NFFA Commentary BAKERS WRESTLE 900-POUND GORILLA

The whole league is feeling the weight of the Bakers' 900-pound gorilla.

By R.E. Porter
Associated Web Press

BAKERVILLE—It's the NFFA's 900-pound gorilla, the one no one is talking about. Oh, people are talking about it privately and off-the-record, but no one is mentioning it in any of their public comments. Of course, the 900-pound gorilla I refer to is the eight-game losing streak of the 12th Avenue Bakers to start the 2013 season.

The Bakers' 0-8 record is not unprecedented. They started the 2007 season with eight straight losses, then put 227 points —  a franchise record — on the Alamo Scouts (now The Village Green) to get off the schneid. Their two eight-game losing streaks to start a season represent a league record. 12th Avenue also owns the record for the longest losing streak of any kind — 10 games in 2011, spanning from week two through week 11. With two more losses, the Bakes will equal that record. But even if they were to win out, they are still guaranteed to register their 10th losing campaign in 12 seasons.

Of course, no one hates holding these records for futility more than Bakers owner QCurl Sharif. Sharif is a brilliant, yet flawed man; one of the NFFA's five founding owners and the only one to have never won a championship of any kind, neither a league title, nor a division crown. But Sharif is resilient, if nothing else, and he has faced these trials in the past, so he almost certainly is feeling no pain, and I mean that literally.

No, the pressure is now building on 12th Avenue's opponents, who want to avoid the ignominy of being the Bakers' first victim in 2013. This week, that 900-pounds of pressure falls on the shoulders of The Village Green's owner, Dave Goodrow, and their head coach, Stuart Smalley. One wonders if once again this franchise will fall to the Bakers, as it did in 2007, and give 12th Avenue their first win of the season.

When reached earlier today, Goodrow said his team is feeling "no pressure at all." He added, "Coach Smalley instills in his players positive thinking and visualization."

If The Green can prevail this week, then the 900-pound gorilla jumps on the back of Tirik Obobber and his Fidalgo Island Sea Hogs. But if there is such a thing as karma, week 11 might be when the Bakes get to taste victory because that's the week they face Mojo D and the Downtown Corsairs, and their "turncoat" coach Ray Lewis, a longtime Baker who has been linked by NFFA security to an attempt on Sharif's life back in July.

West Nashville owner Mos' Ded, Sharif's longtime frienemy, claims the Bakers' woes stem from the death of Sharif's infant son, Curlbaby, at the hands of Shiva the Destroyer. "The Bakers will continue to lose until Shiva brings back Curlbaby," the Beelzebubba owner prophesied.

But Ded's theory is only one of several making the rounds at local NFFA hotspots, like Club Gitmo, The Goodrow-A-Go-Go, and even Sharif's own Cherry Bomb Café. Bakers beat writer Woody Larry is convinced the perennial losing by the 12th Avenue franchise is connected to when Sharif was flirting with Satanism, but the Bakers were losing then, too, so that doesn't seem likely. One league insider speaking only on the condition of anonymity suggested it was the curse of the monkey, a reference to the fact the Bakers introduced apes to the league's menagerie with fatal results.

Sharif's close friend Jim McMahon may have come closest to the truth when he offered the following explanation for the Bakers many years of losing: "Winning is just not that important to Q," the East Nashville Black Dogs head coach said. "Don't get me wrong, Q wants to win, but he wants to do other things a whole lot more."