by Hap Rocketto
Their names ring through history with a musical quality reminiscent of a New England college carillon on a crisp fall afternoon. The East India Company, The Hudson Bay Company, and The London Company all formed by bourgeois businessmen with pockets full of gold as a result of the economic expansion of post-feudal Europe. The Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, and French soon joined the English middleclass in this frenzy. Cartels quickly formed to mount expeditions to the Far East and New World in search of gold, precious stones, spices, and silks and, most importantly, the rich profits that followed trading in these luxuries. These early venture capitalists set the stage for the creation of the modern nations of the New World.
A half of a millennium later these forces would come to culmination at The Great Pumpkin Match on a bracing autumn day. On a day two months earlier, and 60 degrees hotter, Bell City was the site of the New England Metric Regional. The suffocating heat and wilting moisture lead to a mild loss of lucidity that resulted in the (in)famous Backer Match. On that day the match management was talked into running a special match that involved scoring air rifle targets that were printed on the cut-rate backers the club had purchased. On this day Nicole Panko would exhibit an unusual lack of judgement when she skipped up to me and asked a favor.
“Could you come up with an interesting non-fired team match if I gave you 24 hours?” she asked as we were changing targets after the first stage of the 50meter match.
“Twenty four hours!” I boldly retorted. “Just give me 24 seconds and I’ll have a match for today.” Quickly riffling through my mental Rolodex of the eccentric, outlandish, and inane I, chivvied along by my brother Steve’s musings, came up with the idea of a four-man match fired in the first stage of the Dewar. Each shooter would be randomly assigned a bull, one through four, on his target that would count towards an aggregate score of 200. Each bull number had to be used meaning that if shooter number one used bull one no other shooter might. The idea immediately was accepted and teams formed.
Unbeknown to everyone an anonymous sponsor selected a team named “The Team Sponsored by Venture Capitalists” and paid the entry fee. It turned out that the unknown shooting venture capitalists was my very own brother Steve “Donald Trump” Rocketto and good friend Patty “Lenora Helmsley” Clark. When the scores were posted it turned out that their team won. They accepted the $20 prize money, deducted the two-dollar entry fee as expenses, took half of the remaining money as their just reward, and split the remainder among the shooters.
On the surface this appeared to be a good thing except it turns out that Steve was shooting on a different team and Patty was the range officer. The conflict of interest involved an ethical breach of titanic proportions. By odd coincidence Bell City is located near the Giammati Little League complex. Bart Giammati was the Commissioner of Baseball who banned Pete Rose from the national pastime for life because he bet on baseball. The juxtaposition should not be lost on the first half of the venture capitalists. As a member of the National Rifle Association Board of Directors and the NRA Smallbore Committee the distaff side should simply not involve herself a practice banned by the shotgun community. I refer to the gambling ritual known as “buying a Calcutta”.
The ultimate sanction would be, ala Pete Rose and Bart Giammati, to ban the two from shooting for life and insure that they be removed from consideration from the Connecticut Shooter’s Hall of Fame. However, they are already in the Hall of Fame so that negates both options. And, because they are sterling individuals and I have known both my entire shooting career I will grant them amnesty. After all, we are all entitled to one ethical crossfire in the match of life.
