The Saucony O’s summer office sports league is in full swing, and we have a game lineup next week that’s gonna knock your socks right out of your Jazz Lo-Pros.

Monday August 3rd & Tuesday August 4th - NYC teams plays Kubb in Central Park.

Tuesday August 4th - Chicago teams play wiffle ball in Humboldt Park and our Boston teams play steal the bacon at Boston Common (pray for no rain this time!)

Wednesday August 5th - Seattle teams play touch football under the Space Needle while our SF teams play field crumpets at Draves Field.

Now what the eff is field crumpets, you ask? Field Crumpets is a game played with two teams of players which try to score points by hitting the “crumpet” (generally one of those squishy playground balls) into the opposing team’s goal using their crumpet sticks (big fat wiffle bats). Field Crumpets is highly related to the games Field Hockey and Soccer, though it references several other sports. The game also includes various unique rules, many of which reflect the founders’ desire to emphasize fun and silliness over competition.

We look forward to the silliness!

Field Crumpets photo courtesy of fieldcrumpets.com

The word is in! Below is a list of records that were set or broken along with their holder’s name.*

Keep an eye out for the hilarious video of each one of these (plus many more) to start popping up on URDB.org next week.

* Final statistics are pending URDB official confirmation.

Last season champions

So far this season, we hadn’t been living up to our potential. We’d lost the first two games and were determined to bounce back. Last season we dominated Kubb. Twice. Trivia and SPUD might not be our thing, but throwing wooden sticks is. We paired up against leaders Venus Zine in a battle to the finish. We quickly knocked down their blocks, but when it was announced we had to knock the king over throwing a stick under our legs, things got a bit challenging. It took us a while to master the technique, but eventually we killed them. In round two, all of a sudden Venus came alive. It’s almost like they let us win the first game. One by one they knocked down all of our blocks. Victory was in the air until they had to knock down the king. There were a couple of close calls, but the king remained standing. This allowed us to make a huge comeback, catch up with them, and then knock the elusive king down. 2-0! Our game ended quicker than XRT’s and Mr. Design who could only play one game due to the difficulty of knocking down that pesky king. With just a couple of games left, we’re still very much in the tournament. Do we smell another victory?

If there is any consistency in the Saucony office summer league, it is the fact that the organization keeps introducing me to games I have never heard of. Team XRT was challenged to a game of Kubb, and after two straight losses, we were given the opportunity to redeem ourselves.

Known as the Viking Game (really, I’m not making this up) Kubb, is a cross between bags, a block set, and that game at the fair where you try to knock down the milk jugs with a ball. Okay, so maybe that is not the most accurate description. I could go into more detail, however the only thing that seems important is the game’s house rule: You must knock down the final piece of the game, the King Kubb, by throwing one of the smaller Kubbs between your legs. Upon hearing this rule is when we decided that the Saucony officials wanted nothing more than to embarrass the offices that participate, and boy did they succeed.

The game went smoothly until it came down to knocking over that final King Kubb.  Never in my twenty-one years have I witnessed something so impossible in athletics, (okay, maybe the Cubs winning the world series is up there too), but that final kubb seemed to take forever to knock down…or at least a good half hour.

Facing a team of Gumby’s, (Pitchfork employees must have a height requirement of at least 6ft), team XRT seemed to be at a slight disadvantage. Myself standing tall at an unimpressive 5’2, was actually told by our acting team captain and one of my bosses, Zack, that and I could not longer compete in the final round of my height restriction. Talk about EEA violations.

However, after several failed (and epic failed) attempts from both parties to knock the King Kubb over by throwing between our legs, the house rule was abandoned. (We’re not quitters, we just were hungry.) And okay, I don’t care, I’m gonna brag, I knocked down that final King Kubb and victory has never tasted so sweet (TAKE THAT, ZACK!) However, that was my one and only contribution to the game. It was in fact a team effort that earned Team XRT our first win.

When trying to rely on something as unpredictable as weather in Chicago, it is always nice to have a back up plan ready to kick into gear. Rainy weather forced round two of the Saucony Original’s Office Summer League’s game of kickball to be altered to fit into a more suitable and dryer location.

Instead of our physical strength being put to the test, our minds were challenged instead when the troops resorted to a game of Trivial Pursuit. The great thing about Trivial Pursuit is that not only do you learn new, random trivia, but you learn things you never knew that you already knew…and don’t know why you know them. Still following me?

We settled in at the Crocodile to play and when the tab is on someone else, what you end up drinking can almost be as unpredictable as the above said Chicago weather. One member from Team XRT ordered a hard apple cider called Crispin and from this simple act sparked the formation of one of the greatest inside jokes I have ever had the privilege of being apart of.

And what’s even funnier, is that the more I try to explain why Crispin is so funny, the less funny it becomes to other people. All I know is that we ran the bar dry out of Crispin, forcing the bartender to go down to the basement to get more cases of this delicious concoction, which we are pretty sure he had to dust off just to double check to make sure they weren’t expired.