Template:BoatShoesDeclineAndFallFragment

While the downfall of the San Francisco Boat Shoes in the Toroidal Cup may seem inevitable after the fact, it was not a foregone conclusion, with the Boat Shoes dominating the Hellmouth Cup and making a solid showing early, rolling up the Toroidal/Season 6 postseason and defeating the Elko Astronauts to win the Toroidal Cup. However, after a string of over a dozen Toroidal Cup seasons where the Boat Shoes either didn't make the postseason at all, or were knocked out before they could make it to the final Cup Series, the Boat Shoes were desperate for the taste of another championship. Even their postseason performances were anemic.

The Toroidal/Season 15 postseason (the League Division Series, LDS) featured a showdown between the long and bitter rivals, San Francisco Boat Shoes and Sacramento Boot Lickers . Neither team had met up during the regular season for the Cali Crown, but after a long string of defeats at the hands of the Boot Lickers, the Boat Shoes had finally managed to best the Boot Lickers in their matchups 4 seasons in a row. Going into the series, many commentators said it was the single most important series in the history of the Boat Shoes franchise.

The division series went back and forth, ending up tied up at 2-2. In Game 5 ( 0fe0cbc8-adaf-4c27-84bc-6ea2fa720870), the deciding game of the series, the neck-and-neck battle continued to the very end, when the Boot Lickers shocked the Boat Shoes and the entire world with a single-point photo finish, 159-158, while the Boat Shoes were in the middle of a formation.

History now shows that the outcome of the series would come to define both teams. The Boot Lickers would go on to the Toroidal Cup, and be robbed of a championship title by the sordid Piano Tuners in the Piano Tuners Hacking Scandal. The San Francisco Boat Shoes' Season 15 Division Series loss to the Boot Lickers marked a significant moral defeat and the beginning of a long, protracted, and melodramatic downward slide for the Boat Shoes.