Play Ball?



Fellow Young Democrats


“On behalf of the County Young Democrats, I hereby challenge the Young Republicans to a game of kickball for charity.”

Wow. Kickball. I played kickball, when I was eleven and faster and in better shape and not as easily distracted by - myself . I could have cared less about how I looked while I was playing then, I didn’t care if my shorts rode up while I was reaching for that ball.Today, that's just not with in the realm of the possible - I’m too self-conscience to be competitive.

I can’t stand out in a field and not worry about my sun screen is working or if my sun screen is working too well and I’m going to be out in this heat and have nothing to show for it except for the bruises and I don’t want to have to keep pulling my pant legs up all day to say “Hey!, see right there? this one? I ran into the fence! And this one? This one I got when the someone kicked the ball right at me and I ducked and the ball still kind of bounced off me”.. Yeah, I think I’d rather get a nice sunburn instead. Less embarrassing.

I don't know. Do I really want to put myself in the position of having hostile post Fahrenheit 911 neocons kick things at me? I think it could get ugly. I think even with a couple of rounds of Kum By YA before the game started couldn't cool this thing out. Young, healthy, politically involved young people? I see injured people.

You can't go wrong using wounded veterans as bait though. Who in their right minds is going to say "Oh that's all right? We aren't interested in the Veterans or their transportation". Yeah. They are Republicans, so that kind of answer is not out of the range of the possible but still, and the real issue, if they have the game? Do I actually have to play? I wasn't good at kick ball in the sixth grade. I think the position I played the best was Water Getter. Very little prestige, that position. I did like Dodge Ball and I think I was into Bombardment. But that was twenty years ago. I was younger and I moved faster.

The last team I played on was the church league youth group softball "team", using that word as loosely as possible because the "team" was made up of different people every week and we didn't play as much as occasionally stop gossiping long enough to walk back to the feild. I "played" because they took us to get ice cream after the game.

We did have one winning season and it left us confused, we didn't know how to act! We were great losers, winning took the fun right out of it.

Winners have to have regular "positions" not just you stand over there, and you stand by that thing and have "plays" beyound you have to try to swing the bat thing at the ball thing and then try not to hit the ball to the 6 foot tall guy and "strategies" more advanced then see if we can sit under the tree, they have to be able to field a "team" every week. Man, that's a lot of work for a summer league. What was wrong with the other teams? I mean, if we were winning? We didn't even know how to play. Occasionally a parent would try to coach but that never ended well. Good coaches were the coaches that knew it was all about the post game ice cream, the Bad Coaches wanted us to turn off the jam box and talk strategy. Phhht.