Why we dig this MB Open, and how history here always seems to repeat itself

Following up on today's column (linked here):

Without the flip scoreboards at each court, the fans weren't all up to speed on who was winning during the early matches at the retro-Manhattan Beach Open on Saturday morning.

"What's the score?" someone yelled out at Sean Rosenthal and Aaron Wachfogel as they were battling to win a second-round match.

Rosenthal turned to the fan sitting on the baseline.

"It's 11-3," he said. "It's been 11-3 for a long time."

The sideout scoring will do that to you. You take the awesome with the bad. And the awesome element to this year's tournament can't be denied. We've gone old-school, old-rule. And old school rules. Sometimes.

Without the AVP's rules, the CVBA and the Manhattan Beach Parks and Recs department had run of the beach this weekend for the 50th anniversary of the first MB Open, back in 1960, when Mike Bright and Mike O'Hara won the first of their five in a row.

The event actually took place before '60, according to the Artie Convillon book, "The Manhattan Beach Open: The Wimbledon of Beach Volleyball: 1960-2006." He writes about how there were unsanctioned events in '58 and '59, but "since its onset, this event has been regarded as the most prestigious beach volleyball tournament on the circuit."

And, even before the 2010 version, there were issues, Convillon notes.

Not just when the sun would go down, it'd be dark, and tournament wasn't finished.

In '86, the AVP decided to hold an event in Cape Cod, so it send half of the best players there instead of Manhattan Beach. In '88, none of the top 32 AVP players were in the MB Open because they were on the national Olympic qualifying tour.

In '96, the AVP put pressure on the city to start charging for tickets. In '97, the MB Open was actually moved to Hermosa Beach, because of the same problem. In '98, it was actually not held, but the city decided to hold its "old-school" event. AVP players weren't allowed to play -- so former AVP legend Tim Hovland got together with Brandon Teliaferro and nearly won the the thing, losting to Pepe Delahoz and Sean Scott.

From a fan's perspective, it's not so much win-win. You don't get the high-end players, but there's no sensory overload, with just a few pop-up tents from some local sponsors.

One was from John Elway's car dealership. Fill out a form, put it in the hopper, and you could win an autographed football from the Hall of Famer. That is, if the autograph didn't fade from the ball sitting in a glass case right in the sun's glare all day.

As a result of the thin field, we can get 47-year-old Brent Frohoff and 45-year-old Scott Ayakatubby back on the beach, drawing some of the biggest cheers on the day.

"This is just awesome," said 51-year-old Kevin Cleary, who formed the AVP back in 1983 and was competing in his 34th consecutive event.

So was the talent all over the beach.

== An Easy Reader story on how the AVP fell apart financially (linked here)