Recreational Hazard Kickball

First off, our new team name is Recreational Hazard Kickball. I hate the name. How can you cheer for that? "Go Rec Hazards!" Nope. Doesn't sound good. Poor job on the Austin Sport & Social Club part for picking that name. They must've let the LEAST funny guy that works there get to throw in his idea for a name. You know, just to make him feel better because his other names like: Kick Kick Korray, Can I Get a Kick Kick and Homerun Homies all didn't make the cut. And then I hope they made him retire naming teams, cause this one's pathetic.

Yesterday was the t-shirt pickup day for the summer kickball league. This is when we get to meet our teammates. I was looking forward to this night for so long. The Bad News Brews turned out to be such a great team, who knew what other possibilities their were!

Of course, we knew that maybe we were on the lucky side of team assignments with the Bad News Brews. Even if they had done a personality profile, I don't think they could've gotten it more right. But the running joke of the Brews all season had been "Shin Guards."

(I actually blogged about him in "The Double Hitter." But I called him "shin guard guy," he was on the pink team, we hadn't quite stuck to the official name of Shin Guards yet)

But he has been talked about all season by The Brews for his far too over enthusiastic kickball motives. If you are playing so hard that you think you need shin guards, you shouldn't be playing in a super social league. Bottom line.

So since the five (yeah, that's all of The Brews that decided to stick with kickball another season) of us signed up, we've been laughing saying that Shin Guards will probably end up on our team. It was something we were bracing ourselves for, but hoping wouldn't happen.

I also heard a story from Natalie about guy friends of hers from work who joined a kickball team. They wanted to meet cool people to go out with, instead they got stuck with a group that all worked together and just joined for literally the sport of playing kickball. It started making me feel pretty scared about who we'd end up with on a team. What if we ended up with one big group that had different interests than ours?

So after all these fears had built up inside of us, we get THE email. It includes all the names and emails of your teammates. You'd be crazy if you didn't think the first thing I did (as well as at least one of my fellow Brew friends) was search the names on Facebook. I mean, that's what Facebook's for, right? No? Oh well. That's what we used it for that night.

This is what I knew about my team members after the search:
1. One was for sure 99% gay. (didn't actually say in the "interested in" status that he was interested in men, so that is the only reason I have to leave out the 1%)
2. Three were a little on the older side. (one of which was on the "I was three when he graduated from high school" side...ouch.)
3. One was a 7-year-old black boy. (Actually you have to be twenty-one to join, but this is a good time to stress using only CURRENT photos on social networking sites...for such reasons. As I, and other crazies, are stalking (and better yet, subsequently, judging) you.)
4. One of the two new girls on the team had an annoying profile picture of her laying down and a plane at the airport in the background.
5. The other people on the team were not on Facebook.
6. Of those that were on Facebook, only three of their profiles were public. (which makes it hard for me to stalk to my full potential...obviously)

So by this point I'm feeling a little worried about this team. All the pieces for that horror story of a team is starting to fall into place. But who knows, Facebook stalking often turns up false results (I SERIOUSLY don't do this all the time...so I am basing the word "often" off of the results of just a few instances).

Then we get this email, and I am not even going to edit/shorten it. Let me just say that I am going to go ahead and guess your thought process as you read this. It should go something like this: "Okay................okay..................okay......................WHAAAAAAATTTTTTTT???????????" If it's not the sequence of your thought process, well, we need to talk. So here's the email:


Hey everybody! Welcome to Recreational Hazard kickball. Paul, Will, Doug, Dan, Heather, Alex, and I know each other from previous kickball teams, dodgeball teams, and Dungeons & Dragons chat rooms. To the new players, welcome aboard what I'm sure will be a very fun season. I just wanted to make sure that everybody knew to pick up their shirt or had made arrangements to get it picked up. Unfortunately I won't be at Doc's tomorrow, but I know that Heather will be there around 6:15. Also they posted game times and our first game is Thursday at 7:55 PM. Please respond to confirm that you are in and let me know if there is a particular position you want to play. BTW, I'm JJ and when I'm not playing World of Warcraft I enjoy drinking a few beers and playing 3rd base on kickball teams. JJ

OHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! This can't be our team! This is worse than Shin Guards! This is like seven Shin Guards (and then some) all on one team! I mean, Dungeons & Dragons and World of Warcraft??? WHAT? Like I could EVER find common ground to talk to them! In fact, I am pretty sure that is why society created those games, so I wouldn't have to talk to those types. They'd be all cooped up at home playing such games and I would be free to play kickball and drink without the worry of "those people" being around. What the heck?

(I really feel like a mean person. I do apologize to anyone who is a fan of such games or knows of one. But I think we all (including them) know the stereotype about them. And lets face it, stereotypes are quite frequently correct.)

All of us ex-brews started freaking out, sending emails, text messages and facebook IM's about it. The only thing we could say about it was, "at least we have each other!"

Then we got another email from one of the girls from that group that went like this:

Hi guys! My name is Heather & I'm looking forward to meeting those of you who don't know me yet. A few things about me, as an introduction:
1. My favorite color is pink
2. My favorite show is Paris Hilton's My New BFF (can't wait for Season 2!)
3. I love mani/pedi dates with my girlfriends (but I'm going to move my standing Thursday night mani/pedi to Fri's now because my nails are probably going to be wrecked after kickball, with all those balls flying at me!)
4. My favorite drink is sex on the beach, natch!
5. I'm not great at kickball, but I'm a GREAT cheerleader!
I'll be at Doc's around 6 and again, I look forward to meeting you guys (and seeing the ones of you that I TOTALLY already love, bitches!)

After reading her email I realized, there could not be such a person that is so girly YET is also into Dungeons and Dragons types of people. They must be joking.............right? But the first email so casually threw-in the two points of note. Maybe the first email was serious and this girl is making fun of prissy girls, because the dungeon and dragon type would probably make fun of girly-girls....I think. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE??????????????

Well, three of us ex-brews made it to the t-shirt pick-up at Doc's. We were all very nervous about how these people would turn out. I had a slight reminiscent feeling of how it felt the first time we went to meet our team. Anyone who had a shirt any shade of yellow, (our shirt color....I know, far from the color orange that The Brews had) I thought it was our team. But luckily, it didn't take quite as much time to find our team.

As soon as we saw them I could tell they were NOT the Dungeons and Dragons type. They are more of the authentic Austin looking type (if that makes any sense...especially since I don't think any of them were truly from Austin). But yes there was the gay guy (super hilarious, BTW), the laying by the plane girl (maybe I can talk to her about how to not seem weird in profile photos later, cause she was totally cool and got pre-judged the wrong way), one of the "oldies" and one of the not on Facebook girls (Heather, the "girly-girl".......but not really).

We actually only stayed for one drink because we had already made plans with the ex-Brews already. So we didn't really get to know them that well, but I know we will have time for that. We did, however, confirm that they were kidding in the emails. They said they love sending funny emails including game highlights each week. That sounds like someone I know, but I just can't put my finger on who yet.

Anyways, it looks like they will be a really fun team! Still don't know if they can hold a candle to The Brews, but they might come close!