see Pat beat Greg because I knew it would piss Greg off. Don't ask me why I wanted that...I was a kid who liked causing trouble I guess" Jim laughed, "but the semi-final between the two of them was very close. at that point, I didn't really care too much about the finals matchup against Greg" That, and not the desire to watch a World Series game was was the main impetus behind the decision that would haunt Jim's career. "I never knew that the tournament would take off the way it did. I look back at my decision and regret it"
The truth Part II: So Greg and Patrick faced off for a second time, this time with the Halloween Foosball Tournament championship on the line. And wouldn't you know it? Pat, the guy who lost to Greg in the semi's, bounced back to beat him in the finals. The first ever tournament was over and Patrick Casserly was the Halloween (Party) Foosball Tournament Champion. Greg, of course, was displeased by this turn of events. And the truth was, he definitely had a point. Greg had just beaten Patrick a round before, and Pat shouldn't have even been in the tournament anymore. A decision was made by the Halloween Foosball Committee led by Jim (see right there, evidence that the World Series excuse was bullshit...he was present throughout the final match and watched the other two play.) The Committee decided that Greg would get a rematch and that the third game would settle things and decide the winner of the tournament. Greg won the rubber match and the rest is history. Or was it?
The rest is history: There is a famous quote, "History is written by the winners." To a certain extent, that quote rings true in the Halloween Foosball Tournament. When the HFT returned for a second engagement in 1997, there were several references to the controversial ending of the first annual tournament. The most notable was Jim's (true albeit it out of context) claim that he was the only competitor "not to lose in 1996." Jim was introduced as undefeated while Greg was the defending champion but had one loss on his record. However, even then, Greg would dispute whether the "loss" to Patrick should count. As far back as 1997, Greg felt that match was unofficial. Greg won the 1997 tournament, this time with much less controversy. When the 1998 Tournament rolled around, the story had changed. Jim was no longer "undefeated," having lost to Steve in the 1997 semi-finals. That was clear. But what was less clear was how all of a sudden, Greg was. Greg's "first" loss would come that night when the Corey Pinkham era was officially born and a new rivalry would headline the HFT for years to come (although not actually head to head again until 2002).
Politics: So why the change? How did the Halloween Foosball Committee go from viewing Greg's record as 3-1 after 1996 to 6-0 after 1997? The truth is HFT records were not very official in the early days. There was no precedent, so a switch of the official records is not that outrageous. But the politics of the situation clearly made it easier for the HFT to side with Greg on the issue (and we're not talking about the liberal/conservative battles that Jim and Pat would go on to have). There was the general build up of the feud throughout the later years of middle school. Greg and Patrick would win the 1998 Grady Award for Feud of the Year, and the birth of fantasy baseball caused the rift to grow even further. While Greg had embraced the sport of foosball, Patrick routinely trashed it and talked about how superior ping pong was. Finally, the Halloween Foosball Committee may have just realized that Pat sucked at foosball, and the fact that his only other two official victories came against his brother Jon (who just happened to be an even worse foosball player than his brother). In order to clean up the mess that was created by the 1996 Finals debacle, the "win" that Patrick had over Greg was basically viewed as unofficial. I don't think anybody (except maybe Greg) would deny that the match actual took place. But it was not official, and it basically ended up amounting to an exhibition match, or a qualifier for Pat to get his second chance at Halloween Foosball glory. It was a match that just wasn't talked about. The story was Jim gave his spot to Pat in the finals and Greg eventually beat Pat in the finals for the championship. No lies there. Just some omissions about how the actual final went down. Since it wasn't talked about, it soon more or less became forgotten.
What would have happened? If the same situation had arisen after the establishment of the rules and precedent in the Halloween Foosball Tournament, Patrick would not have been allowed to enter the tournament in Jim's spot. Current Tournament protocol would have meant that Brice, who Jim had beaten in the semi-finals, would have been the finals opponent for Greg. Either that or Greg could have been declared the winner by forfeit. In 2003, Shawn Paradise became the first person to lose twice in the same singles tournament since Patrick. However, he advanced because the person who beat him in the first round, Kenny Stuart, had to leave early. He advanced in the place of the person who eliminated him. Another two losses in one single elimination tournament moment came in 2005 when Joey Higson lost twice in the first round of the doubles tournament, but with different partners. That marked the first time someone was allowed to re-enter a tournament in a different bracket since the 1996 situation. There has been only one official forfeit in HFT history. Angel forfeited his first round match to Sothey in 2005 (which may have been the most disorganized tournament since '96, although organized chaos may be a more fitting term). In other cases, where a player has to leave and there is no replacement, such as Steve vs. Nick Lutz in 1999, a bye is given to an opponent, but no win or loss is recorded in the match. The key difference between Nick L and Angel's situation was that Nick Lutz had to leave and could not play, Angel simply chose not to compete in his match.
So what now? Ten years later. Should Patrick Casserly be recognized as the 1996 Halloween Foosball Tournament Champion? The answer, according to Halloween Foosball historians, is a resounding "no." Greg did beat Patrick in the official final match (the second final, but the last one nonetheless). Official or not, Greg did win 2 out of 3 games between the two that night. Greg probably has a better claim to the championship via a forfeit win over Jim than Patrick would for winning the first "final" and briefly being announced the winner of the tournament. At the end of the night everyone there recognized Greg as the champion. And nothing over the last 10 years has changed that recognition.
But one recognition did change, and that was the loss on Greg's record (and thus, win on Pat's). The Halloween Foosball Committee may take up a special examination of the issue to decide whether to officially recognize the win Pat scored over Greg, ten years after the fact. Part of the coverup of Greg's loss was that it took away from the tournament's legitimacy. Nine tournaments later, lots of crazy things have happened, and the tradition has established itself, so that reason is no longer really applicable. Patrick has not competed in a Halloween Foosball Tournament since 2000, and Greg is firmly established as the #2 ranked HFT player (and de facto #1 now that Corey has retired to Florida). One more game being recognized won't do much to change that.
