after all this time, i still suck at kickball

The kickball season came to a close yesterday and ummm…yeah…I’m kinda sad about it, I guess. In retrospect, it was nothing that I expected it to be, but it was still a great experience.

Back in June, Jesse and I received an invitation to join the team from Kate who was a captain last season. Kate, who I suspect gets easily excited about many things, was totally stoked about the upcoming season and was trying to convince Jesse and me to join. Jesse had done the kickball thing with his previous employer. I hadn’t played kickball since grade school. However, we were both open to experiencing the camaraderie of playing on a team and getting some exercise in the outdoors. So, with little hesitation, we signed up.

I knew that kickball in DC was popular, but I didn’t realize how popular until I had told some of my coworkers that I was going to play. Some of them expressed to me that they didn’t think that kickball was “my thing.” I may not be a natural athlete but how do my coworkers know that? I couldn't understand why they felt that way. Thankfully, it was Shama who alerted me to the true nature of kickball—an activity that facilitates drinking and hooking up. Subsequent perusals of the weekly kickball newsletter (yes, there’s a newsletter) confirmed this fact. The post game drinking was something that Jesse and I only partook of twice—the second time being yesterday (and it was more celebratory than an attempt to get hammered). I’m certainly no prude nor am I a lush. However, my desire to drink doesn’t kick in until the weekend. It’s just wrong to drink during the week unless it’s happy hour (or there’s a college football game on, like tonight). After all, I have to get up early to go to work in the morning (clearly, I’m old).

Jesse and I were fortunate to be on a fun team with some truly awesome people. For me, this was the draw of kickball. I got to see my friend Kate on a semi-regular basis. We played with the coolest people who supported you no matter how much you sucked (ahem), or how often you got out (ahem), or how often you killed the rally (AHEM!). In my opinion, Jesse and I were kinda the yin and the yang of the team. Because no matter how much I sucked, Jesse was there to balance my “suckiness” with his really great plays and kicks. And I was always more than happy to be his #1 cheerleader on the team.

As I look back at the season, I am shocked and appalled that my kickball skills didn’t improve. How hard is it to kick a ball? Very hard, apparently. In the entire season, I got to base only once and that was probably my proudest kickball moment. I guess I made a couple of good defensive stops in the outfield but I never really thought so unless Jesse told me.

Last night, after our post game sangria at La Tasca with the team, Jesse and I briefly contemplated doing kickball again. At the time, I didn’t really want to. I’m probably going to suck just as much next season. But then again, I really can’t suck any more than this and there’s only no way to go but up! Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Hey, maybe next season I’ll actually score!