It was an old-fashioned shoot-out as the sun began to set early over San Francisco’s blustery Dolores Park.  On the winner’s field, the blueshirts over at KQED were preparing to face the disheveled-but-daunting boys from Revolver/Midheaven, while over at the not-winners field, the well-staffed Hyphen Magazine team were lacing up against the notoriously nimble Frog Design.

After a brief fistfight broke out near our fields–a fight, I should mention, that resulted in stab wounds and a small contingent of police officers–the games were on, and the teams, in a last-gasp effort for glory, ran onto the field with teeth bared.  However, as the daylight faded and the park’s floodlights clicked on, the two games began to unfold in very different ways: Revolver was pummeling KQED without mercy or remorse, and by the third inning the score was nearing 20-4, while it was a dead heat between Hyphen and Frog all game long.

In the end, though, the victors were clear: Revolver, in a show of great Tecate-charged force, annihilated KQED by a margin of almost fifteen points, taking home the Golden Laurels and  showing, without doubt, that they are the supreme rulers of pretty much everything (including these games).

As the season’s winners, they also all received a generous $15 gift certificate from Insound.com for each member of the sorta-hard-working team, which rules.  Hyphen, meanwhile, won by a hair, taking the win over Frog Design by one point and securing their ass-kicking reputation for generations to come.  Congratulatory high-fives went all around, and, with that, the San Francisco S.O.S.O. League season came to an explosive, semi-bloody end, and the teams all gathered around and made their way to nearby Casanova’s, where we all proceeded to celebrate with an ungodly responsible amount of beer and pizza, all courtesy of Saucony Originals.

There are some smartypants teams in our San Francisco Office League. No, not you Revolver/Midheaven SLOTH!

We’re thinking those liberal know-it-mosts over at KQED and Hyphen Magazine probably played their fare share of educational video games like Number Munchers and Oregon Trail (well, the hunting part was cool at least) and to this day, likely don’t even BOTHER with spell check.

Yeah, so… we’re going to even the playing field and do an ALL PICTURE EDITION of last week’s game of KUBB (pronounced KOOOOOOOOOOOB).

For those of you who DON’T know, KUBB is an ancient Viking game, similar to lawn bowling, only much more BRUTAL.

The goal is to knock down the other team’s pins. The winning team then gets to burn down the losing team’s village.

Here goes. If you guys INSIST on narrating events, feel free to leave some illuminating comments and/or post yer own recap.

More pics (and even less words!) below:

… that it would take Revolver the longest to post recaps. What do you expect with a team called THE SLOTH?

But given our name, our team’s general sloppy appearance, and how often our players have had to drop a beer and/or cigarette in order to catch the ball, I’d say we’ve been pretty impressive. Shit, we even impressed ourselves, and that’s a tall order coming from a squad of grumpy cynics.

Let’s go two & a half weeks back…. Though the KQED team looked pretty together, and they certainly appeared more athletic, but let’s just say we killed them. I pretty much lost count, so I can’t remember how bad we killed them exactly, but I don’t think there’s much argument there. The only thing we were disappointed about was getting to the bar well after the other game was done - we definitely got the short straw in the the liquor game. I can’t reallyremember a whole lot about the game but Andrew ‘Murph’ Murphy really shone brightly, both behind the bat and on the field. Perhaps it was his muscle shirt that so thoroughly distracted the KQED squad?

Catching up here… last week we played Frog Design. At game time, there was only one member of the opposing team, which gave us some time to poorly stencil the word ‘Sloth’ (in classic Crass-alike stencil font) on a handful of our shirts. Given that we waited til the rest of their team showed up, we had quite a bit more time to drink, and I’m going to chalk our (squeaker) loss up to this key factor. Generally our sloppy attire and drunken, curmudgeonly demeanor is our best asset, but this time it just didn’t pay off. I should note that Randy stepped on one guy’s foot on the other team. Maybe the Frog guy had a bit too much to drink as well, because he didn’t notice until hours later that his sock was completely saturated with blood. Ew.

In the final whiffle battle, demon frogs emerged from the darkness covered in chain mail with weapons held high. Revolver put up a noble fight, but in the end frog would dine with the gods, drinking blood from the coward opponents’ severed limbs.

A warrior stands amidst the serfs to send a message of things to come.

Revolver would cast their magic spells… only to realize frog’s immunity to such cowardice.

Teammates hold up one of their best after he is trampled by a rabid beast.

Luckily, the attack would only result in a ruined stocking…

…and a minor battle wound.

the mighty frog stands and summons any other feeble beasts to come and battle with the most powerful warriors in the land.

The final game of San Francisco’s Saucony Originals Summer Office (SOSO) Whiffle Ball 2008 season pitted last game’s triumphant winners and sulking losers against one another in a last-chance effort to earn inter-office respect– and oh how sweet is the scent of victory! With a guerrilla DJ providing the games’ soundtrack by blasting hopelessly mediocre reggae music from the top of San Francisco’s beautiful Dolores Park, reigning champions Frog Design Pizza on Fire and Revolver USA/Midheaven Sloth duked it out on the Winners field, while on the Losers field Hyphen Magazine CentaursSt. Elmo’s Fire and KQED grappled to see who would walk away victory-less.

Tensions began early when Hyphen, fueled by the better-than-electrolytes energy of Sparks, sauntered in wearing–yes–eyepatches, but KQED, no strangers to intimidation, were unshaken. Emboldened by their blue-shirted Elmo mascot, KQED sent the Centaurs home with heads hanging low in a mighty 6-3 win.

Meanwhile, Frog, who began the game one person short of a full team, encountered some trouble mid-game when their rookie starter, Dave Hoffer, lost a motherfucking toenail when a Revolver runner, in a haze of speed and adrenaline, slid into his foot. But Hoffer, never one to admit defeat, battled on, and, with the blood slowly soaking into his socks, he stepped back on to the field and led the green-shirts to a 10-8 victory over the tenacious and creatively dressed Sloth.

All enmities were brushed aside after the games however, and, with heads held high, the teams trekked over to the Beauty Bar to end the evening in a flurry of tequila shots. In all, the night proved to be a glorious celebration of unbridled athleticism and uncensored drinking. And if anyone in the San Francisco area happens to find a toenail, please bring it to the Frog offices directly….

More pics, less captions below: