This year, Rocky, next year, the A-Team. Of Sherlockiana, of course.

What? I was in the Sherlockian Olympics?

It's easy to forget in this oh-so-connected world that we are no longer just citizens of a single country when we fire up our web browsers. We are citizens of the world.

That was my first thought upon seeing the results of this year's annual John H. Watson Society Treasure Hunt. Of the top six teams on the awards list, only two were American (though I think the British team snuck at least one Yank on their roster). The Italian society, Uno Studio in Holmes, pretty much blew everybody away getting the closest thing to a perfect score this year. Apparently things were a little tougher this time out, as the second place team, Seattle's Sound of the Baskervilles, only placed second after two years of perfect-score wins, tying with Canada's team, The Bootmakers of Toronto.

La Fayette of La Societe Sherlock Holmes de France also topped we non-Seattle-based Americans, and while I'd like to say that Rob Nunn and I would have tried harder had we known it was an international competition, I don't think "trying harder" was an option in either of our cases. We gave it the best our August 2015 had to offer.

Of course, if the JHW Society Treasure Hunt were a test, that would have been a C+ effort. (And  "grading on a curve" would not have helped us at all.) We wouldn't have gotten the gold, silver, or bronze in this Sherlockian Olympics, either.  But like The Retired Beekeepers of Sussex, I think our initial bout in this Watsonian prize-fight is our Rocky story. We were just in it to go the distance this time. Next year we'll get out on the beach with Apollo Creed and see if we can take down the champ. (Or maybe bring in some Russian government experiment Sherlockian prodigy and a primal Mr. T Sherlockian, just because this is a team sport and we can cheat the Rocky metaphor a bit. Start the search now, Rob!)

Ah, well. I can also think of a few Sherlockians who weren't in the competition, without whose expertise, any victory would still leave mountains left to conquer. The biggest quiz bad-ass I ever met was nowhere to be seen in this little event which means . . . hmmm . . . might have to head up to Detroit to recruit our Ivan Drago.

Quizzes. Like I said a little over a month ago, maybe I should just swear off 'em!