Kicking ass, taking losses

8-5. 3-2. 18-1.

Those are the scores to our last three kickball contests. See, Kerrie and I are in a kickball league with a few friends. We’re sponsored and everything: the Empire Carwash “O-fers.” The name comes from our team’s 2005 record: 0 and whatever. Of course, that was before we were around.

Hey. No problem. We’re 3-0 this year, right?

Wrong.

Twice we’ve been forced to forfeit. In order to qualify for the game, you need five men and five women at the game. Twice we’ve had just four women. And twice we’ve given up the win, yet decided to play for the fun of it.

And those games – those short-handed – ten against nine games – have resulted in two moral victories. Sure, they counted as losses in the standings, but we’ve outscored the opponent 26-6 in those two “losses.”

Moral victories, indeed.

The best part about all of this is that we’re having fun. Every Wednesday. This has become a blast, to tell you the truth. Each game we show up 15 minutes ahead of time. We shoot the shit for a little bit. We play the game and cheer each other on, using as many baseball idioms and clichés as possible. When someone is running towards third, we all jump out of the dugout and pretend to be a team of third-base coaches. When someone scores, we run out and slap hands and (for the most part) pretend the game means something.

Then, half an hour later, we disperse. We slap the opponent’s hands, we say goodbye to each other, and we don’t give a second thought to any of our teammates. I would be lying if I said I knew more than three of their names.

We have fun though. And like I learned in gym class, that’s all that matters. There are no playoffs – well, unless your team decides to pay to participate. Our team won’t. Half of them will be back in school. Though that hasn’t stopped us from putting a competitive team on the field before.

It would be nice to get credit for some of these wins, though.

Oh. Sorry. These “losses.”