The year was 1993. Bill Clinton had just figured out that the Lincoln Bedroom could become the most expensive B&B in the country. Jurassic Park was causing people to have nightmares about being chased by dinosaurs instead of by sharks. And a plucky little outfit from Boston entered the Mothers' Day tournament in Philly with a skeleton crew.

Only eight made the trip south to Pennsylvania, and Neil Perchuk from Westchester County picked up with the group, making nine. However, in pre-game warmups, our own Dick "Fid" Speer developed back spasms, and as with any finely tuned thoroughbred, we shot him. No, wait, we sent him off on the next available train back to Boston to rest up. Our first game began with but seven of us. Steve Mooney was still off warming up his then 35 year old frame, and didn't join the party until the fifth point of the game. He didn't sit out the rest of the weekend. Upon entering, Moons decided that he would like to catch some goals, so for the rest of the game, he was the Designated Goal Scorer, whose sole offensive responsibility was to get open in the end zone. Huck after huck went up to him, and Steve used his awesome 8 inch vertical leap to snare goal after goal, despite being double teamed later in the game.

Game 2 saw Chris "Cork" Corcoran become the DGS. Big Brother, as the team was known then, jumped out to a big early lead, and Cork kept scoring and scoring. All seven first half goals were his. In the second half, hucks to him sometimes would end up just shy of the end zone, and instead of cutting for the goal, 5 teammates would sprint up for the dump and go. After Cork's 13th and final goal, the bloodletting ended. In the postgame handshake, one fellow asked of him, "You scored a bunch of goals that game, didn't you?"

The carnage continued through the day. Offensively, the DGS brought life to the team, as Graffiti and Delaware (or was it Baltimore? or DC? )fell by the wayside. The Delaware game is particularly memorable, at least to me, as yours truly was the DGS. Despite one end zone drop, I continued to score all our points as the game dragged on. At 8-8, Delaware employed a zone and one near the end zone, but to no avail. At 9-9, again came the D. Jeff "Jethro" Yu gets it fifteen yards out, and Parinella streaks open to the cone. No throw. The disc swings wide, and Parinella sprints to the other corner, but is covered. Again it swings, and as Parinella sprints back across the field again, three defenders spring onto him. Gary "Garbu@aol.com" Lippman looks him off, shrugs his shoulders apologetically, and then throws a five yard pass to a wide open receiver for the goal. The defense erupts in cheers. Parinella collapses in exhaustion. We win.

At some point that day, though, the Clam for N>1 was born. Previously, the Clam was a one pass defense off a stagnant situation, but necessity forced the Boston outfit to conserve their energy by playing junk defense. Since the team was but 8, it was easy for players to get acquainted with their positions. This tournament was pretty competitive, mind you, so it would have been very easy for the team to collapse and blame their failure on small numbers, but the Clam got easy turnovers and, just as importantly, easy goals for the opponents. The mantra became, "If the disc gets past you, just give up and head to the line for the next point." Graffiti in particular was frustrated with this defense. "Everyone's open, but there's no one to throw to." Receivers would be standing wide open, but would feel uncomfortable with that fact, as if there were some trick, and would run to the nearest defender. Throwers used to bowling alley cuts found themselves playing catch with the 3 guy in the Clam. Celebrations over goals were met with, "Wow, you should be proud, you scored against 7 guys who were walking."

Big Brother continued to eke out victory after victory, employing the now common Clam for the full point and the since-retired Designated Goal Scorer concept. The semis saw a spent Boston contingent take on a 15 or so strong NY team, not their full squad, but close enough. The tired Bostonians managed to wring out a concession from their bitter enemies, and the game was to be played to 16 rather than 17. Cribber promised to eat his hat if Corky scored 10 goals that game as boasted. The game started, and this new Clam version stifled the reigning 4 time National, 2 time World champs. Yells of anger came from the NY bench, while the Boston sub was quietly encouraging his teammates. A few timeouts enabled NY to solve the Clam temporarily by employing an ultra-patient technique which no one else had the discipline to do, and they built a lead. Things looked bleak for the Good Guys, and at 14-11, NY was on the verge of scoring, when an uncharacteristic end zone drop gave us life, and we went on to score the final five goals for the victory. This wasn't necessarily a great thing, since that meant another game for eight players already on the verge of collapse from exhaustion. But this was a Cuervo qualifier, in the days before the evil members of the UPA Board cut off all links with the tequila company ,and a victory meant a shot at the Gold later in the year. A psyched hometown Philly team was next. Pulls seemed to drift further and further out of bounds , until Philly would station a player in the weeds to retrieve them. A few repull calls brought the pulls closer to inbounds. Nip and tuck it was, with a fierce battle raging every point. Death would not come to the beleaguered Beantowners, as they scrapped to stay alive. Towards the end, the unfortunate eighth player picked up could not get into the game, as no one would take a sub. Finally, good prevailed over good and Boston earned their spot in history with an 18-16 victory.

Ah, the good old days.