Week Six...

With 18 days to go before the Port Hope Kickball Tournament I'm filled with panic and excitement!  But also hope...  

With Double Deuce carrying a record of 3-9 I'm finding the tournament as the biggest ray of sunshine to salvage the season.  The league title has been out of reach since Week One, and we are going to have to play perfect in the playoffs to give ourselves a chance to compete there.  The only way I see it is we need to keep the steady pace of improvement going and hopefully peak on August 16th.  I think we have been getting better and better every week and have nothing to be ashamed of as a 3-9 record would suggest.  I don't know how many of you read Tim's blog, but a couple of weeks ago he brought up the point that he has been finishing his races close to the top, but can't get over the hump and win one.  I feel like we are in a similar situation.  I think each and every person has gotten better as the year has gone on, and we are playing better as a team.  That's why this week was by far the most frustrated I have ever been at a kickball game.  We had all the pieces there to win at least one of those games, but for several different reasons we couldn't put it together.  

When it comes down to it kicking is the biggest of our problems, of whom I am the chief sinner.  It's the one thing we don't have figured out.  I talked to a couple of gurus to come in and help focus on what we need to do, but all the credible ones are working for Olympic teams...I guess we will have to figure this one out alone.  We just need to continue to play the field on defense.  Run to the ball, get into the game.

This is the toughest week yet to pick Ass of the Week.  Autum was mean as a snake and fought me at every turn, but that's about par for the course so no big whoop there.  Cross fell in such a way that I thought he was going to be the Joe Theismann of kickball, but everything worked out fine so I would like to take this time to officially laugh at him for falling and looking like a total ass.  Andrew Scriver saved us, by filled in for an injured player and in true competitor fashion laid out for the ball in an attempt to get in front of it.  But one story is much more interesting.  

For the second week in a row I had to scramble to get players, I managed to come across a den of them right where I spend a majority of my days, at my desk.  Matt Hambright played last week, and his sister Gretchen sits right next to me.  On the other side of me sits Richard Chadwick a long time friend of Matt.  The idea presented itself and there we had it  Matt, Dick, Gretchen, and Matt's wife Julie...boom we playin' kickball people.  Chadwick, being the prideful trash-talker he is, spent about 30 hours straight telling Hambright how awesome of an athlete he is and how much he is going to enjoy dominating one of his favorite childhood games again.  The key word here is "Athlete", I even crossed out "Chadwick" on the batting order and replaced it with "Athlete".  We all get to the field and there's Chadwick, mid-thirty's, 25lbs overweight, lovely and supportive wife and son in tow, and wearing sunglasses and metal cleats....looking good.  Chadwick get's his first pitch of the game and clearly LOVES IT!  He kicks a beautiful hit down third baseline that is erroneously called foul, I think the ump got a text or was checking the Tigers score on the phone at that moment.  However, in the middle of Chadwick's great effort he used up all of his athleticism and blew out his quad on his kicking leg.  I was coaching first and as he ran to me he looked bad, well dressed and stylish, but bad.  He had to do a painful re-kick, and low and behold he does almost the exact same thing and gets on base again....but his day was over.  He managed to make it to the top of the 5th before being replaced, and the second he went out of the game the whole day went to shit.  The next kick was a homerun to his position, and the Solo Raiders might as well have kicked me in the groin with each player in the line up.  

That could totally be Chadwick behind that mask, now go out

there and get some of that sweet sweet Maggy Gyllenhaal ass.  Gross.

For this Chadwick, you get "Ass of the Week", but it's not for what you think.  It's not for talking a bunch of trash for which Captain Karma pretty much Tonya Harding'ed you.  

That kind of mouthy-ness is encouraged on this team.  It's for living the mantra of this summer #1 popcorn movie "Dark Knight", "It's better to die a hero, than live long enough to be a villain.".  You couldn't have played it better, as soon as you went out we fell apart.  Way to go Richard Chadwick, you are truly an Ass.