Rusty's Wranglers Amateur Kickball Club

Round 1, Illinois Deep Dish Division Playoffs:

(From Cap'n T-Dizzy)

It started off innocent enough: orange & blue face paint, socks pulled up to our knees, shades, headbands, wristbands, pregnant bellies, and a guy with a penis tip on his head. Here's a snippet from the pre-game captains' pow-wow:

Is It In You's team captain: "What's your theme today?"
Dave & Tara (in unison with deadpan delivery); "Pregnant Kickball Nazis."
other team's captain (with uneasy look on her face): "Oh."

Yeah, 'oh' is right, you dirty blondie pigtail girl. I'll show you some 'oh' that'll put hair back on your head!!
So let the games begin....We started off with a bang! We held them to nuthin' in the top of the 1st, including a stupendous "mind the baby" catch by pitcher Courtney "Bigfoot" Reid. Pregnancy was no obstacle for CoCo as she just shifted that belly to the side to make the grab. We scored 2 that inning with some heads-up kicking and running by the top of the order. nice work, gang!

The second inning was fast and scoreless, although they did try to get up in our shizzy about Rick "Watch me catch yo ass" Brands' big-time catcher performance and claim that he was not allowed to move until the ball was kicked. But fortunately I was hip to their WAKA jive and I socked it to 'em legal-style with a quote from section 3, item 4.1 of the official WAKA rulebook. Who's in you now, Is It In You??

Alas, in the 3rd they scored 2 to tie the game and we came up with nada in our half of the inning. A highlight of this time-frame, however, was when Josh went Rowdy Roddy Piper on that guy running for home on a foul ball. He beaned the baloney out of that guy! OUCH!! While there was some confusion about whether the ref was going to call the ball foul or not, it turns out that IIIY base-runner-guy was just being a silly pants and decided to keep running just for laughs. But Josh "Hardcore" McKnight was having none of it as he charged to the plate and showed that terd who was boss. Nice work, Josh! I always love to see a little hustle and muscle out there. No one can ever say you don't give it your all.

But now it's tied and we're all a little nervous. We put up great D, though, and got those suckers out without much trouble. Particular props to the Tone the Bone and T-Dizzy combo platter play on the volleyball set over 2nd base that landed right into the loving arms of Tone to score a big fat OUT for the other team. R. Brands was also big money again this inning with more of his mad skillz from behind home plate. How 'bout that double play? They didn't know what hit 'em!

Well, we were held scoreless in the bottom of the 4th, so we headed into the 5th still in a tie. They scored 1 off some minor bungles in the Wrangler infield, and things got a little tense. But we held them to just 1 and came up to bat with a mission to accomplish: 2 runs or bust. 2 runs or humiliation. 2 runs or "somebody's got doo-doo on their face." 2 runs or "I can never look you in the eye again, Wranglers, because clearly I didn't give it my all and you're really disappointed in me." 2 runs or "I might as well just move back in with my parents and change my name to Steve Bartman because I can't believe we just lost to this bunch of Tall-Socks Yahoos who at least were more fun and attractive than the rest of this league of band camp rejects who cling to kickball because that's all they've got."

Well, Tone started us off with a K.Whalen "Bunt Cake" special, and it really is true what Mark Frasier always says: "Real Men Do Bunt." A bunt never had so much/many cajones as Tone bolted down to 1st base at lightning speed. Then I was up, and I don't really want to talk about it, but let's just say that now there were 2 outs. Then Lubbers was up, and I don't know about you, but my heart was pounding. Sweat beaded up on my orange & blue painted face. My hands were cold and clammy, and I could feel the baby kicking like crazy in my tummy!

First pitch: Lubbers bangs it foul. Fortunately, it's uncatchable. Something wet and yellowish trickles down Matty's inner thigh. The heat is on. Second pitch: He nails it, a big honking fly ball out to left field where the wee girl that only moments ago Lubbers was drooling over stands like a deer, no---a possum, in the headlights. She looks terrified. And she should be. It drops and bounces over her head. Chaos ensues. Tone the Bone screams around the bases, easily scoring while the outfielders fumble to get the ball in to the pitcher. The whole Wrangler bench is staring dropped-jaw out at the field because we have never seen Lub-a-Dub-Dub hustle like this before. But there he goes, he's rounding 3rd. The ball is coming in up the 3rd base line. The 3rd basemen is in hot pursuit of a better angle on Lubs as he makes the mad dash for home. He goes to throw it, Lubbers ducks, stumbles, falls face first onto home plate in what appears to the average fan's eyes to be an artful slide, and WRANGLERS WIN!!! WRANGLERS WIN!!

Ah, the sweet taste of victory. It doesn't get much better than this.

This is Captain T-Dizzy signing off. You stay classy, Wranglers.