Each year, the Silver Bobcat honors the first gamester(s) to reach five hits and thus qualify for a QPA. Its name honors the dazzling early speed of the Smokin' Bobcat, Cassandra Bob, and the Silver Warrior, D. Perriman Sr. who for 15 years owned the record for the earliest QPA.
1971 - Dr. Death hit his fifth on July 12th, and went on to win the Gran Prix and Perriman Pennant.
1972 - Dr. Death stroked his fifth on April 4th on his way to the Gran Prix and Perriman Pennant.
1973 - J. Smoke hit pay dirt on April 26th, relaxed and confident of victory.
1974 - Binky Brown made five on July 1st and previewed his winning '75 form.
1975 - R. Gilbert hit his fifth on August 9th on his way to winning the Rookie of the Year honors. In an astoundingly stylish performance, his first four hits were all solos -- on Thomas Hart Benton, Josephine Baker, Rod Serling and Dimitri Shostakovich -- and he capped them with a duet on King Faisal to win the Silver Bobcat.
1976 - B. Hamilton and A. Zimney were the first to five hits, touching base on June 6th and then they completely fell apart, perhaps exhausted or disoriented, and disappeared by year's end.
1977 - J. Basal and D. Perriman Sr. shared the Bobcat honors on June 18th. Perriman Sr. went on to win the Perriman Pennant and tie G. Conway for the Gran Prix on December 26th. Basal faded to fifth.
1978 - N. Basal rang the bell on March 22nd, capping her drive-for-five with a solo on Karl Wallenda falling from a high wire.
1979 - The ecstatic Register team took the Bobcat on April 24th but eventually faded to fifth.
1980 - D. Perriman Sr. picked up the Bobcat on February 20th, set a new record and previewed his amazing 1981 performance.
1981 - On February 1st, D. Perriman Sr. set a record for the fastest QPA that would stand for 15 years; his effort was powered by three solos and left his competitors in the dust.
1982 - L. Smith picked up the sleek silver statuette on June 12th on his way to the Gran Prix and the Perriman Pennant.
1983 - On March 23rd, a posse of the Ithaca Psychics (the eventual Gran Prix winner), Pontius (who came in second), Deathbed (who came in third), and Slick, Slim & Amy took the Silver Bobcat.
1984 - On February 15th, OPEC and Pontius tied for the Silver Bobcat. For Pontius it was Bobcat #2, on his way to the Gran Prix and the Perriman Pennant.
1985 - Captain Cadaver hit the five-furlong mark on March 10th, showing great early speed, and hung on gamely to place second.
1986 - Pontius snared Bobcat #3 on March 6th. He eventually finished fourth but captured the Perriman Pennant.
1987 - Aces & Eights, Necrophiac and the Sick Puppies collected on April 2nd. The Pups soldiered on to win the Gran Prix and the Perriman Pennant.
1988 - On February 28th, Pontius won a record Bobcat #4 on his way to a second place finish.
1989 - The Sick Puppies took the Bobcat on March 9th on their way to the Gran Prix and a tie for the Perriman Pennant with Ms. O'Ree.
1990 - A fully revved G. Reaper took the Silver Bobcat on March 26th on his way to the Gran Prix and Perriman Pennant.
1991 - The Smokin' Bobcat himself, Cassandra Bob, bagged the Silver Bobcat on March 1st with a solo on Polaroid inventor Edwin H. Land and blistering early fractions.
1992 - Pontius tallied Bobcat #5 on April 5th as part of a crowd scoring on Sam Walton.
1993 - On February 6th, a huge crowd took advantage of a rash of early homework hits to mob the Silver Bobcat scene. They were: The Sick Puppies, OPEC, Frozen Stiff, Dr. Tom(b), the Morbo Chucks, Uncle Milton and Death's Doorstep.
1994 - On March 20th, the Flatliners, T. & J. James and the Gamesters of Triskelion tallied five together.
1995 - On February 9th, the Flatliners became the first ever to win the Silver Bobcat with a Daily Double on Sen. J. William Fulbright and actor David Wayne, scoring their fifth and sixth hits the same day.
1996 - On January 27th, a blazing, sizzling, flying Dr. Doux broke D. Perriman Sr.'s record, which had held for 15 years. Amazingly, he did it without hitting a single solo, and he did it all alone, sharing in hits on Jan. 8, 9, 18, 26 and 27. No one else was even close.1997 - On February 1st, benefiting from an incredible tail wind, Frozen Stiff and Body Parts tied D. Perriman Sr.'s former mark, but still could not touch Dr. Doux's new record. Frozen Stiff's five hits included a Jan. 18th Daily Double for #3 and #4, and his Wild Card for #5.
1998 - On January 29th, again an incredible tail wind. Just two days past Dr. Doux's 1996 single season record, Dinner with Jack Klugman, the Merry Little Breezes and Pontius cruised over the five-hit line. For Pontius, it was Bobcat #6.
1999 - On February 8th, a fleet-listed Frozen Stiff took the Silver Bobcat by sharing a hit on author Iris Murdoch. But it was his back-to-back solos on publisher Eugene Pulliam and blues pianist Charles Brown on Jan. 20 & 21 that put him ahead of the pack.
2000 - On February 12th, Dr. Tom(b) won the Silver Bobcat scoring hit #5 on Tom Landry, but he cut it extremely close: Boneyard Dog and Frozen Stiff scored their fifth hit just four hours later on Charles Schulz. Yikes! And in a cautionary tale to those who flirt with the obscurely famous, L. Epstein learned on February 18th that a pick had died on January 30th, and on March 14th he discovered that another had died on January 1st. Those picks didn't become hits until they were recorded, and the Silver Bobcat was long gone by then.
2001 - Our American Cousin and Pontius shared only one hit on the way to five, and both arrived on February 18th with different picks, artist Balthus for Our American Cousin and baseball's Eddie Mathews for Pontius. Because the two picks died at approximately the same time, and the exact time could not be determined for Balthus (only "Sunday afternoon"), the Silver Bobcat was awarded to both gamesters.
2002 - On February 13th, Dinner with Jack Klugman won the Bobcat with their hit on Waylon Jennings. Missing by just hours was 2001's winner Our American Cousin who hit #5 on designer Paulene Trigere later in the day. Ouch!
2003 - On April 11, Greyfriars Bobby and Pontius tied for the Silver Bobcat as Pontius claimed five points (with a dozen others) on New York Giants CEO/President John Butler and Greyfriars Bobby scored an ace on native American Pamunkey tribal Chief Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook. It was Ponty's record setting 8th Bobcat.
2004 - On March 3rd, both Frozen Stiff and the Sick Puppies captured the silver statuette with a shared five-point hit on Nuyorican poet and playwright Pedro Pietri, sometimes alluded to as the "Spanish Metaphor Consultant to the Latin Insomniac Motorcycle Club Without Motorcycles."
2005 - On February 3rd, while in his 11th-season of play, Humorbid snared his first Silver Bobcat with a hit on Ernst Mayr, the leading evolutionary biologist of the 20th century. Humorbid missed the world-record for earliest Silver Bobcat by just one week.
2006 - On January 30, just four days shy of the world record for earliest Silver Bobcat, New York's Skul, after thirty-years of play, won his first Bobcat as he and 21 others scored three points on the First lady of Civil Rights, Coretta Scott King. With the Hit, Skul temporarily took the Game lead with a 19 & 5 mark.
2007- On January 11, SHATTERING THE OLD RECORD by two whole weeks, Pontius took the earliest ever Silver Bobcat with an Ace on futurist, philosopher and all-around odd-ball, Robert Anton Wilson. The standing ovation was given, and the question was raised: Is this mark unbreakable?
Let us return to Career Records or perhaps the Glossary.