Urban croquet

Thwok! David Von Euw shows the importance of followthrough at one of the West Roxbury Croquet League's Monday matches.

Yes, if you've ever driven down the West Roxbury Parkway on an early Monday evening in the summer, those guys really are playing croquet by the side of the road near Weld Street. They play every Monday, from the running of the Kentucky Derby through Labor Day - when they dress up in formal whites and sip champagne to celebrate the end of the season.

Above, Bob Branca, the league commissioner (he owns the croquet set) sets up a shot. Branca says the league started in the 1980s, when a group of parents of students at the nearby Holy Name School started having backyard get togethers. One thing led to another, somebody suggested croquet and they've just kept going.

On a good day, a dozen or so guys will show up to the league's "field" on the parkway, come hell or 90-degree, 90%-humidity conditions. Most of the players are from West Roxbury and Roslindale, but Branca says one guy drives up from Taunton - and another drives all the way down from Chestnut Hill.

"It's ghetto croquet," Joe Galeota jokes, pointing out hazards unfamilar to tonier clubs in Ye Olde Englande - such as dips and bumps in the grass and dog droppings (fortunately, no geese infest the area).

The official league pennant beckons parkway motorists:

Kibbitzing seems almost as important as the game itself:

That's especially so when Dick Leahy plays. Beating anybody else is like beating the Pawtucket Red Sox, but beating Leahy is like beating the Yankees, Von Euw says.

Official croquet rules.