Kickball Season 2, Playoff Super Saturday: We Play To Win the Games

The fall kickball season ended on Saturday, and our team had a potential 3 playoff games depending on the results of the initial game.  We won, we moved on; we lost we went home. 

Before we played, many of my teammates and I were on hand to see Kiss Of The Badger get crushed by Balls Of Glory (a team we'd never seen or played before).  The Badgers were apparently hung over, and it showed -- they bore little resemblance to the team that beat us in our only loss of the regular season (granted, we were missing 3 of our key players that game).  I think they lost 12-1.  After the game, I congratulated them on their season and they said, "Undefeated against Cobra Kai in 2007!" -- again demonstrating their knowledge of this weblog...and of course not mentioning that we were undermanned that game (sorry guys...I had to say it). 

Our first game was against a lower-seeded Wednesday night team called So You Think You Can Kick.  Still injured from my ankle sprain suffered just over a week ago vs. Bitch Be Cool, I played only one inning in the field -- and at first base instead of my normal left center field.  To prevent further injury, I was sporting warm-up pants and a $35 air brace. 

We let them kick first, and they went up 2-0.  We kicked second.  I made it to first, and Cat made it to first also.  On another kick, I advanced to third...but it was extremely hard to stop with a sprained ankle.  The base slid out from under me, and I fell trying to stop myself, overrunning the base.  I flipped around and slapped my hand down on the base right before the third baseman caught the ball on the force.  I got up, safe at third, and pointed at my brace like Daunte Culpepper did against the Dolphins.

Then I fucked up bigtime. 

With the bases loaded and me at third, someone (Justin?) kicked a grounder to third.  Instead of treating it like a grounder, I treated it like a popup: I didn't run as the ball came right towards me.  Our third base coach at the time said, "Go go go!" but for some reason, I didn't think he was talking to me because I wasn't watching him.  He immediately stopped talking when I didn't run and gave up on the play.  The fielder got the ball at third, tagged third base and then tagged me (because I couldn't stay at third).  I didn't even realize what had happened until I was walking from the base. 

Maybe he should have grabbed me and told me to run, or maybe he should have used my name...but the bottom line is that I should have known to run in that situation.  Instead of cutting the lead down to 2-1 with the bases still loaded and 2 outs, I had caused a double play.  Fuuuuuuuuck.

I then discovered that this team was basically the same team that beat us last season in extra innings to win the Capital Division Championship.   That fucked with my head a bit.  

The next few innings went by quickly.  I got nailed at second when Cat kicked a ball right to second base when I was on first.  We had no offense; they were very sound defensively.  Fortunately, they didn't score another run either.  Finally, it was the bottom of the 4th inning and the bottom of our kicking order.  Danielle, Molly, Chris and Stacy were at the bottom of the order because they were traditionally viewed as being among the weaker kickers on the team.  I thought, "This is it.  If some of our girls don't come through for us, the game is over."

Danielle kicked first and was out.  Someone else (I forget who) kicked next and made it to first.  Molly kicked a grounder, and their fielded couldn't decide whether to throw Molly out or throw to second: both Molly and our other runner ended up on base.  Then Chris came up.  She took a strike and a ball -- then lofted a perfect kick to the shallow outfield for a single.  The bases were loaded. 

Stacy came up to kick.  Usually, she doesn't kick well - she is more used to soccer balls thank kickballs.  She fouled off two balls - one more and she was out.  Then out of nowhere, she blasted a high line drive deep down the right field line.  It bounced fair!  Our first runner came in to score.  At the top of the order, another of our runners kicked a fair ball.  After our second out, Stacy eventually scored.  I hugged her after she crossed home plate.  We were up 2-1 in the top of the fifth, and we closed them out to win the game.  Cobra Kai's so-called 'weakest kickers' totally saved the day for our team. 

Then came our semifinal game against the team that had surprised Kiss Of The Badger in the quarterfinals: Balls Of Glory. They were a surprise, having been seeded 10th with a 3-4 record.  But given what we'd done last season, and having watched them dismantle the Badgers, we weren't about to take them lightly. 

They had this fast Asian guy who scored in the first inning.  My teammates were unable to throw him out at first, advanced him to third on a throwing error, and he scored when the next kicker kicked safely.  We were down 2-0 in the first.  In the bottom of the same inning, I got on first and eventually scored on a single from Cat and another kick from Justin or Greg.  I pointed at my leg brace after crossing home plate - there is no pain in this dojo.  We were down 2-1.

The game stayed 2-1 until the top of the 4th inning, when another throwing error and fielding error allowed that same Asian dude to score again.  I shouted, "Don't try to do too much!"  Just giving the ball back to the pitcher and ending the play any one of those times might have stopped him.  Aside from that, both teams played flawless defense, and the game flew by.  They didn't drop a single ball they should have caught, and they also made some exceptional catches.  Meanwhile, on offense we went cold. 

We came up in the bottom of the fifth down 3-1.  I kicked first and made it on with a single, doing my usual grounder down the third base line.  For the record: I'm not bunting, man-bunting or "munting."  If I was bunting, I would dribble the ball into the shallow infield and not put any mustard on it.  Instead, I'm kicking the ball firmly but not too firmly, and placing it where I know they won't be able to stop me from getting a single.  Just wanted to make that clear. 

I advanced to third on a single from someone (either Cat or Elliot).  So we had Justin up (our pitcher and cleanup kicker as the potential tying run), with me on third, and Greg (at least our second-best player and power kicker) on deck. 

Justin kicked a line drive right to the pitcher's right side; he made the catch.  D'oh.  That wasn't what we needed.  2 outs.  Greg was up.  I was still on third.  Greg fouled a pitch off, took a strike and took a ball, then he kicked.

The ball glanced off his front foot sideways, then hit his back shin...and rolled fair.  He had stopped running, thinking it was foul.  The ump called it fair (correctly, assuming Greg did not actually kick the ball twice).  Greg sped up, but was picked off before he arrived at first. 

Game, set and season over for Cobra Kai.

After the game, several of us went and had brunch.  This didn't feel as bad as last season.  We didn't blow the title game with a baserunning mistake or an overthrow.  We played hard, but our opponents played just a bit better than we did.  They made no mistakes, and capitalized on our few mistakes (their Asian dude was their playoff MVP as far as I'm concerned).  They deserved to beat us.  We had the heart of our lineup kicking with the game on the line in the bottom of the fifth, and we didn't come through.

Balls Of Glory was the better team that day, but they didn't go on to win the championship.  Like us last year, they played a high-seeded team...but AA-Team (the only undefeated regular-season team) beat them in the title game 5-0 (they also beat BBC 8-0 in the semis).  As The Freqs, we tied AA-Team last season on Wednesday night, and I got to know some of them.  I ran into Jess (AA-Team) at the end-of-season party, and she gloated exactly as much as I thought she would.  I like AA-Team and their players, so it's cool...but their fall dominance was a bit surprising.

I think most of my team is coming back for spring/summer.  Since Thick Femur is also likely to return, we may have to retire the Cobra Kai team name -- they would get preference on the black shirts in spring, and without the black shirts the Cobra Kai name doesn't work.  We may go back to being royal blue.  I'm not too upset about that - being the bad guy was often more trouble than it was worth. 

Finally, I will say that this was a strange season.  We had a lot of new, inexperienced teams...most of which were not very good.  We dominated in the regular season and got picked off in the semis.  We had a lot of players dumped on our roster after we closed our team off to new members.  Those players were a mixed bag; some were good, some bad.  Some had issues with the intensity of some of my teammates, but hey - they weren't supposed to be on our team in the first place. 

There is a common thread that binds our core group of girls and guys: we all play focused, and we all want to win.  Kickball isn't just an excuse to go drinking; if we wanted to go drinking, we could do that without kickball.  Not all our core players are all-stars, but all of them try the best they can on the field.  We believe that if you're going to come to a game, you come to focus on playing and doing the right thing during the game. 

At the same time, we aren't dicks about it.  We obey the rules, and we insist that everyone else does too.  We don't try to hurt people, we don't scream nasty things at our teammates, and we don't talk smack to our opponents.  The worst that will come from us is occasionally arguing with the umps over close calls, and me injuring myself every other week.  Otherwise, we banter and have fun, and most of us go to the bar win or lose.  It was the same exact thing when we were The Freqs...the only thing that changed was the shirt color and the team name.

I'm not absolutely sure if we're coming back in the spring.  But if we are, I can roll with that.

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