Today was a perfect day for kickball

Donna Martin Graduate!!!

Dear Hutch,

Today was a perfect day for kickball in Los Angeles. The daily high was 80 degrees but there was a breeze. It was bright and sunny, so I wore my sombrero around Westwood. I miss kickball and its camaraderie.

I am about to get dressed for my graduate program's "prom", which will be at some posh trendy club in Hollywood. I assume I'll see some D-List celebrity while standing in line again! Joelski will not be there. He is schmoozing with the admitted Stern students in New York this weekend. I hope they don't give him a hard time for being from the Valley.

I thought about my options for Joel-stand ins. They included my original prom date and flanking myself with two members of Joel's Jew Crew. But then I realized that I could never "replace" Joel with a stand-in. It just wouldn't be the same.

Meanwhile, remember when I went to Tax Prom with Tim??? I had a great dress (actually it was my first try at a prom dress; my date's sister actually rejected it, so I had to try again and came up with the poofy pink number I will be wearing tonight). Tim actually picked me up at 1929 in a cab and he looked so sharp.

*Sigh. I wish Joelski were here tonight to do that with me. I think you guys would like each other, even if the only thing you have in common is me.

So basically I don't want to go to prom but I feel like I have to go to prom because what if someone does something that parallels or trumps what Donna Martin did at prom?? Remember "Donna Martin Graduate" chant on "90210"??

Hugs and kisses,
Sirinyay

New Hutch Team

Hello Shabbos readers,

I joined a new team this year called Turn Your Head and Cough in the Waka Adams Morgan division. I went Waka because Carter's Adams Morgan division had the Monday-Wednesday setup. I am not a fan of doing it on those nights. Our first game is tomorrow night and the new league has no idea who I am and of my DcKickball legacy.

I am going to retire from kickball after this season since I am going to business school in the fall. Unless there is an over 30 league that I can join after I get out.

Sirinyay, are you joining a team? I want to see many blog posts!

Hutch

Hutch and Sirinyay in January

Hello our kickball fans,

Sirinyay here. I'm seated next to the Hutchster. This is a joint blog. I miss kickball. I live in HellAY now and it kind of sucks. I mean, they have good Thai food there, and I am dating an awesome guy, but there is no kickball.

Hutch here. I am currently watching old kickball film of our opponents, running stairs, and working out my quads and hamstrings in my apartment gym. I would like to announce that this might be my last year in kickball this spring. My intention is to finish on top of the mountain in the flipcup tournament and the league championship. I will be inviting the top players from all previous teams to tryouts. Well, we have to go now and talk kickball strategy.

S again. There is some kickball in LA but it is not geographically desirable to my new digs in Westwood. But there is a coed soccer league in my urban planning program. I might go do that. It's not the same. It's not Hutch-KSE-Brian-Fred-Brightie-Crazy Allie-etc. I should bring intramural kickball to UCLA.

Hugs and Kisses,
S and H

Now I'm at Hobo Camp

Hey team:

So kickball continues its resurgence in popularity here at Nerd Camp.

[Actually I'm not at Nerd Camp; I'm now at what's called the Center for Talented Youth's Civic Leadership Institute. CLI is run by employees of the Civic Education Project, which is hosted at Center for Talented Development (similar org to CTY), and CTD is based out of Northwestern. I'm employed officially by CTD, but I'm at a location that has CTY lanyards and CTY rules and regulations, but not CTY culture... which initially worried me, but then we got around to today's game of kickball.

At kickball, this rising junior named Rishi kicks the ball into what appears to be left field. The first baseman (a kid named Charlie) literally runs RIGHT INTO a football player named Taylor's nuts. You could hear the SMACK. Taylor was not paying attention. He was later seen walking around with a big plastic supermarket bag, clutching his you know what. The bag like leaks. Girls regaled to me about how they'd rein in their snickers until after they got past him. Also he lain on his back like a sad, sad person. Rishi is pretty proud of himself for scoring that homerun, since everyone was paying attention to Taylor post:collision. (Also he's proud for causing that injury.) Taylor seemed to boast about the fact that kickball got violent.

We don't get to roll this shabbos

I just want to say it was a blast kickballing with the IDROS crowd this season. Thanks for convincing me to join, Brighton.
The last game was a bit anticlimactic, for those of you who weren't there. Hell, I almost didn't go, until Kat called me to guilt me into a Dayquil-hazed, zombie-like appearance. The opposing team took it too seriously for it to be a ton of fun. Wish I had been up to the task of attending the festivities afterward, but I had to go home and sleep.
That said, I think we did pretty damn well this season. Midseason we had some momentum going that I didn't see coming after our first couple of games. And second-place at the flip-cup tourney was a good deal of fun.
At the moment, I'm not planning on doing the fall league. I just started a new part-time job three nights a week, so I don't know if I want to add more to my schedule. If anyone wants to twist my arm, it's possible that I could be convinced otherwise, though.
That said, y'all should come out to the Red and the Black on H Street NE sometime. I'm working there on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, taking money for the shows upstairs. If you like to see good indie/heavy/poppy/alt local rock, it's the place to be.

We may not get to roll this coming shabbos, but we can certainly drink for dirt cheap at the party that night. See you guys at the end-o-season party on Saturday.

-Steve

The Flipcup Tournament...Belligerence at its Best

We finished 2nd in the flipcup tournament out of 16 teams from all of DCKickball's divisions. We played 5 best of 5 games and 2 best of 7 games and we filled up about 30% of the cup each game. With drinking between games as well, I would estimate that we each drank 15 beers to advance to the final game.

This is me hoisting the trophy after we won the first bracket.

Here is Steve smiling happily.

Here is an action shot.

Look at us. Pure dominance.

We played a really obnoxious team in the final who brought 4 extra players whose job was to yell and cheer. One of the dudes on their team also threw a beer on Carter for no reason after they won. This resulted in Carter calling him "a volcano who can't handle his liquor". This is what happens when you drink 15 beers in the middle of the day.

The Flipcup tournament is one of my favorite days of the year for this reason. Last year I drank 18 beers then decided to hang out with the white team at Millie and Als and take tequila shots. One of the guys on this team was named "Pork Chop" and we quickly befriended each other. We were so drunk we thought it would be fun to slap each other across the face for fun. I don't know what it is but flipcup really brings out the aggression in people. It's amusing to think back about how much of a debacle the day really is.

Instead of playing kickball, I have been at nerd camp

And my summer at nerd camp has been okay. I definitely miss my kickball team and speak of you guys often. On my first day back in LA, a Wednesday, I was on the phone constantly with Hutch to ensure that we had enough people to play. I'm at a site I have never been to in prior summers (four at LMU), which has been good in that I have seen a new place and mostly bad because I a) HATE CHANGE and b) really disliked the lack of organization manifest in the organization. But I did make a couple of friends (a bunch of frat boys from College of Wooster) and form an alliance with the few RAs who were deemed competent (a high compliment in the world of camp counseling).

With one of the frat boys, David, I brought Tom Ryan's favorite activity besides Robot Wars to Santa Cruz. Renamed Glue Stuff to DO and Sirinya (as opposed to Glue Stuff to Tom and Jason), the kids glued and blue-taped streamers, construction paper, twigs, plastic stuff and manboobs for 45 minutes. It was their favorite activity ever.


The original activity:

I cheat at kickball

So we won again last night 8-5 over a team with 6 girls and 2 guys. We actually should have won by more but half of our outfield was drunk for some reason. It was like herding cats.

I don't want to discuss the game for that reason. I want to discuss the playoffs. We are playing the Gold team. Again. Lickballs. They are the Apollo Creed of our season having beaten us twice. The purpose of this post is to tell the world that I cheat at kickball.

While everyone else in the league is sleeping, I'm running stairs and lifting weights in my gym. My favorite are the leg extensions. My quads are humongous right now. This allows me to hit the ball farther than anyone else in the league and puts our team at an unfair advantage.

I am going to go into training for the next 6 days until the game next week. I plan to eat 6 raw eggs and run at 5 in the morning up the steps of the lincoln memorial. I will get one of my friends to repeatedly hit me in the stomach with a 2x4. I will chase after live chickens to improve my foot speed. Playoffs are the reason why I'm here. People think I'm crazy to care so much about kickball. But I question whether these people have ever truly sacrificed themselves in the pursuit of a championship.

Last year we entered the playoffs in a similar position and got to the championship game. I would not be denied that day. I caught a bunt and threw it at the other team's bench and yelled at them to stop man bunting. I hit 3 home runs. It was sick.

Now please excuse me while I run 5 miles, dead lift 300 pounds and do 500 pound squats. I will post later in the week with my progress.

Pre-Game Warm Up

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Last game of the regular season and it's a late one. I'll be organizing a team warm up session, starting at 5:30 or so. The warm up will consist of $3 Jack Daniels drinks (or your performance- enhancement of choice) at Jack's on 17th, right near the field of battle. I think several sets of 80 proof excercises should get us loose enough to play at our best. Let me know if you all are interested. Call me if you need to. 206.790.0888.

Lemon Yellow > Pink

We won. It was a very satisfying victory because they were a very competitive team. They are the first team we beat that had a winning record (3-1). Everyone on their team could catch and bunt well. However, we have the best bunt defense in the league with my cannon arm at 3rd base and the catching skills of Jeremy and Jeff. Not to mention the veteran pitching of Brian and the amazing athleticism of Adam at 1st base.

We won based on our offense, taking the extra base mercilessly. Next week we play big Red, a 1-5 team. If we win we get back to .500 for the playoffs. We are having a strength and conditioning session at 7am on Sunday morning at a secret location to prepare.

Back in the game

WE WON WE WON WE WON :)

Man, that was a great game last night-- everyone played awesomely and did I mention that we won? First of all, huge shout-out to Ashley and Jennifer of the teal team who totally stepped up and played with us since we were two girls short. Without them, this win would not have been possible.

Highlights of the game:
-awesome pitching by Brian (as always)
-beautiful firstbasemanship by Adam
-ridiculous defense by Hutch (um, remember the inning where no one else even touched the ball?)
-fabulous hustle and effort by everyone!

Hope everyone has a fabulous 4th of July holiday! See you on the 11th for another win!

Cheer up

On a brighter note, though, while I was looking for a picture to put with the post below, I found this. This totally makes my day.

Team!

Turnout on wednesday was pretty weak. Our two-game winning streak apparently convinced quite a few newbies to tag along, I hope they weren't turned off by the lame turnout from the veterans. We didn't lose bad, but it wasn't an impressive performance, either, particularly on offense. Even our flip-cup skills were sub-par.

Oh, well. It's just kickball, but it is more fun to win. Only two more games left, let's have some more fun.

Big Game

As far as standings go, this looks to be a big game. For some reason, we get to play the ball-lickers twice (and for some reason, do not come up against the Ball Dodgers). If we win today, that will put us ahead of the lickers in the standings, I think, thanks to tiebreaker points (though, honestly, I don't really know how those work). If we loose, it could permanantly relegate us to the bottom half of the division.

Keep that in mind, team.

Beat the Lickballs

"What's this day of rest shit? What's this bullshit? I don't fuckin' care! It don't matter to Jesus. But you're not foolin' me, man. You might fool the fucks in the league office, but you don't fool Jesus. This bush league psyche-out stuff. Laughable, man - ha ha! I would have fucked you in the ass Saturday. I fuck you in the ass next Wednesday instead. Wooo! You got a date Wednesday, baby! "

The irony of the above statement is hilarious to me. Jesus Quintana is referring directly to Walter "I don't roll on Shabbos" Sobchak. Well, Jesus Lickballs, we are going to Bring IT. We will unveil our secret weapon, 7 foot tall Adam Heller.

I'm not sure what licking balls suggests about your team. Your team name "Kickball? I thought you said Lickballs?" seems to be a shoutout to Jesus Quintana. Or else it may suggest a predilection for teabagging. Whatever the case, tomorrow will be an interesting game. The battle of the yellow shirts has begun.

Tomorrow I will continue to bring my consistent excellence to the kickball diamond. I am beginning to approach the skill level I displayed during the playoffs last season, when young children watched all of our games just to witness the Michael Jordan of kickball. Someday John Feinstein will write a book about me and our team.

Jesus Quintana: You ready to be fucked, man? I see you rolled your way into the semis. Dios mio, man. Liam and me, we're gonna fuck you up. The Dude: Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man. Jesus Quintana: Let me tell you something, pendejo. You pull any of your crazy shit with us, you flash a piece out on the lanes, I'll take it away from you, stick it up your ass and pull the fucking trigger 'til it goes "click." The Dude: Jesus. Jesus Quintana: You said it, man. Nobody fucks with the Jesus. Walter Sobchak: Eight-year-olds, Dude.

That's right, Jesus Quintana is a pederast. We cannot lose tomorrow. We will not.

Things are looking up

We've won two games in a row; the last was by a run margin of 12. Liz Zamorski scored two, Brighton scored one, and Hutch firmly established that we should also participate in the DC JCC's Dodgeball Turkeybowl fundraiser fest.

This is such an incredible turnaround from the start of the season.

Not to say that we didn't have a good time. We had a fantastic time. At the bar. The kickball portion of the evening was kind of messy. It was so bad that even I asked to go to the bar early and I try to be Sober Sirinyay most of the time. We had lost Kyle, who usually positions himself in center field and dashes across the field, then starts running after the opponent, looking like a total foolio. (I usually yell, THROW THE FRIGGIN BALL BACK TO THE PITCHER so we can kill the play, but nobody listens to me.)

Also, Adam Heller, whom we had not heard from since the conclusion of last season, had signed up for the team. Except he hadn't shown up. Ever. And Adam Heller is wicked excellent at first base. If the ball rolled within the in-field, Hutch would chase after it and sling it to Adam. And every single time, Adam managed to make the catch look so graceful.

Hutch and I obviously have been talking Adam up to the rest of the rookies all season. And along with Becki, we finally met up with Adam after a year's absence of his presence on the field at Ben's Chili Bowl.

Becki whispered, "He's not as tall as you said he was."

"What are you talking about?" I asked. Talking came out Tawking, as I have started regressing into my Rachel Block-pseudo Long Island Jew but originally from Owings Mills, MD accent.

"Adam," she hissed. "He's not 7 feet tall like you said he was."

I looked up at Adam. He seemed plenty tall to me. Because I've grown into my habit of asking obnoxious questions, I asked him: "So how tall are you anyway?"

He told us his height. (Not seven feet, but definitely much taller than ME).

Hutch demonstrated this to Becki by asking Adam to raise his arms. Becki and I are both the same height and we promptly stared up above Adam's face to his finger tips. They extend well above seven feet. Heaven music went off in my head. (Hutch's too, probably.) My and Hutch's persistence in cajoling Adam into showing up for our kickball geams was totally worth it.

Holy smokes, moving sucks

So I am taking a break from a very important task - packing!

I can't believe it. My time here in DC is almost over. And I didn't realize how hard it would be to leave.

I did my undergraduate degree at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. I loved Northampton. It was the perfect college town for me - walkable, intensely liberal, and quirky - but I was ready to leave.

But I don't know if I am ready to leave DC.

I wasn't planning on leaving so soon. In fact, I was planning to be here through the end of the kickball season. (Why else would I have joined?) But things happened and plans changed. Also I killed my 27th mouse two nights ago, which affirmed my decision to get out of my apartment.

My summer will take me to many places - Philadelphia, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New Orleans, and Boston.

But I will miss my kickball team tremendously. I will miss the Hutchster for his intense loyalty to kickball as both a sport and as a way of life. No way did I know that I would become such good friends with the guy who walked in on me and Tim Lee hooking up. I will miss our captain Brian, as he is the nicest guy in the world (seriously), and his dog Wookie. I can't believe I just met Becki. There are so many other people to mention too: Lizzie (Z), her former roommate Jeremy, Brighton, Fred, Kat (my heckling fiend in crime), Adam Heller (whom I forgive for NEVER SHOWING UP THIS SEASON). Steve.

My sister Patty stared at me in a different way on Saturday night when she and her bff Olivia came to our kickball party at Grand Central. By this, I mean I wasn't sure she could take me that seriously. We play kickball and at the bar, we play flipcup. "Isn't that so college?" she'd asked. Perhaps. But it's fun. Kickball had a stable place in my life. As a member of the Lame Train of Life, without kickball (and frisbee; I played on a WAFC team for four seasons), I know I wouldn't see my friends as often nor would I have met as many people as I have in DC.

So I'm grateful.

Meanwhile Patty and Olivia did win huge brownie points in the eyes of Carter Rabasa, the founder of DCKickball and one of my and Hutch's reasons for living, when they walked up to where he was collecting donations for our charity, Project Northstar, and handed him an extra five bucks. "For no reason whatsoever except to give," Carter remarked when he came by me, the sister and Olivia later on Saturday night.

In closing, I leave you with a picture of my new digs and footage from our last game.
http://picasaweb.google.com/GoingBackToLA/ShabbosVictory2

Bye Week Blues...and Farewell to Sirinyay

This week we are on bye. The league had enough of us winning and decided to give us a week off to let the other teams win. Good. I will be in the gym this entire week throwing steel. I will make sure to focus on my legs and my throwing arm so that I can hit more home runs and throw the ball with enough force to knock people over.

Sirinyay is leaving the East Coast for her LA dreams this week. She will be missed. Sirinyay Tritipeskul, dutiful ex girlfriend of my friend Timothy Lee, is a shining light in Washington, DC. Her friends call her a DC legend. We will have to find a new legend to take her place.

Hutch

Columbia Mid-Season party rocked

Me, my sister Patty (she is like four inches taller than me, and has on heels), and the Hutchster (smiling brightly because he KNOWS he wants to be in the picture).

I boogeyed down, practicing my nerd camp dance moves, on the dance floor at Grand Central in Admo. Ari and Steve boogeyed with me. Hutch focused on the flip cup.

More pics and words to come.

Thoughts on the 16-4 victory

This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass.

This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass!

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK....A....STRANGER....IN THE ASS!

We brought the strategy and the fury again to the kickball pitch last night. It became embarassing at the end of the game. After hitting home runs in the first two innings, we held a 14-4 lead at which point I decided that defense was the key to winning the game. I then became a maniac at third base, running down every ball and then running towards helpless girls and pegging them. By the end of the game, I had one girl punch me in the arm for chasing her into the outfield, another girl who refused to shake our hands after the game because I got a running start and threw the ball at her shoulder, and the last batter of the game STOPPED RUNNING to first base and waved her arms saying "ok, ok!" because I was running full steam at her. I then flipped the ball underhand lightly at her and the game was over.

Maybe I was playing "too hard" but that's the only way I know how to play. There is no crying in kickball. The only thing I feel bad about is I threw it pretty hard at the one girl because it was a close play. We are definitely the thugs of the league. Every game there are at least 2 collisions, including Becki taking someone's legs out in this game. Actually, she was just tagging the base and he completely ran into her. Somehow the refs called him safe even though:

A. She tagged the base before he got there

B. He ran into her which means she tagged him as well

C. He fell past the base and he got up and was standing 5 feet from the base and we tagged him again.

I'm still bitter about that but we got all of the runs back when I hit a grand slam in the next inning.

I feel it was a stirring send off for our fearless kickball champion Sirinyay. She has really grown from someone who didn't know how to play into a bunting on base percentage machine. She will truly be missed.

Now to the matter at hand. We have a 2 game winning streak and are 2-0 since the implementation of the lineup. We need to keep scoring at will and tighten up our defense and we have a shot at running the table. Let's bring the pain!