Horseshoes

Before we hit the hay, we wanted to let you in on the highlight of the day, which was definitely the game of Horseshoes at the end of practice (as you’ll see, the person who named this thing was not that inspired). First, an explanation of the game, which is pretty simple: one person chips the ball a distance of about 15 yards to his partner, who then tries to trap the ball as close as possible to the cone, like…you guessed it - Horseshoes. Any number of teams can take part, though the more that do, the more chaotic the area of play becomes. At the end of the round, the team with the closest ball gets a point. Then the process is repeated going the other way – the person who traps now chips, and vice versa. First to ten wins. Simple enough right? You can see the guys playing in today’s all_access video.

So, what transpired? Well, Pablo Mastroeni and Steve Cherundolo managed to eek out a victory in the end, despite a late comeback from valiant challengers Jonathan Spector/Jay DeMerit and Carlos Bocanegra/ Johnny Bornstein . The final blow was delivered by Cherundolo whose deft control of his partner’s chip broke a score that was tied improbably at 9-9-9. It seemed the other participants buckled under the pressure of the whole team (plus security and media) watching and totally botched the last, crucial attempt. In the end, Steve and Pablo managed to hold strong, and fully deserved their victory. One final note: Brian Ching and Landon Donovan demonstrated that the “golf clap” is the accepted manner in which to show approval of a player’s effort in Horseshoes. Go figure. Although maybe by that point everybody was tired of hearing the echo.