Waiting for the inevitable.

It was the last game of the summer season, and finally, we got to play kickball. Of course instead of going out in a blaze of glory, we got our asses annihilated by Venus and Mr. Design. Yes, our two season reign of terror abruptly ended in Humboldt Park last night. Considering two of our teammates had previously played on a kickball league, there really was no reason we didn’t dominate. I guess we can contribute our poor showing to a few All Stars no shows from our end…okay, we can’t make any excuses — we just sucked. Right from the beginning, our competitors took an early lead and didn’t stop ’till the finish. A couple of times they kicked the ball far into the field, which made it difficult for us to retrieve it. We basically had no strategy and quickly became overwhelmed, even when it was our turn to kick. The worse came at the end of the fourth inning when we received a triple play — bases were loaded, but in one fell swoop, all of our teammates got outs. It was a fitting end to a less than perfect game. As the waning summer sun set over the horizon in the park, we couldn’t help feel a little melancholy that yet another season was ending. At least drinks and pizza were readily available to drown our sorrows in. Here’s hoping we’ll make our comeback in the Winter League.

The Summer Saucony O’s Office League comes to a close in the Windy City next Tuesday with the Kick Ball Championship game! Venus Zine has led the series in Chicago with 4 wins for the season. My Open Bar is close behind with 3 wins, followed by WXRT with 2 and Mr Design with 1.

Venus Zine may have the championship in the bag, but we’ll still pit them against My Open Bar on the kick ball field to see if MOB can beat the ladies (well, mostly ladies) in yellow for one last “in your face” moment of the season.

Meanwhile we’ll see if underdogs Mr Design — the tallest team in the league, if not the winningest — can score one more win against WXRT to close out the season. Good luck Chicago!

Are you sweating yet? Either from the August heat or the INTENSITY of the competition?! Next week our six NYC teams play field crumpets, the newest and weirdest obscure sport in our summer office league arsenal. Chicago gets their chance to steal the bacon Tuesday at Humboldt Park. Seattle’s teams play SPUD on Wednesday, a favorite recess game. And our Boston and San Francisco teams play ladder golf, a sport which I’d never heard of until this summer, and now I swear I see it everywhere. Parks, weddings, bar mitzvahs. I was setting up to play in the park recently and a ranger asked me if we were setting up for mini-equestrian… so Boston & SF, if you want to host an impromptu dog show or pony show, have at it.

From the beginning, Team XRT has always kinda sat on the back burner. It seems we are always so close to a victory to only have it pulled out from underneath us. It’s our own fault, we let things slide that other teams might argue in order to win. I’ve said it before, winning isn’t everything, but with the possibility of taking the lead on the W chart for the Sacony Originals office summer league games, something fueled the fire within us …plus our team caption said we had to win or he would fire us. (Okay, he really didn’t say that, but I could tell it was what he was thinking.)

I’ve never been good at softball. I played tee-ball in kindergarten; I was the kid in deep, deep right, which is really the parking lot, doing kart wheels and picking daisies for the duration of the game. Not only was I an awful player, but to this day I’m terrified of the ball. But wiffle ball seemed harmless, right? Wrong. Although the game is much safer with the ball weighing about the same as a stick of gum, we now had to be cautious of the shards of glass covering the ground in Humboldt Park.

Team XRT had a rough start as the girls (and one guy) from Venus took an early two to nothing lead. As the innings went on, the sun started to set making the sky a pretty purple color as the breeze softly made the trees…oh wait we are in the middle of a game (I guess not much has changed since kindergarten). The wiffle ball became increasingly harder as it got darker and darker, and members of the other teams who had finished their game in half the time of our game grew cranky.

This crankiness only provoked team XRT to finish our game. We wanted our fair shot to win this time around and although the other teams wanted us to quit, we were determined to finish the game for we still had hope…plus it is so fun to do the opposite of what everyone else wants you to.

Bottom of the fifth and we are still down by two. Really, I don’t know what happened. We just decided to be good all the sudden. I even pulled off a bunt…okay I didn’t mean to bunt, I just swung the bat and the ball didn’t go very far, but with a double by Zack, hits from Emily, Nicole, and Kristin, and an amazing defensive play by Analise that had her diving into the dirt, we waved our “W” flag tall and proud….that’s just said for imagery, we didn’t really have a flag (I don’t like lying), but it woulda been cool if we did.

We were the underdogs. And if you have no fear of the underdog, you will not survive. (Okay, for plagiarisms sake, I stole that from a song from Spoon. What do you expect, we are XRT after all.)

Colin warmed up.

 Jason Vorhees stopped by.

Joey ran away from Jason, er, made a mad dash to homebase.

We scored a huge victory over Mr. Design. While taking a group photo, they quipped: “So, that’s what winning looks like.” You betcha! We grew weary waiting for Venus and XRT to finish their game, so we hopped in Colin’s truck and rode to the bar.

 Victory tasted like martinis and manhattans. Sweet, sweet, victory.