I am not 10 Anymore

I haven't been this sore since I marched a 3 mile parade in London, England with a 40 pound 3 foot tall bass drum. What caused it? Football? Soccer? Trying to keep up with Little Blue?

Kickball.

Pink e-mailed me from work a couple weeks ago and asked if I wanted to play kickball for Juvenile Diabetes. As a kickball addict both at recess and during college, I gave an enthusiastic yes.

Game started at 9am, so the Pamphlet crew arrived at about 15 till so that we could moan and groan about how sore we were going to be the next day. Our first time was running a little late (we all hoped we were going to get a bye), so we limbered up and figured out who was going to do once.

We discovered we had a stellar third basemen who could chuck the ball from third to first at no problem. I offered up to cover third and had our coed team spread out through the the edge of dirt around the infield. The balls were flat intentionally, so we couldn't kick the ball very far.

In the end, we tied for third, winning two games and loosing one. We would have fought for third, but we agreed with the team we were going to play was a bit too tired to determine how it was going to end, so we all shook hands and headed home.

Personally, I was a little disappointed I could barely kick the ball in the grass. I hesitated to toe poke the ball when I kicked it though. The first kick I made nearly knocked down the pitcher...she had to jump and do the splits...and we're playing for charity, so I didn't want to kill anyone.

We did get into a rough spot at the end of our last game when we played against the most competitive team all day. We had two runs on and were down two runs when the opposing team blocked third so our runner couldn't get to it. In the ensuing smash, the opposing player got smacked in the face by and arm and they both went down in a heap, dropping the ball. As testosterone dominant man-things tend to do, they started shouting, with the more calmed down crowd cheering, "Woohoo! Playing for diabetes! Woohoo!"

In the end, after we lost, both guys stepped aside to talk about it and everyone (hopefully went home happy).

Some of my personal highlights:
Defense:

• My shouting after I REALLY had to stretch to get a force out at 1st: "Hey! I'm a librarian! Not a gymnist!"
• Baserunner slipped halfway between 1st and 2nd and our team captain shouted, "Hey Blue, we want to win, but you don't have to trip the other team."
• Caught 2 fly balls, one I had to jump for
  
• Assisted many force outs by playing first base
• Assisted with two double plays

Offense:

• Best I did was a couple of doubles, one unintentional as I thought I kicked the ball further out than I had thought.

Other fun times:

• Any time a gradeschooler came up to bat, our team playfully "whined" and called them professionals because they played at recess every day.
• Nice having coed teams. Helped bring the ape like tendencies of men down, and the women could kick and talked strategy with the rest of the team
• While the chitlens on our team didn't officially play, when we got back from lunch the adults fielded the balls while the little ones took turns kicking and running the bases. Only took Little Blue a couple attempts to find the bases in the right order. :)

It was a lot of fun, even though my body paid the price for it this weekend.

The best though? Having Pink and Little Blue cheer me on.

And who knew, there's a local group that plays across the state line. Nothing on this side though.