It’s the first weekend of August. AKA: My Favorite Weekend.The Manhattan Beach 6-Man Volleyball Tournament kicks off tomorrow, and the event features everything I love about L.A.: sunshine, sand, bikini-clad women, music thumping from 10-foot cabinet speakers and a half-dozen drunk-and-disorderly arrests.
Some interesting names have participated over the years, including Wilt Chamberlain, and Los Angeles King Marty McSorley. But those of us who are sub six-feet are relegated to spectating. Last year, I spent the afternoon watching next to USC head football coach Pete Carroll and his wife, who both got a big kick out of it.
In the mid nineties, a team decided to take the spectacle to a new level, with a tribute to their favorite movie and sports team. Dressing as Chevy Chase during the Laker dream sequence in Fletch, they call themselves Team Fletch. And they've been dominating ever since.
Team Fletch’s idea caught fire, and now all the teams don costumes. I personally dig the bolder outfits that impede play, such as hospital gowns with big, fake butts hanging out the back. The local cops field a team, and wear riot gear and fake mustaches.
Every time Team Fletch wins a match, they group-hug and belt out a lyric that I may someday get drunk enough to have tattooed on me:
From the South Bay to the Valley
From the West Side to the East Side
Everybody's very happy
'Cause the sun is shining all the time
Looks like another perfect day
I love L.A.
