The election of Big Pineapple to the league’s highest office seems much more remote than just one year ago. So much has happened in the last year that we seem to have compressed much more time than 12 months into the year’s allotted compartment.
When BP took the reins at the 2019 AGM, the pundits told us that his time had come, that he was not a politician and that he would make the league great again. This was on the heels of the lengthy three-year presidency of Buzz Lightbeer. Although the league was in a strong place at the time of the 2019 AGM, a few reports claimed that PrezBuzz had become a career politician, had grown complacent and had out-lived his welcome. They even went so far as to venture that he would be voted out.
Those reports proved prescient and Big Pineapple swept to power in an election that he called a landslide. He actually called it a “landslip” and a “waterslide”, but most of us knew what he meant.
The BP 2020 presidency was proceeding according to plan up until the pandemic struck and lockdown kicked in. BP was inspirational, leading from the front, explaining to the sporting world that, if we simply stay the course, there is light at the end of the tunnel. He actually said something about not going off the rails and that there was a train coming, but we worked out what he meant.
The 2020 AATBL season saw the league rise above the lockdown and find a way to continue to function, despite not being allowed to play all-terrain bocce. Yes, BP boldly implemented an online quiz to replace the April round and it was a huge success. When interviewed on Australian Story, he explained that times can be tough, but you have to walk tall. He actually said that he can’t be tough all of the time, and that he’s not as tall as most people think, but we knew what he meant.
Although very few commentators remarked on the fact that the president’s team, CWA, had won the online quiz, when his team won the Grand Bocce championship as well, the sniping picked up its tempo. What happened to The President’s Curse?
Motherchucker, never one to hold back, opined on Sky News that it seemed odd that Sir Justice Airwick NIDDM had taken out the Asti in 2019, yet, when partnered with the President BP in 2020, Serge had managed to take out the championship without our president even turning up on the day.
By the time of the 2020 AGM, the green shoots of disquiet had taken hold and the election result told the story. Brad was elected on the back of a lightning campaign with a few very catchy slogans, including “I’m not a pineapple!”, “I’ve never won a quiz!” and “If you vote for me, you can be sure that I will do my utmost to ensure that my administration is free of corruption, nepotism and lymphoedema”. Most press reports suggested that the lymphoedema reference was a typo, but time will tell.
President Big Pineapple did not deliver a speech at the 2020 AGM. As with the finals, he failed to even turn up. After the AGM had wrapped up, he explained that he thought it was to be another Zoom meeting and had been sitting at his computer waiting to log in. Although we couldn’t catch all of his words, we infer that he thanked the league for the honour of having him as its president and said that he wished President Brad every success.
At the AGM, the Blender was applied to the teams in a modified fashion. After an exhaustive consultative process, the Guidelines Subcommittee had determined that the league would play 2020 as eight playing entities, four being singletons and four teams.
Of the six who asked to be in the draw to play as singletons, the successful candidates were Motherchucker, Reg, Rawalpindi Express and Big Pineapple.
The teams were then drawn, with the fixture fixer making an attempt to avoid combining players who had played together on a team in recent years.
The teams for 2021 will be:
Since the AGM, some of the teams have been spotted at secret training camps.
The other formality that was dealt with at the AGM was the presentation of the Asti Spumante to the 2020 wooden-spooners, Sunshine (Motherchucker and Buzz Lightbeer). Some complained that the boisterous cheering detracted from the solemnity of the occasion. Others observed that they had never before seen Stella dance a jig.