Swift Kick in the Grass

This week I was especially nervous about showing up for kickball. Tim hadn't tried to contact me all week, so I am hoping that was due to him getting the hint last week. But you can never be sure. I was also feeling that if he didn't get the hint that he would be laying it on thick at this game. I really just didn't want to deal with anything Tim related.

When we showed up almost everyone was already there, one of the few exceptions being Tim. He had always been one of the first to arrive. Could this mean he wasn't coming at all???

The Virginia crowd decided to spice things up a bit and instead of bringing beer they brought one of those huge orange drink holding things (I am sure they have a name for it, but I can't think of it) that usually people bring to sporting events but put water or Gatorade in. Well they filled theirs with a screwdriver instead, let's be honest, it is what you should do when playing in a super social league. I guess their thoughts on losing last week was lets just get more drunk this week?

This time we played "Swift Kick in the Grass." We also got a new umpire. Is that what they are called in kickball? Once again, another reason I should give those rules a quick glance over. Every other game we had always ended up with the same umpire and he seemed to really like us. Probably because we share our alcohol with him, but that's not cheating, right? But this new umpire didn't like us as much. He'd get onto us for all the rules we kept breaking and gave us a final warning that it would result in an out the next one we broke. But we still did ok even with not being favored.

I, personally, didn't play well at all. I single handedly am responsible for the other team getting three runs on us, OUCH. That was because I didn't catch a pop-up and had to chase it forever while the kicker and two people on the bases ran into home. I will argue here that I don't think it would've ever been possible for me to catch it, I think it would be considered "out of the park" if there was such a thing for our kickball field. But I did get the pleasure of running through and interrupting another kickball game as I chased after our kickball. That was embarrassing. They all stop and turn to look at you as you run frantically after the ball. Fun times.

I wish that is where my sucking it up stopped, but unfortunately it was not. There was a ball that literally came straight for me, one of the Virginia guys called it but I couldn't figure out why because it was coming right at me. So I chose to ignore his calling it (ugh...why?) and went for it myself. It hit my arms and just bounced right off. I asked him afterwards if he really did have it, he said he thinks he would've. I think I am going to resort back to the game playing strategy I had as a little kid playing soccer, which was run the OPPOSITE direction of the ball. At least I never made mistakes then, it's hard to when you don't even have the opportunity to touch the ball. Of course, I also wasn't chosen as the player of the year either. Or maybe I could just practice catching the ball sometime? No, that's way too much work for a super social league.

The last mistake I made was kicking the ball up in the air. I know better than to do that. If you can't kick it far it is best not to kick it up at all because usually the best players are in the infield and will catch it. But I guess I got excited and kicked it harder than I should've. Oh well...my team still managed to make 6 runs that inning even after my out. So I'd say it wasn't detrimental to the team.

Even though I played terribly, I was in very good spirits for this game. That could've been due to the screwdrivers but it was probably mostly due to the fact that Tim never showed up! I definitely didn't even think about that being a possibility for this week's game. Now, it did make me feel bad, hopefully it wasn't because of me that he didn't show and hopefully nothing happened to him. But it was nice to not have to deal with that this week!

When all was said and done we ended up beating "Swift Kick in the Grass" 9-6! So in celebration, we all went to Doc's and had a few more drinks. Once again, as we all sat there talking at the bar I couldn't help but think how lucky we were to get such a great group! We all get along so well! We take turns at the bar buying pitchers. We never seem to run out of things to talk about. It is just a great group of people and I am glad that it has worked out so well so far! Well, minus the Tim thing...