Awesome Helicopter Ninjas: Scary Blog Edition

Reggie Who? USC Removes All Public Displays of Bush, Mayo

2010-07-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

It was going to take some major to get Your Face is a Sports Blog out of hibernation, and the hiring of Pat Haden as the new USC athletic director is about as big as it gets. While I have some concerns about hiring someone with zero experience in athletic administration, I’m generally OK with it. If you didn’t know, Haden was a Rhodes Scholar, which is something you’ll be hearing referenced a million times this year. He’s also earned a reputation as one of the classiest and most decent people in college football (as evident by Bill Dwyre’s sloppy wet kiss in the Los Angeles Times).

It’s obvious why Haden was the right choice for the job right now. He knows USC intimately but wasn’t involved in the recent scandals which have seriously dented the athletic department. If nothing else, the USC athletic program should be run ethically and with dignity, a complete 180-degree turn from the Machiavellian nature of the Mike Garrett tenure. His hiring sends a clear message to the NCAA that the school is serious about cleaning house as it appeals the severity of the sanctions slapped on the football program.

Clearly, new USC President Max Nikias is putting his stamp on the athletic department, and Garrett’s “retirement” is hardly a surprise. But Haden’s hiring is far from the only change coming to the athletic department. A memo sent to all USC employees today shows that the university is willing to go to great lengths to rehabilitate its image - and distance itself from the two players who were at the center of the athletic department’s fall from grace.

Buried at the end of the announcement of Garrett’s departure and Haden’s hiring is the news that the school is removing all public displays involving Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo before incoming students arrive in August. This includes removing Bush’s 2005 Heisman Trophy statue from Heritage Hall and returning it to the Heisman Trust.

The memo from President Nikias states that the “Trojan Family honors and respects the USC sporting careers of persons whose actions did not compromise their athletic program or the opportunities of future USC student-athletes.” Ouch. Depending on how you look at it, USC is either attempting to wipe the slate clean or conducting a hand-washing of Pontius Pilate proportions. The university has cleared decided to back away from the defiant nature struck by Garrett and Pete Carroll in the immediate aftermath of the sanctions and turned to Plan B: douse everything in bleach and start over.

In addition to pretending that Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo never existed, USC is also creating a new position to oversee the athletic department from the outside. They have hired high-powered Los Angeles lawyer (and former Small College All-American football player) David Roberts to fill the role of vice president for athletic compliance. This position will report to senior vice president of administration Todd Dickey and not the athletic department. Essentially, Roberts will serve as an “outside” source of oversight for the athletic department.

So in case you were wondering: you’ll apparently be able to see O.J. Simpson’s retired number at the Coliseum this fall but not Reggie Bush’s. With the resources of the school’s film program, I wouldn’t be shocked if they tried to digitally alter old game footage to replace Reggie Bush with a generic “RB #5” like from an EA Sports College Football game. The university is apparently very serious about sending the message to the NCAA that is changing the culture of its athletic department (and also apparently willing to make people like Bush, Mayo and Garrett into scapegoats). Whether it makes a difference remains to be seen.

Read the memo sent to USC's staff here.

THE NINJAS ARE BACK! (for a night)

2010-05-16T17:44:00.000-07:00

Here's what's happening FOOLS. The Awesome Helicopter Ninjas are returning for one night! That's right, now go change into some clean underwear and keep reading.

Monday night is turn back the clock night for the world famous North Hollywood Hoodlums. They haven't won many games this year, but that shouldn't make their opponents rest easy this week as the Hoodlums are traveling back to a time when the Ninjas dominated North Hollywood kickball, not necessarily through their play - though they often did well - but through the trouble they'd cause on the field.

Expect smoke bombs, and copious amounts of professional-grade confetti (assuming the smoke bombs arrive on time, and Scott makes it to the confetti warehouse and buys some CO2 cartridges.) And travel back with us to WAY back in 2006 when the mercury topped 116 in the valley, Justin Timberlake brought sexy back, and Ricky Bobbby raced into our hearts.

It's worth like 1,000,000 words.

2008-04-19T16:21:00.000-07:00

Kickball is often about more than just playing the game, especially in North Hollywood's "Studio" division. We've got two videos to show just how theatrical and involved the pre-game shenanigans have become. The casting out of Satan and our celebration of mediocrity are this season's newest and most bestest videos. Enjoy.

http://www.kickballninjas.com/videos

Game 2 vs. Team Say Tan

2008-03-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

I don't even know where to begin when talking about last night's game. Do we start with the pre-game tent revival/healing/casting-out-of-the-devil-himself? Do we begin with a rant on the "umpiring" from the game? Or that we beat Team Say Tan 6 (7?) to 0 in a game where just about everyone contributed in an awesome way?

I guess, because i'm BORING, we'll start with the pre-game shenanigans.

Tent Revival and Spiritual Healing

Cast

Preacher/Holy Man: Bill

Satan/Devil/The Dragon/Lucifer/The Morning Star/The Serpent from Below/Bielzebub: Michael

Scott opened up announcing Bill who was coming out to cleanse the field of all the unholyness, and to start blessing and baptizing our teammates. This goes on for a little bit. People start falling down "healed".

Suddenly, the gospel music changes to some rockin' tunes from Dio, and through a cloud of smoke (smoke bomb) The Devil makes an appearance, while humping a blow up doll clad like a ninja. This goes on for a little bit, before The Preacher realizes he's had enough, and starts kicking ass.

Satan begins to cower in shame, and is thrown down to the ground, healed by the Awesome Helicopter Ninja Kickball Gameplay Primer. Then the rest of the team begins to kick Satan's ass. Then Scott shot off the confetti gun.

Big cheers from everybody.

Eventually, we'll get to the start of the game. We shot all this on video, and people took pictures. I shaved my beard to a devil's goatee, and dressed all in red, had a pentagram and pitchfork and generally looked like an ass. It ruled.

UMPIRING

The umpiring in the game set the tone. It wasn't just that it was exceptionally bad (it was) or that they had no idea what a strike or a ball was (it's true) or that we got boned on a variety of calls (which happens, but still, never fun). It was the game itself had no rhythm because of this. Every disputed call (and there were many) ate up a lot of time because of the constant discussion at home plate, in the field, wherever. No one wanted to stick to their calls, mostly I feel, because they didn't know the rules, or didn't want to face an argument from either team. So, it really suffered for both sides. And messed up the natural flow of a game. That being said, we still did very well, in spite of it.

THE GAME

This was a great game for everyone. We had a rocky start in the first inning. One of those aforementioned bad calls and the "strike zone" which needed major adjusting to kinda got in our heads. But by the 2nd inning, everything was humming.

Even when Team Say Tan threatened, the defense kept their heads in the game. Be it Bill running all over the field, trying to make every play. Or Sam and Kelly's brilliant game ending pickup at 2nd base that meant no runs scored, or the backup of our players from dropped fly balls, the defense was really present tonight. Adam J had the catch of the night, a diving catch along the left field line, that prevented a sure two runs from scoring.

Offensively, everyone was kicking on all cylinders. Once players adjusted to the strike zone, we had some great kicks. The gaps were found. All of our girls were on fire. Julie right now is 3 for 3. Melinda, with a little dunker down the first base line drove in two runs. A lot of that was great base running by Bill and Joe (a madman).

Adam G had a huge kick that brought in a couple of runs. Adam J (already mentioned) had a perfect kick right over 1st base that went to the outfield that allowed me to score from 1st (I ran like...I don't know what, but it was awesome).

Then we had a team photo thanks to Nathan from the Guy Fawkes Conservatory.

Yeah..it ruled.

Winter 2008. Game 1 vs. Redrum

2008-03-05T14:24:00.000-08:00

So, it was the first week of game. Oh, no! Another intense match up vs. Redrum. Yawn. We played. We lost. It's all cool, baby.

I'm over it. I'm sure they are over it. No one really cares about this anymore. The last few games have all been two run affairs. With less tension than Ahsley's weave.

First off, I'd like to welcome all the new Awesome Helicopter Ninjas to the team. Most of them were there last night, which was pretty boner-iffic, if you ask me.

NEW NINJAS

Alicia - She played with me on the Cagey Bees and is Paul's (from the much hated Valley Girls) roommate. Paul also played with me on the Cagey Bees and is one of my closest friends, so yeah. Fuck that guy! Alicia likes pirates, but i'm ignoring that for now.

David - David is a transplant from a Studio team, the Mean Girls 'n Boys Next Door. He ALSO played with me on the Cagey Bees (see, I had a Monopoly going, which is ironic...when my team was Communist themed, but whatever). Dave is a fuckin' powerhouse. A damned dynamo! Dave is that guy who will kick the ball over the moon but can also bunt like a madman. This guy can do it all. His arm is a cannon, that is made of three cannons. I could go on all day.

James - James had a nickname before he was even on the team. It's a secret, so don't ask. He's a real cool dude who will get more tail than anyone in the division. He was super pissed off that he kicked two pop flys last night. As he should be. We expect AWESOME things from him.

Jenn - Already, guys are lining up to hit on her. And those guys are lining up to hit on each other (physically) to be in that line. She never played a game of kickball in her life and in the first game got on base with a beauty of a single, and advanced to 2nd.

Jeremy - Jeremy was the one no-show on Monday. He will be punished. Probably by having to kick first next week. We're not sure. Jeremy is one half of a set of twins, which means there may be some fucking awesome shenanigans if his brother shows up to the park. Oh, you know we will.

Joe - This guy played ball with Scott on the team, back in high-school. I have no doubts about him. You know those guys you look at and say "Yeah, I don't have to worry". That's the feeling I get from Joe.

Melanie - Another friend of Pauls. Mel did some Tripple A work up in San Fran before coming down to LA. I told her where to kick the ball on Monday and she said "I usually kick down the other base line". She ended up kicking it exactly where I told her to. She got out, but that's not the point. The point is, she is money!

Melinda - Like Jenn, another first timer. And another with a perfect on base percentage. What is it with these two?! Does being awesome only come in pairs? Oh, me thinks so.

So, yeah. Welcome to the team. You're Welcome.

SHENANIGANS

As for Shenanigans, we had a bunch. First off was skipping the opening ceremonies to drink in the parking lot from Adam's magic punch. Things no one wanted to see included the Valley Girls giant cardboard trophy. Well, at least they've peaked. Enjoy fellas!

As WAKA now has an official sponsor, Jolt Energy Drink, which are advertising as...well, could you expect any less...as a tramp stamp on the lower back of the t-shirt, we also felt that this needed addressing. The Awesome Helicopter Ninjas are now sponsored by a myriad of companies, including McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Wynn Hotels, Shell, Crown Royal, the Masons and about a dozen other companies that want to get in on some of the action. I don't blame 'em. Even if they didn't know about it.

Redrum got a bit of the action as well. Clark "The so-close-to-being-an-Awesome-Helicopter-Ninja-but-didn't-know-how-to-sign-up-two-or-so-years-ago-and-was-defaulted-to-a-team-that-would-eventually-become-Redrum" Hill is our friend and he sells homes. Go to www.clarksellshomes.com if you don't believe me (See, Clark. Free advertising). Anyway, he's adorable and is always handing out business cards. So, we did too.

We handed out clarksellshoes.com business cards. And clarksellshoes business cards. Richard created one for me which was michaelsellsclarkshomes.com. It was pretty fun. I hope he kept them.

Finally, as we were playing Redrum, and as their infamously slow and methodical pitcher Dave Mauch had left the team to go home to Virginia, we had to pay some sort of tribute to their fallen time-waster. I removed the sleeves of my shirt, and purchased some of his trademark under-armor bodywear and enjoyed slowing down the game from the opening pitch. It was nice to see that Redrum got the joke, and that they played along by doing a traditional count, as I molested the ball in my hands on the mound.

Best night of Ninja kickball since I can't remember when. And that was with a loss! Fuck you, everybody!

Addition to the Enemies List

2008-02-05T23:13:00.000-08:00

So many times I've mentioned the name of our kickball team, I've been asked "Have you seen 'Ask a Ninja'? For me this equates to, "Hi, I have terrible taste. Don't be my friend." If you haven't seen "Ask a Ninja" it's like Strong Bad answering his e-mail on the Homestar Runner website except not funny. They try to make up for it by editing really, really fast. The guy doesn't even have a cool voice for it.

"Ask a Ninja" is officially on the Awesome Helicopter Ninjas enemies list.

Go to the Homestar Runner website instead.

Can we be the Giants instead?

2008-02-03T22:31:00.000-08:00

Remember when Richard Manfredi made the borderline arrogant post about the Awesome Helicopter Ninjas being the "New England Patriots of Kickball"? It made me uneasy, as most things do, but the parallel of 3 championships makes sense. Tonight though, I heard Michael Strahan speak after the New York Giants beat the nearly undefeated Patriots. First, did you realize Michael Strahan started playing in 1993? Clinton was in his first YEAR as president and I was a SOPHOMORE IN HIGH SCHOOL. But I digress.

Strahan said, "I look at us as a group of misfits who somehow came together and worked well." And who doesn't enjoy a jovial Micahel Strahan? So, yeah. Look at the Ninjas and you'll never see a group of super talented athletes. We're not even that athletic. The Patriots three years ago were similar as they were no-names who pulled it together. Of course now, they've become super stars. Super Duper even.

Anyway, my point. While last seasons Ninjas played like the Cincinnati Bengals of Kickball. I think overall considering the championship games, we played more like the Giants on February 3, 2008. They just went into the game, didn't expect to do anything and just had fun The comparison makes sense because really...the Giants? Who predicted that? (oh, and shut up if you're that guy who predicted the Patriots losing in like 10 other games, and is strutting around like "I told you!" today) But the Giants winning? I mean...come on. Wow.

OK, FAR more impressive. Richard Manfredi guessed IN ORDER, every song Tom Petty would play during the halftime show. The last 3 years now, we've collectively guessed WHAT songs would be played (3.5 for 4 on U2 and 4 for 4 with Prince). But this year, Richard Manfredi guessed what would make you about $10,000 on a $2 bet at any racetrack (It's called a "SUPERFECTA" and it's as insanely difficult as the name sounds).

Meanwhile, on February 3, 2008, I feel like Sofa King Good is the closest thing to the New England Patriots of Kickball. An undefeated season, followed by a championship loss. The only reason I won't draw the connection though is that the Patriots showed up and played in their championship game. Also, they were gracious in defeat.

We can compare all day, it's fun. Uno Mas and Guy Fawkes are the 1990s Kansas City Chiefs. Redum is the Tennessee Titans and let's call the Valley Girls the Denver Broncos of kickball...it just fits. In the end though, the Awesome Helicopter Ninjas are mostly just the Awesome Helicopter Ninjas of kickball and I'm cool with that.

The Excitement Is Returning

2008-01-14T12:43:00.001-08:00

Is it palpable? No, not quite yet. But its getting there.

Right now I am in Awesome Helicopter Ninja mode. For the past few seasons there has been a lot of distraction. There have been a couple of teams i've ran in other divisions, and don't get me wrong, I love those teams and would say that I was in love with them as well, but the Awesome Helicopter Ninjas will always occupy the very center of my heart.

Hobolympians, baby. You're the best. Cagey Bees, you too sweetie-p, you are the bees knees.

But Ninjas? Wowie Zowie!

Its hard to describe to anyone who hasn't played on the team. And sometimes, its hard for someone who has played on the team to relate. I don't know if its because there is often a sense of inclusiveness within the team itself. I know a lot of what Scott and Richard and Ashley and I have tried to do often only involves Scott and Richard and Ashley and I.

BUT...we're trying to make some fun changes for next season.

"Oh, what kind of changes?"

We're trying to get more members of the team involved in everything from organization of more social events to having some that want to be more involved in trickery and tactics to step up and really be heard.

We are still a month or more out from playing our first game, but i'm excited about a lot of the changes. And i'm excited that i'm not sure how things are going to go. The unknown is awesome!

Cross-promoting

2007-10-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard (and I can't imagine how you didn't), I've started a new sports humor blog called Your Face is a Sports Blog. I'm sure it will provoke a wide range of opinions from people about it. Some people might consider it "mildly amusing" while others might call it "better than a marathon of Saved by the Bell: The College Years on TBS. I'll let you make the call yourselves.

Championship Trophy

2007-10-11T12:09:00.001-07:00

Scene: In the bleachers during the All-Star game following the Championships. VGs captain Tyler G. is carrying the Championship Trophy around everywhere he goes, beaming like a kid at Christmas, as he captains one of the two teams. Sitting in the bleachers are me and Ashley.

Me: I'm going to steal that trophy.
Ashley: No way. Tyler won't let it out of his sights for a second.
Me: Yes he will. And I'll be ready.

And that's just what happened. Because I'm a Ninja, and if I can't win the trophy fair and square...I have no problem stealing it. In fact, treasure earned is not really as cool as treasure stolen.

Flash forward to later in the evening at the bar. 90 percent of the Valley Girls are enraptured by this magician who had been at the bar the week before. (Apparently, he is doing a show at the Lodge on a different night, and shows up to "wow" people and drum up interest.) It's pretty standard up-close magic stuff, although well-done. And he's a pretty standard up-close magician, right now to the mulleted hair and the faint whiff of desperation.

But I digress. Most of the other players go apeshit whenever they see him. Like, literally start acting like he's five and you just pulled a quarter about from behind their ear. He's making a quarter smoke, or some nonsense like that, and everyone is gathered around the table in total focus on him. Meanwhile, the trophy is sitting all by itself on a table in the corner.

Opportunity taken.

I swoop down from my table, pick up the trophy and just walk out with it. No one noticed I had. Not even Tyler and his girlfriend Kelley, who were sitting outside right next to the door. They were so busy telling some story about who knows what, that they never noticed me walking out the door and to the car with their trophy.

Who is the magician now?

The trophy stayed in my car for about 30 minutes, until someone realized the trophy was missing and all hell broke loose. Tyler immediately came over to Michael and I and asked "if we knew anything about a missing trophy". Michael said no, because legitimately he didn't; I said no because I'm a filthy liar. All I heard from Tyler for the next few minutes was him going from person to person in the bar, with a pissed off look in his face, muttering "someone's trying to be funny, and it's not funny..." Which is where Tyler is wrong, because it was VERY funny. Especially since he specifically has a history of hiding personal items from people at bars that mean a lot of certain...well, I don't need to get into details. But it would have been funny to steal their trophy anyway, but the fact that it was a bit of turnaround being fair play made it even more delicious.

After letting him stew and panic for a few minutes, I went out to my car and brought the trophy back. All I could say was "Of course I took it; I'm a Ninja. You worked so hard for this trophy - take better care of it."

Tyler spent the rest of the night hugging the trophy like a baby and eyeing me while hiding his wallet. Lesson learned.

Championship Game Video

2007-10-11T11:57:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned, The Valley Girls won the championship on Monday, beating The Warner Pros 7-3. I couldn't have been happier for them: the majority of the team wasn't on the first-season Valley Girls that won the title, so this was their "first" championship. It's amazing that they've gone from "The Team I'd Most Like to Have Die in Some Sort of Bizarre Warehouse Fire" to a team that I really like, with several friends on it. Part of it is just that a lot of the people who were playing first season that don't play now were the really...well, "troublemakers"? Mainly, though, I think the majority of it was that there were a lot of misunderstandings and insinuations early on that got all blown out of proportion. Spending time with them throughout the following seasons (and even playing on teams with some of them in Junction) has made me see that they really are a swell bunch of fellows (and ladies). I'm really happy that they won. (Not that I was rooting against the Warner Pros - there are several people on that team I like as well. I was just rooting for the Valley Girls...more?)

Of course, being giant attention whores, the Ninjas had to have a presence at the championships. Michael and I acted as PA announcers for the game, announcing each batter and the score after every half inning. And our PA system?

Admittedly not the Dodger Stadium PA system, but there weren't exactly 30,000 fans there either (although there was hardly a seat left in the bleachers - good job Division to show up and watch!).

The main reason we were there (and in our business attire) was to shoot some footage. Because the entire championship game was filmed using multiple cameras, which is currently being edited into a final, full-length version. Michael and I are then going to add a play-by-play and color commentary track before it's finalized. We have fake commercials planned, and guest appearances in the EA Sports Announcers Booth (or whatever the hell we brand it)...it should be boss. I have to thank everyone who showed up to film on Monday, and especially Jeff of the TSE, who is currently editing all of this into a rough cut. It's a daunting task, but I know he's up to the task.

End of season (fish) wrap-up

2007-10-11T11:44:00.001-07:00

I know I've been very, very bad at updating the blog. I've had some requests from East Coast fans who couldn't attend the games, and perhaps didn't see highlights on their edition of SportsCenter (damned East Coast Media bias...).

I think our season could best be summed up by this:

Let me explain...

That is a picture of an unexploded piece of fish and chips that was supposed to inspire the team before our first playoff game. We were playing the Guy Fawkes Conservancy, which is the team of Kelly, Michael's girlfriend and also where former Ninja Cameron went to go play this season. Needless to say, we're very good friends with them. I wanted something to get people's focus, though, so we would act like it's the playoffs and not just another scrimmage game in the park on a Sunday afternoon.

So, I found out how to create a Penny Bomb using old toy cap gun rolls, a penny and some electrical tape. I don't want to be responsible for any lawsuits so I won't post any links, but they are easy enough to make, and as Sara can attest to (based on some testing I did in the street the night before), loud and pretty potentially destructive. I think her words to me before I left for the game were "try not to lose a finger".

With the Guy Fawkes team being (in theory) a bunch of limey British bastards, I wanted to destroy something British. So, I went to H Salt Fish & Chips (perhaps the most disgusting place on Earth, and this is from someone who cannot resist Long John Silver's) and ordered one single fish plank. The idea was to use that as a symbol of the other team, and then destroy it by blowing it up with the Penny Bomb in front of everyone to get us fired up.

The end result? A train wreck (I would have said "grease fire", but that would have been pretty close to what I was hoping to achieve.) The Penny Bomb needs friction to go off, usually being thrown to the ground. My bright idea was to tape the Penny Bomb to the fish plank and then throw it to the ground, causing the plank to explode in an orgy of fish, breading and grease. The reality is that H Salt fish is so greasy that I could not, for the life of me, get the bomb to stick to the plank - the tape would slide off from the grease, no matter how much I tried to use.

What wound up happening was me trying to throw this plank with the bomb half-falling off at the bottom, which gave it no momentum and not nearly enough speed to go off. So we would up with me throwing a fish plank into the ground, and then...nothing. I picked up the bomb and tried to throw it directly on the fish plank, but the plank wasn't hard enough to create a good surface, and it just bounced off. Finally, I just got mad and threw the bomb onto the concrete, but by this point, most of the team had wandered off, perplexed more than inspired.

Needless to say, we lost 4-1.

And that was this season. A lot of really big ideas that ultimately didn't go anywhere. Most of the team didn't get behind the "Amish" part of the team name for this season, and the things we did try to do...well, the barn raising was less than a success. And honestly, there was only so much you could do with being Amish - especially since we couldn't get a butter churn.

We finished the regular season 4-4, which actually wasn't terrible considering we had the toughest schedule in the Division by far. And we really only got blown out in one game (against the Valley Girls, who won the title on Monday, congrats to them...), and even then we were one close play at third away from making a game of it.

But it was a very disappointing season, and not just because of our record. As a team, we really didn't have a lot of passion or enthusiasm, not like we've had in the past. Some people were just burnt out on kickball, or burnt out on the team; we're a pretty demanding and "interesting" group of people, and I think it takes some effort to be fully involved. Plus, frankly, the vast majority of us have been doing this close to non-stop for two years now. I think that just puts a lot of pressure on relationships, and a) you start taking things for granted and b) every little thing that everyone else does starts to really get on your nerves.

And frankly, I'll take a lot of the blame. I know I can push the team to try to get involved, but depending on your point of view, it probably comes off as way over-the-top. There's a certain percentage of the team that just wants to show up and play once a week. Which I totally get, except that's not what the Ninjas are really about. I think as a team, we're a place for people who are completely insane, and want to spend hours planning a stunt to pull against the other team, or to record fake press conferences, or even just to practice. We try to take winning and losing as not seriously as we do take the theatrical, BS aspects of playing kickball. We want to win, too, and there's obviously no reason why we can't; but I want to shoot off confetti guns first.

The new season doesn't start again until Feburary or March of 2008 (thanks, WAKA!). Frankly, I think the time off will be good for us. I know some people won't be back - either they aren't playing next season, or they are joining new teams. And I'm fine with that - people should do what makes them happy, and I'd rather have someone not on the team than join because they feel obligated and be unhappy and unenthused. Our goal between now and then it to a) develop a lot of stunts and BS that the entire team can be involved in and b) recruit people who are willing to sell out for the team and get involved in our shenanigans. This will probably mean bringing in some players who have never played kickball before, which I actually love; they are a blank slate, and we are free to brainwash them and corrupt their unsuspecting minds.

Ha.

Update

2007-09-05T21:24:00.001-07:00

We lost to The Valley Girls 8-2. And this blog is going on hiatus until we play like we deserve it. 3-3 teams DO NOT DESERVE THEIR OWN BLOGS!!!

Haven't updated over the last few weeks? You bet.

2007-08-22T16:20:00.001-07:00

I have a lovely, wonderful, frequently screaming all night newborn baby at home. As hard as it might be to believe, somethings do take a priority over kickball...

We've gone 1-1 over the last two weeks. On 8/13 we lost to Redrum, 2-0. I wasn't at the game (driving back from a weekend visit to Tucson to see the in-laws, because I'd much rather be driving through a desert with a screaming baby than playing kickball), but reports I've heard from teammates range from "the game was tough" to "we played retarded" to "balls soup". I know that at least two our our players were thrown out trying for the first-to-third-on-a-single thing, while making two of the ugliest slides known to mankind. I'll let the offenders decide if they want to tell those stories themselves.

Last week was a complete turnaround. We played Smurfageddon, and I think you guys know the history between us. A friendly rivalry, and we were 2-1 against them all-time going in, but certainly a rivalry of some sort. And for whatever reason, everything "clicked" from the first inning, especially for our offense. All of the poor decisions on where to kick vanished. Everyone made good choices, even if it meant not doing what they normally do or even sacrificing themselves for the team. Thanks to that, we scored four runs in the first inning, and never really were threatened from there. (It helped that their pitcher walked three of our first four kickers - ouch.)

The final score was 10-3, but really I felt like it was 100-3. To see our offense go out against a good team and execute gives me a lot of hope for the rest of the season. I know that we apparently CAN "flip a switch" come playoff time, but a) that doesn't mean we WILL do that and b) I'd like to able to play to our level of ability in the regular season AND the playoffs - I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.

I think most people know the Vince Lombardi quote of "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." I think every youth sports coach drilled that into our heads as kids to prove the value of sportsmanship. I think that's taking the quote all out of context. I think what Vince Lombardi meant was that your results aren't as important as playing at your highest level of ability - that's the "how you play the game" he was talking about. Winning or losing is sort of important to me, but I can handle losing if we played as good as we could, and another team still beats us. It happened to us in the semifinals in San Diego last year, and in the Championship Game against Wonderballz a few seasons ago. It happens sometimes. But losing because you didn't come close to your best effort as a team (or even winning in spite of it) sucks.

This week, we play the Valley Girls in a rematch of last season's Championship Game. As usual, it should be a very competitive, hard-fought game between two former bitter rivals who now have a lot of respect for each other. Plus, the "trade" of Tyler F. to their team for Spitz will certainly spice things up a bit.

A Ninja Manifesto - Offense and How to be Offensive

2007-08-10T12:43:00.001-07:00

I think we know that we’re capable of being one of the top offensive teams in the Division. What we lack from time to time is consistency. Some weeks we can score double digit runs, while in other weeks we struggle to score at all. Why the wild swings? Because we only succeed on offense when we stick to the things that make us successful – the things we’ve done as a team in order to win three championships.

These things don’t include kicking for home runs and trying to overpower the other team – while the occasional home run is nice and sometimes necessary, we do well when we outthink and outplay the other team’s defense. There are things that we do on offense when things are going well that other teams don’t – call it “Kickball the Ninja Way” or whatever you want, but it has worked in the past and it will work in the future if we stick to it.

The difference between scoring 10 runs versus scoring two runs is usually a lot of little things. Here are some guidelines about what we should be doing every time we come to bat, regardless of who we are playing or what the score is.

PUT PRESSURE ON THE OTHER TEAM’S DEFENSE – I think that every specific thing that we try to do as a team on offense comes from this basic concept – it’s the overall philosophy that guides everything we should do. As we’ve seen time and time again, when you constantly put the other team’s defense in situations where they have to make plays, there’s a good chance that they will make enough mistakes that we can capitalize on.

GROUND BALLS PUT MORE PRESSURE ON DEFENSES THAN FLY BALLS – Ground balls require more things to go right for the defense than fly balls. Hopefully this diagram helps to explain things:

With a ground ball, the fielder must catch the ball, make a good throw, and the person at the base must make a clean catch while staying on the base. Meanwhile, for a fly ball only one thing has to happen – the ball being caught.

Ground balls in the right places (like down 3rd base) will make it almost impossible to get the kicker out. And even more importantly, it puts the pressure on the defense to execute a series of things instead of just doing one thing over and over. It’s frustrating when an outfielder makes a “Help Me Jesus” catch on a deep fly ball, but why give them the chance to make that play at all when a ground ball puts the defense under more pressure and increases the odds of them screwing up.

HOME RUNS ARE FINE, IN SMALL DOSES – I’ve seen our team fall in love with trying to kick for home runs several times in the past because someone kicked one in the first inning. The truth is that for every home run, there are probably eight or nine fly outs. In the long run, the reward isn’t worth all the outs we’ll incur trying for home runs.

GETTING THE FIRST TWO KICKERS ON BASE SHOULD BE ALMOST AUTOMATIC – If you can kick a ground ball to third base, it’s almost impossible for a defense to get you out at first base, or to get a runner out going to second. You don’t have to kick hard when kicking ground balls – keeping it on the ground is way more important than how hard you kick it.

DON’T KICK ANYTHING THE CATCHER CAN MAKE A PLAY ON – Any bunt that the catcher can field near home base is almost always going to be an out. Kicking ground balls instead of bunts takes the catcher out of the equation. But if you are going to bunt, try to get the ball somewhere in between the catcher and the pitcher on the 3rd base side – it’s tough to field and almost a sure base hit.

TAKE WHAT THE DEFENSE GIVES YOU – Every defense has strengths and weaknesses, and it’s in our best interest to exploit the other team’s weak spots to our advantage. If they have huge gaps in their outfield, aim for them. If there is a girl on second base who weighs about 50 pounds and has her hands in her armpits when the ball is kicked, make her make the plays. It’s not mean – it’s being opportunistic.

Remember: precision is more important than brute force.

LINE DRIVES ARE BETTER THAN FLY BALLS – There are situations when you need to kick more than a ground ball, especially with two outs and runners on base. But that doesn’t mean that you need to hammer a deep fly ball – that gives the other team a chance to get under it and make a play (and maybe have a better fielder get to it).

In these situations the key is kicking line drives that get over the heads of the infielders but fall in front of the outfield. These gaps always exist, especially with kickers whom the defense respects. Keep putting balls in front of the outfielders until they adjust and more up to close the gap. The beauty is that once this happens, our big kickers can then blast kicks over the drawn-in outfield’s heads and make them pay.

KNOW THE SITUATION AND KICK ACCORDINGLY – Before you go up, think about the situation: Where are the runners? Are there force-outs in effect for the runners? How many outs are there? These things all matter. A ground ball to third base is great most of the time, but with runners on first and second, it’s a sure out and worst of all we haven’t advanced the runners. In that case, kicking the ball to the right side of the field is a better play – even if you get out, the runners will advance up to second and third base.

It sounds basic but it needs to happen: have a plan for where you want to ball to go, and think about what will happen with the base runners if the ball goes where you are aiming.

UNDERSTAND YOUR LIMITATIONS AND THOSE OF THE KICKERS AFTER YOU – I know that I can’t kick home runs, so I’ve abandoned trying. My strength is kicking ground balls and getting on base. But certain situations require that I do more than just get on base. If there are two outs and runners on second and third, I could easily kick a grounder and get on base. But that leaves the bases loaded, and if a weaker kicker is up next, I’ve just put them in a bad situation.

Study the kicking order and don’t just know how is before you but who is after you. If a big kicker is up, you can focus on getting on base. If it’s a weaker kicker, you might want to try and punch the ball out of the infield and drive in the runs.

DON’T LOSE FOCUS – Generally we know what to do on the field. But when we lose focus, we can make silly plays that are out of character for us – not tagging up on fly balls, overrunning bases, or not running through first base. Obviously, we want to have fun, but when it’s your turn to kick, you need to be 100 percent focused and thinking several steps ahead – if you are on base, what happens when the ball is kicked? Go through the different scenarios in your mind and decide how you would react to them so you are ready for anything – it’s like role playing without the dice!

And this can’t be stressed enough: You can learn so much about opposing defenses by watching every one of our at-bats. You can tell if certain fielders have weak arms, so maybe you can take an extra base against them. Or, you can tell if certain outfielders have a better or worse chance of making a play.

RUN AGGRESSIVELY, BUT NOT STUPIDLY – I know that we see players stretch singles into doubles, triples or even home runs by being very aggressive on the base paths. And that’s great if you’re as fast as Scott Jones. But I know how fast I am, and I’m not going to be able to pull off the same things he can.

History has shown that if we can remember these things when we’re up to kick, we’ll score tons of runs. I mean, just giant buckets of runs. And the more times we score, the more people get to kick, and that’s fun for everyone.

Yours truly and a Ninja 4Ever,
Richard

I hate kickball

2007-08-07T15:42:00.001-07:00

We lost 3-2 last night. In the bottom of the fifth inning, after we were up 2-1. Against a new team that - yes, they played good - but had giant holes in their defense all game long. And yet we could still only get two runs.

It was embarrassing. Not just because we lost, but it was totally amateur hour for most of the game. Basically, we did everything that every other team does that we usually capitalize on: kicked lots of fly balls, made ill-advised defensive plays at the wrong time and generally lost our heads. It wasn't even close to good enough - if we keep playing like this the next few weeks (Redrum, Smurfageddon, Valley Girls all in a row), we're going to be looking at 2-4 really fast.

I would write more but I can just feel my head start to hurt the more I think about the game. Suffice it to say I have been this distressed by a loss in a long time.

(And by "distressed" I mean "pissed for about 10 minutes, and then went home and had dinner and drinks with my best friend from college who is visiting from Portland". Not the same distressed as "my pet dog died" or "a pen leaked on my favorite shirt".)

A Belated Week 2 Recap: A Win Is A Win

2007-08-06T10:59:00.001-07:00

Last Monday we defeated the Rhino Stampede 11-0. It was a frighteningly efficient game (from our standards) - lots of scoring in practically each inning, and absolutely zero mistakes on defense. They came close to scoring once, but we managed to get an inning-ending double play, including throwing out a runner attempting to score at home. In all honesty, from where I was on the sidelines, it looked like the runner beat the throw, but both Megan (the catcher who batted the ball into home plate so it hit the sliding runner) and Adam J. (the pitcher who made the relay throw) insisted that the runner was out, and who am I to argue. Just like how an umpire's decision is final if it goes against you, it's also final if it goes for you too.

The whole situation didn't make the Rhino Stampede very happy - especially since the home plate umpire first signaled "safe" and then verbally changed his call to "out" after they were on the sidelines celebrating. Now, part of me understands their frustration at getting a run pulled off the board after they've started celebrating, especially on a questionable call. Still, they were down 10-0 at that point, so in the big picture it wasn't going to make a lick of a difference and the other team decided to be very angry for the rest of the game (at the umps and at us). I don't know what we were supposed to do - we didn't make the call, and we're certainly not expected to "give them a run" because "the play was close" and "we're leading by so much". I would think that would be considered very condescending if another team decided to take pity on us and "give" us a run.

Oh kickball, you continue to bewilder and infuriate me.

This week's game is against The Ball Breakers at 8:05 p.m. They're a new team, and we should handle them pretty easily, but their captain is a veteran from DC, so who knows.

Week 1 Recap: Really? We Just Did That

2007-07-27T09:54:00.001-07:00

And by "that", I mean something that we haven't done in six seasons of Studio Division kickball: win our first game. And it was a good game against a good team, too - 2-1 over Nuts & Honeys. The odd part is that all the runs in the game by both teams were scored in the first inning, and there were nothing but blanks from there. Both teams had chances to score (for example, Megan was thrown out at the plate on a close play for us), but couldn't convert.

Even though our offense is a little rusty (it happens), I think our defense is in mid-season form. Honestly, I don't remember a mistake that we made the whole game, and we made several very heady plays. For example, in the first inning, Nuts & Honeys get their lead-off kicker on. The second batter kicks a ground ball to pitcher (Adam G.), who quickly gets the ball over to first (Scott P.) for the out. The runner on first decides to try and be aggressive and get to third. Which, honestly, works most of the time if the first baseman doesn't a) react immediately and b) make a strong throw.

Sucks for him, then, that Scott P. did both of those things. The runner was tagged out by about five steps, and I think it set the tone for the whole game.

Needless to say, the atmosphere at the bar was pretty electric. We've won regular season pennants and Division championships, but we'd never won our opening game, so it was nice to see all of our teammates celebrating being 1-0 versus going to our usual "well, we do this every year" card. You want to have something positive to let the new players on our team like Spitz see.

Yeah, about that...

Spitz was probably the best player on the Valley Girls, and especially when our rivalry with them was not-so-friendly, he was the most "hated" player on the team. There was especially a lot of tension between him and Scott J., since they are both oversized personalities, just in different ways. After a few seasons, some of us got to know Spitz as being the big teddy bear that he is and hearts melted, etc.

So this offseason. Spitz is leaving the Valley Girls, and during a conversation with some of us, the idea of having him join the Ninjas is hatched. And basically, it's a perfect storm of concept of execution - we need to keep it as secret as possible so we can not only blow the minds of everyone else in the Division but also our own team. Basically, five people in the kickball world know about this (Michael, Scott, Ashley, Spitz and myself), and we completely sell it to the outside world - Spitz tells everyone that he isn't playing this season (too competitive), but will come to watch games. We feign vague disinterest. We even go as far as to create a fake identity for Spitz to register under (Curt Hennig, aka Mr. Perfect) so that not even the WAKA reps will know what is happening.

Flash forward to Opening Night on Monday. All of the teams are brought onto the field to do leaguewide introductions. As defending champs (or maybe alphabetically, I don't know), we are introduced first. Spitz is sitting in the bleachers outside, having finished playing some basketball. Instead of cheering, we are silent (which Scott cryptically told the team to do). Scott says the following: "Wait, wait, this doesn't feel right. One of our players isn't out here. Spitz, do you want to get in the game."

And with that, Scott throws a t-shirt to Spitz as we walks from the bleachers to join his new team. Needless to say, minds were blown. It was spectacular. I couldn't be more thrilled at how it turned out. It was a better twist than anything M. Night Shymalayan has scripted in a long time.

My only regret is that we had some Amish-themed stuff to do that we didn't do, mainly because of the excitement of the night and the closeness of the game. Oh well, there's always next week...

Off-season hijinx

2007-07-20T12:24:00.001-07:00

What have we been doing during the off-season?

Massive amounts of steroids, that's what.
Running underground dog fighting rings out of our backyard, that's what.
Stuff, that's what.

Several of us played on a new team in the Junction Division (Silverlake) organized by Michael, The Hobolympians. There were about a half-dozen Ninjas on the team, along with our friends from the other teams in the Studio Division (yes, we do have friends outside of the team. Even ones that aren't imaginary). We were able to take the regular season title there by a game and a half. The playoffs for Junction happened to wrap up last night, and while I won't get into details, let's just say that a No. 1 seed has yet to win a championship in any Division I've ever played in.

And oh yeah, I had a baby. Vivian Bliss Manfredi was born on June 29, weighing 6 lbs., 2 oz. She was six weeks early - I think she knew that if she waited until her planned birth date, that might mean I would have to miss some Ninja games, and that wouldn't fly with her. At birth, she's already very team-focused.

So for this season...keeping with the tradition of doing something different every season (Scary Ghost Edition, The Max Fischer Players), this year our team name official team name is the Amish Helicopter Ninjas. Why Amish? I don't know - it fit with the name, and affords us opportunities to do a lot of BS this season. For reasons of security, I can't get into most of our plans, but I will let you take a look at our suggested team outfits for this season.

First, for the gentlemen:

And now for the fair ladies:

We have some roster turnover this season, as we do almost every season. The difference is that while we've lost two players, we've lost them to other teams. Cameron has decided to join The Guy Fawkes Conservancy (the Pregnant Cheerleaders off-shoot) while Tyler is joining...the Valley Girls. Traitors. Seriously, though, I completely understand wanting to play with new people and wanting new challenges, especially after the fun I had with the Hobolympians this off-season.

That being said, in keeping with the Amish theme, both Cameron and Tyler will be shunned for the rest of their lives by our team.

Our first game is Monday night against perennial pretty good team Nuts & Honeys. Expect more announcements as the weekend progresses.

Studio "All Stars" Prove Otherwise

2007-07-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

The game started as expected - 15 minutes late due to several Hollywood player no-shows and others "lost" on the way. The Studio Division would have been lucky to escape with a forfeit. I'm not sure what the final score was, like 9-1 - and as Brian Ching from Hollywood pointed out, that run should have been called out at first.

If anything, games like this should remind you that the game is just for fun. You can lose by 40 runs but when it's over, the pinata still comes out and we head to the bar. On the other hand, losing sucks donkey balls coated in doo-doo, with CORN!

No doubt I will be labeled as "negative" for this but really, even Roberto Benigni's character in "Life Is Beautiful" would have a tough time with this one.

The game started close - it was 0-0 before the first inning. But after Studio scored one run, it was all Hollywood. With standard pitching and catchable pop-fly kicking they still turned it into a rout. The bulk of their runs came off fly balls being dropped or simply flying over the Studio defense's heads and well placed kicks to enormous outfield gaps. While the comparison is less than polite, it reminded me of the Pregnant Cheerleader defense. As if to prove that sentence wrong, the best defensive play of the game was a fast catch-and-peg out of a sliding Hollywood player into third by a Pregnant Cheerleader.

The real fun came on offense. If we were slack-jawed yokels on defense, we looked like wide-eyed wannabe actors dazzled by the Hollywood lights (metaphorically) on offense. While Hollywood swung away, we sent timid bunts back at the pitcher. Hollywood's defense left a huge gap in left, and had their deepest players at the edge of the infield dirt as if ASKING to be scored on but we just kept gift wrapping our balls (oh yes I did).

We had probably 8 base runners in the first two innings and came away with one run. In the second inning, our fastest players didn't advance more than one base - not because of speed but because of "not getting a good jump" on a hard, skittering no-decision-necessary grounder. Other times, players would make it to base and then make a big turn to the next one to find themselves pegged out (I counted three), and one player actually wasn't familiar with "tagging up" (God bless him, nice guy and not a bad kicker). We squandered more opportunity than M.C. Hammer.

I could spin it with how fun it is to play a bonus game on a Saturday but really it unfortunately wasn't fun. Not because we lost, but because in a loss this bad, the game is a truncated experience void of the excitement of actual competition. It was a lousy blow out game; an astounding display of how badly we can all play when we really set our minds to it.

It's an interesting human trait, the difference between champs and chumps isn't just talent but a state of mind and how well they use that talent when challenged. Super Bowls in the 90s were notorious for exposing this truth. It is what it is, decent players playing a terrible game. The good news is, this could be the beginning of a tradition of cross-divisional All Star Games and for the inevitable re-match, we'll have much more detailed notes on their style of play then they'll have on us.

In the meantime, get over it bitches! It's just a game.

We are the New England Patriots of kickball

2007-05-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

A 6-1 victory over the Valley Girls in the Studio Division championship game last night gives us three Division titles in four seasons (with an appearance in the title game in the fourth season). Three titles in four seasons officially makes you a dynasty. One more title and we're the Steelers in the 1970s or the 49ers of the 1980s.

More details to come from the game, but I'll just say that it was quite possibly the best game we've ever played as a team. Sofa King Good is lucky they forfeited, because I'm very, very confident that with the way we were playing, they would have had no chance against us last night.

Ironically, this was far and away our most difficult and tumultuous season, yet it was the easiest championship game victory out of our three so far.

Again, more details later, and I'm sure teammates will chime in to fill in some details. But, as I said to the team last night after the game, I don't know if this was the best Ninjas team we've had, but I know for a fact that no other team has ever shown as much heart and resilience as this team has. Once again, I'm proud to be a Ninja.

"Championship Game" Tonight

2007-05-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

Win, and we are the champions of the Studio Division for the third time in four seasons. Lose, and we're Redrum - out in the semifinals. This is what happens when one of the two finalists decides to take their ball and go home. I know the situation wasn't made ideal, but at some point you need to make a decision, and I think it's pretty much a no-brainer to play for a championship rather than in a regular-season game, even if it is against a team that broke off from yours. Especially when you have a history in other Divisions of kicking ass in the regular season and choking in the playoffs.

Until proven otherwise, I'm going to assume that Sofa King Good were going to chomp the bit tonight anyway, so whether or not they showed up to play is irrelevant.

As for the game tonight: The Valley Girls are very good. They are extremely fast, kick well, and field their positions. We know their strengths and weaknesses at this point, but it will take a total team effort to get the victory.

In other words: we are the underdogs again, which puts me in a very good frame of mind going into tonight.

Retraction

2007-05-11T14:38:00.000-07:00

Remember how I JUST posted about how we are playing the Valley Girls in the Semi-Finals and THEN the winner was goign to play in the Championship against Sofa King Good?

Yeah, well Sofa King Good has forfeited the game, so they can play their opening Hollywood game against a splinter team.

More to come as the story develops...

Coming Up: Semi-Final vs.Valley Girls & Studio Division vs. Sofa King Good

2007-05-11T11:48:00.000-07:00

Next Monday is going to be a doozy.

First we play the Valley Girls. A team that used to be bitter rivals (and they are of sorts) but over the last few seasons I've become pretty good friends with a lot of them. It has become a friendly rivalry. The Awesome Helicopter Ninjas at one point wanted to try a t-shirt swap with their team for the last game of the season, but it never came to be.

That doesn't mean I don't want to kick their ass.

Their team is good. Athletic, passionate. High spirited. They finished first in their conference, and with good reason. They kick and field really well. When I was making the schedule for the season, I had them pegged at #1 across the board. I scheduled their cross conference game with Sofa King Good because I knew that would be a great game. We haven't played them since the beginning of Fall '06. I am frigg'n jazzed out of my mind to play them.

But there is something bigger going on.

And as much as I want to beat the asses of the Valley Girls. I want the Studio Division as a whole to beat the asses of Sofa King Good. The winner of our game against the VG's plays SKG.

There is a buzzing around the division. A unified buzzing that wants either of our teams to really take it to them. Sofa King Good is a team that has played in the Hollywood Division and came over to play in Studio while Hollywood was in an off season. Well, they went 8-0 in the regular season and are fierce. But they have made some enemies along the way. They have an aggressive play style and have a pre-disposition for arguing calls.

Like last Monday night when they played Redrum in the Semi-Final. The game I saw them play. I saw them argue judgment calls at first base and there was the April's Mom incident where their team captain, Max Lucas, was rounding 2nd base and ran over April's Mom. He argued that she was in the base path and had a fit of sorts that he wasn't awarded 3rd base for interference. I'm staying out of the debate. But lets just say that is cemented their status as a-holes of the division.

Like I said. Doozy.

Quarter Final Game: vs. Smurfageddon

2007-05-08T12:59:00.001-07:00

This is long (that'swhatshesaid)

Weird. Fucking. Night.

I don't know how else to describe it. The mood of the game was off from the get go. It was windy and warm and twilightly and muggy and just...off. Its the kind of air that looms over you on nights where big things happen. Like presidential elections. You're there and you can't do anything about it, but you know something big is going on. I don't know how to properly describe it.

Going into the game I was nervous. Kelly can attest to this. We got to the field early and I just couldn't settle. We went out and bought some Crayolla sidewalk chalk paint so I could write nasty stuff about the Smurfs on the pavement, but I just wasn't in the mood.

Setup:

- The wind was blowing from home plate to the outfield, causing every kick to carry and hang in the air. Adam J. was walking by home plate in his flip-flops (thongs) and kicked a random ball and it went over into left field, with no effort.

- The sun was setting and was shining into the eyes of the outfielders.

- Mandy bought a GORGEOUS sign for us. A HUGE banner that was just beautiful.

- Everyone bought water or Gatorade and stayed hydrated. The other team was lacking.

The game got off to a really rocky start, in spite of Scott's best efforts to slow down the game. Oh, before I get into THAT, we had a big issue with umping in the division that night. (note: I just deleted a major rant that I'll save for another time). Anyway, things got off to a late start. By the time the game started, it was close to 7:30ish.

In the first inning a few insane things happened. Well, Smurfageddon did what we all knew they were going to do, which was bunt, bunt, bunt kick. Unfortunately, it was the kick part that killed us. For whatever reason, in the first inning Scott was off his game. Its a rare thing to see Scott miss play a ball. Sure, he's dropped really tough catches. But he always has the sense to know the field and know where to get the ball to next. But the Smurfs sent two balls his way. The first got caught by the wind and carried a few feet above his head. By the time he brought the ball in, they had scored three runs. A few minutes later, it happened again. This time the ball dropped just short of his play, and somehow got past him. Another two scored. They finished up with some more bunting and small plays in the infield, and we were down by five going into the bottom of the first.

Morale was low. But we began to threaten in the bottom of the first, though we didn't score. Adam J and Jack both got out. Julie kicked a little grounder that was played poorly by the Smurfs, and as the ball sailed into foul territory along the fence, she RAN to 2nd then to 3rd. She pulled a triple out of her ass and it was all due to hustle and listening to her teammates. It was awesome. Unfortunately, she was stranded at third. Or was she? I remember she ran home, against my base coaching, but I don't know if the score counted.

Top of 2, we held them to no runs.

Bottom 2, everything broke loose. We loaded up the bases and Gari got up to kick. He kicked a huge fly ball to right center, and it was not only went over the head of the girl, but was misplayed by the outfielder. He cleared the bases and got a grand slam home run! This brought us within one, and everything changed from that point.

We started playing better on the field. Offense heated up a bit. In the bottom of the third, Scott got on board with two outs on a double. I dinked in a shot down the third base line and got on board. Then Richard came up to kick. He booted a line drive beauty between me running to 2nd and into right field. As it whizzed past me I shouted "Whoopsie Daisy" as I headed to third. Scott rounded third and slid into home, and though his hand hit the plate a beat before he was tagged with the ball, he was called out. Slight disappointment on his side, to say the least. I gotta say though, some of the outfielders on the Smurfs have guns. Their throws from the outfield in, were dead on, and fast.

Both the Smurfs and Ninjas brought in a run each going into the bottom of the fifth, with the score at 6 to 5. We were down, but we were up to kick. Somehow, we loaded the bases again, with no outs. With being down by two, all Sam (who was kicking) had to do was boot the ball to the outfield, anywhere, and we would have picked up at least one. Then we could have gotten another one.

This however, is what happened:

Sam was kicking, and kicked a foul ball here and there, took a couple of strikes. He was really feeling out the pitcher, waiting for the perfect pitch. He then kicked really poorly, a rolling ball through foul territory. BUT it rolled through the ambiguous gray zone (long story) into fair territory. Before he or the Smurfs realized what was happening, Sam was running to first and our players were running to the plate. A throw was made, for some reason, AT Sam and to first base. But the ball went wide and the Smurfs instead of playing the ball, stopped. They stopped (including Orion) to come argue the call. Two of our players made it across the plate. The game was over. Just like that.

Appropriate ending for a weird night.

Ninjas Injury Report, 5/1/07

2007-05-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

Cameron Davis - Severe buttocks injury (recurring injury aggravated while attempting to make a diving catch.
STATUS - QUESTIONABLE

Richard Manfredi - Cut middle finger on right hand (sliced by Tyler Foster's talon-like nails in pregame warm-ups)
STATUS - PROBABLE TO BE WHINING ABOUT IT ALL WEEK

Angela Debibi - Cut to hand (sustained in the field)
STATUS - A LOT TOUGHER THAN RICHARD

Scott Jones - Bruised groin (injured while "teabagging" Joe McClendon
STATUS - GROSS

Scott Putman - Injured right foot (kicked ball so hard during game that it exploded - pieces of the ball embedded in his big toe)
STATUS - LIKELY TO DO THE SAME THING NEXT WEEK

Michael Winfield - Had a scratch in his throat (stayed out in the cold too long)
STATUS - DAY-TO-DAY, NEXT WEEK'S AVAILABILITY BASED ON HIM DRINKING PLENTY OF FLUIDS, EATING LOTS OF SOUP AND GETTING BACK RUBS FROM HIS GIRLFRIEND

Next week

2007-05-01T15:27:00.000-07:00

Both the quarterfinals and semifinals are next week. The remaining eight teams play the early (7:15 p.m.) game and the winners advance to the semifinals right after. Two games of kickball for the fans for one low price - free!

Our quarterfinal game is a rematch of our regular season ending game against Smurfageddon. As you'll recall, we lost 6-5 on a force out at second with the bases loaded on a sharply kicked ball to the outfield by yours truly. Needless to say, I really, really want to win this game, and not just for the revenge factor. Smurfageddon are like the Young Life or Glee Club of the league - way too much enthusiasm wrapped up in a wholy dorky package.

They have "Smurf names" on the back of their shirts ("Clumsy", "Handy", "Smurfette", etc.). They go on the message boards and talk about "Smurfing" their opponents. They sing the Smurf theme ("Tra la, la la la la, la la la, la la!") at the bar AT FULL VOLUME after every game when doing a victory toast. They happy, grinning, and thoroughly nice people - generally the poster children for the "social activity" that WAKA is always preaching.

And for all of these reasons, I want to crush them. Badly. I'm talking 15 to 20 runs badly. We could lose to Redrum for 10 games in a row, and that would be the trade-off for winning this game next week.

Assuming we win, we'll take on the winner of the Valley Girls/Uno Mas tilt in the semifinals immediately following. Either opponent is tough, but beatable.

And fans should expect some pre-game excitement before the opening game - Scott J. has some big, explosive things in store. If you've never been to a Ninjas game before, or haven't been in a while, this would be the perfect game to make (HINT MOTHERHUMPING HINT).

Opening Round playoff results

2007-05-01T15:17:00.001-07:00

It takes different teams a different length of time to “click" and finally start playing up to their level of potential. Some teams hit thal level from the opening gates, while other teams need to ramp up to their peak level. And some teams never do reach that point, for any number of reasons.

Last night was the Opening Round of the playoffs, and going into the game, I was pretty convinced that we were going to be in the “never reached our potential” camp. It’s not that our record was that bad in the regular season – we were 5-3, and the No. 6 seed out of 16 teams, and two of our losses were by one run – but it’s just that the majority of our wins were a lot harder than they needed to be, where we let inferior opponents hang around because we were unfocused and making a lot of dumb plays. Eventually, that’s what doomed us against Smurfageddon last week – we put ourselves in such a big hole, that even a huge last-inning rally wasn’t enough, when in truth we shouldn’t have needed to rally at all if we just played like we’re capable of playing.

I’m generally very, very skeptical that a team can just “flip the switch” come playoff time – I tend to believe that you learn habits (good and bad) during the season, and that at some point you can’t get away from those habits; in short, you are who you are buy the time the playoffs come.

I don’t want to use last night as an indication, because it was just one game, but…maybe I’m wrong, about my theory and about our team. Because I’ll be damned if we didn’t go out against a pretty good team (Mean Girls and Boys Next Door) and lay the hammer to them from the opening pitch on. The final score was 12-4, and it really could have been even more lopsided.

Without question, it was our best overall game of the season. Everyone, and I mean everyone, contributed. I believe we either scored in four of the five innings or in all five (Scott?) which means that the entire line-up was doing good things. And not just big kicks, but kicks that got people on base and moved runners over. All the little things that championship teams do but we had forgotten for most of the season.

I have to give a personal shout out to Julie P., who had to be arm-twisted by her brother Scott P. and her good friend Michael into playing this season. She’s been playing catch-up in adjusting to playing with a bunch of veterans since Day One, but no one has wanted to improve more than her. And guess what happened last night? She went 2-for-2 and kicked in a pair of runs. Afterwards, she came up to Scott J. and I at the bar and let us know how much fun she had last night.

And she’s right – last night was the most fun I had all season. And as much as I’d like to say that it had nothing to do with winning or losing, I know that’s a lie. Yes, I’ve had a lot of fun in games I’ve lost; and yes, I’ve won games and not had a lot of fun. But, as Chuck Klosterman said, if you are going to play a sport, winning is the logical thing to try and do. More importantly, I think we’ve finally “clicked” – there might be a few minor things to improve upon, but I think we’re right where we want to be.

It only took us eight games to get there.

(Side Note: Scott J. pointed this out to us last night - we are on the fifth season of kickball in the Studio Division, and there has only been one round of kickball play (regular season week or tournament round like Quarterfinals, Semifinals or Finals) that we haven't been involved in - the Championship Game of the first season. Since then, if there's a round of games being played, we've been involved (except for Wild Card round playoff games, since we've avoided those). We need two more wins to keep that alive this season.

The Playoff Begin on Monday

2007-04-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

Our last game of the regular season was Monday, against Smurfageddon. The winner took second place in our Conference for the regular season while the loser finished third. It was a very, very good game, probably the best I've played in or seen all season. We, being us this season, spotted them a 6-3 (I think?) lead going into the bottom of the fifth inning. We then managed to close the gap to 6-5 and load the bases with two outs and yours truly at the plate.

What happened next was the Grand Bull Moose Award winner of mixed blessings:

- I lined a single to left-center field, in front of their best defender.
- He almost fell while trying to field the ball (I put some spin on it, and it sliced away from him), which would have won the game.
- He kept his balance and his composure, and had the presence of mind to run to second base (none of his fielders were covering the base) and step on it about a quarter step before our runner from first could get there.

So, we lost 6-5, but the last play was basically what good kickball was all about - I did what I needed to do and our runner ran as fast as she possibly could; their fielder just made exactly the right play.

Final regular season record: 5-3, and the overall No. 6 seed (of 16 teams) for the playoffs. Since two of our three losses were by one run each, I actually think we can go very far this postseason IF (and this is turning out to be a big if) we can play with focus and intensity for five full innings. We seem to sleepwalk through the first three innings or so, believing that we can just "turn it on" when we need to. Sometimes we can, and sometimes (like on Monday) we can't.

We play The Mean Girls 'N' Boys Next Door on Monday at 8:05 p.m. in a rematch of one of those "flip the switch" games where we needed a late comeback to avoid losing to a team we're much better than. If I need to be more intense and focused myself to make sure the team is in the right frame of mind for the playoffs, so be it - I don't care if Kareenah thinks I'm "angry" when I play like that. We're too good not to go far in the playoffs this season.

Don't Fill Up On Bread

2007-04-23T01:08:00.000-07:00

There is a moment that happens at buffet restaurants. It's a turning point. See, at first buffets are nebulous experiences. You're assaulted with steak and pie and maybe Cap'n Crunch. This is a metaphor, usually nobody throws food at you. But like a food fight, it's coming at you from all angles and you've got to decide where to start. Pace yourself and try a little of everything just don't fill up on bread.

If you pace yourself too long you'll reach the paradox of being full yet unsatisfied. It's like you've made so many good friends with cornbread, pasta salad and mashed potatos but never found that deep connection with barbecue ribs. Your experience is incomplete.

The same thing happens on pub crawls or in Las Vegas when you keep saying, "Oh, I'm going to have a drink later." Before you know it, it's Sunday morning or the last Redline train is heading back to North Hollywood and sure, you saved a couple of bucks, but you never got to that make-an-ass-of-yourself-in-public point that makes the experience worthwhile.

You've got to locate the moment right before the enormous nature of the experience lulls you to sleep. That's where you end your sampling and moderation. Kick the opening act off the stage and get to the main event. You've got to stand on a bar stool and say, "I'm having a shot of Goldschlager AND a Pabst Blue Ribbon, RIGHT NOW! (please)". Then head out onto Hollywood Boulevard to make some questionable decisions because that is the recipe for a moment worth remembering.

Take that as you will.

Being a Pussy

2007-04-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

I have terrible manners. Several kickballers know this, even friends like "Smidty" from Hollywood's Little Lebowski's, Christian on Redrum or Kevin from Dogtown's Pregnant Cheerleaders.

Rarely, I'll go an entire game without even saying a negative word to a teammate. Last night, I didn't say much. Cameron and I quietly corrected a misapplied rule, otherwise nothing happened.

Then there was the 5th inning. We've already got a 3-0 lead and I made the questionable decision to run home after a caught pop fly caught 7 feet from where I was standing. The outfielder had subconsciously given me the "go ahead and run because I'm not going to do anything about it" look. So, I did and was called safe in a close play at the plate. No argument from the opposition. The next kicker comes up. First base ump whispers to home plate and I'm called out. A brief perplexed look and protest followed. Especially telling was that the opposition didn't fight for the new ruling and quietly accepted it.

After the game, I pointed out to the home plate ump that he rules home plate like the heroic ump signaling "safe" in the Norman Rockwell painting. He asked if I felt the first base ump "could not see the play from 60 feet away". I said I'd prefer to be judged from 5 inches away. Yes, the game's over and we won. Not the point.

Next, I learned what unconvincing hearsay I was called out on, "I said I THOUGHT it hit you." the 1st base ump said, then added, "I didn't know if it was before or after you touched the base though." He said he couldn't quite see where the base was. He WAS 60 feet away after all.

This isn't even "reasonable doubt" to overturn the call. This was reasonable doubt's retarded cousin "Unreasonable Belief". Nonsense.

So, naturally, instead of leaving the field with a "whatevs". I mumbled for the ump to fornicate himself. He returned the wishes. I told him to perform the act with extra enthusiasm on himself, which he advised me I would probably enjoy too much. I lobbed the whimsical suggestion of using his face and an icicle. He chose to end the discussion.

Towards the end of the exchange, I obviously realized I was being a douche and hinted at that with increasingly ludicrous ideas. Naturally I felt bad but enjoyed the creative exercise of taking insults into unusual territory. My opinion on the non-ruling is pretty solid but my behavior needs adjusting. I took the first opportunity at the bar to tell the ump "I have terrible manners. You're a good guy. I'm sorry, it's just what I do." Now, I'm not resigned to the way I act or always proud of it but I do like having a little fire and passion. Listen, if the ship's sinking, you'd want me on the crew. I'll never lose that but I'm always trying to apply it more positively. It'll take a lifetime but I think I'm getting better.

Game 7 vs. Hype

2007-04-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

Everyone played really well. There wasn't much to say. But i'll try anyway.

We opened up a 1 to 0 lead in the first on some fancy base running by myself and Adam J. I kicked a single, just over the head of the 1st baseman (what we were practicing in...well, in practice) and while they were diddling themselves with the ball, I ran to 2nd before they threw it back to the pitcher. Horray!

Adam J. ran the bases well, and frigg'n booked to home. I forget which kick it was on, but he caught 'em not looking.

Hype had good defense and got on base a few times, but never took advantage. They are an athletic team that really needs someone that can drive the ball far to bring in runs.

Cameron kicked a great line drive that was caught by fingertips at a girl's feet. He was bummed.

Tyler kicked a MONSTER fly ball, that was also caught by the same girl. He was bummed.

Scott kicked a ball, that I don't think he realized he kicked. It went fair, and he booked to 1st. Later on, he was also sneaky, and while on 3rd base, took advantage of a Hype player whose back was turned and he slid into home. He was totally safe. The ump at home thought he was safe, but the 1st base umpire said he "saw it hit him". Needless to say, it was kind of B.S. And well, ask Scott about it. Lets just say the words "fuck you harder" were said. And maybe "fuck you with an icicle".

Oh, Adam G. and Joe turned a double play to end the game, that was totally NOT a bummer.

Week 6 Game: AHN vs. MGBND

2007-04-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

On Monday, we played a team called the Mean Girls 'n Boys Next Door. I'm a big proponent for calling a team what they are named. I get my knickers in a twist when we're referred to as "the ninjas". Oh, also, there is a guy on Uno Mas who ALWAYS asks me "What team are you on?" and I ALWAYS say "Awesome Helicopter Ninjas" and he says "I thought you were just 'the Ninjas' " and...well, on and on.

ANYWAY, so yeah, we played the Mean Girls 'n Boys Next Door. They are one of those teams that play better than you think they will play. Good kickers. Good base runners. Good defense. We beat 'em, but it was in the bottom of the 5th, when we were down 3-2. We managed to load up the bases on great kicks by Scott P., Adam G, Megan and Joe. Someone else too. Joe ended up kicking in the winning run, so big "ups" to Joe.

But this is about ME! So, fuck you, Joe. I had the idea that we all play the first inning blind folded. This idea was probably very very...very poor, you know...in embryo, so it was nixed. So I convinced Scott to let me pitch the first inning blind folded. That is called 'compromise'. Look it up.

Yeah, it didn't go so well. Well, it didn't go BAD, it was just a pain and slowed things down. In hindsight...I should have kicked blind folded as well. But you know, hindsight. I think the problem we've had this season is that we've been wanting to do a lot of shenanigans, but keep getting bogged down by winning the game. Or at least, get put into a position early on where we're down, so our heads are not about the stupid, but about the kickball. I know, weird.

We also had some bad overthrowing mistakes. That seems to be the theme of this season. Forget the Rise of the Machines. It's 'Awesome Helicopter Ninjas and the Overthrowing of Azkaban'.

Stupid...dementors.

Also, Jack and I umped the next game: Redrum vs. Trey Stafford Explosion, and a girl got a ball to the face. And that was fun. First one I've seen all season. Horray!

Next week we play "Hype" and I know jack about crap about them.

WAKA $TREET KID

2007-04-05T15:04:00.000-07:00

Ha, Richard! I got here first!

This image was just about 100% Richard. I just cobbled it together for the Studio Newsletter. Why am I posting it here? Well, lets just say there may be a chance that WAKA brass may "frown" upon it.

Ok, a little backstory: Once upon a time, I decided to write the newsletter, then went all crazy, and turned each into a magazine of sorts. This lastest one was Electronic Kicking Monthly (I think I mentioned it in an earlier post, but I digress) and was video game themed. Richard, was all "have you ever heard of Wall Street Kid, also, lick my nuts". And I said "No.", to both. The end result was this. A fake advert for a shitty video game...

(Editor's Note: Click to see full-sized version)

Methinks it may cut a little to close to the bone for WAKA's liking. But you know, if they say "yeah, we don't want to put that in there" they should remember that because this is a social activity, we are friends with oh, EVERYONE.

No Game Tonight

2007-04-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

It's Seder, so happy Seder to all of the Ninjas' Jewish friends. This means that we don't have an official game, although the Gentiles amongst us will be practicing at the park and probably working on some other stuff.

To hold you over, here's an appearance by Scott on NoHo Tonight (I think it's either a cable access show, or something on The CW) last week in advance of our game against Redrum. As you can see, the tips didn't help.

At any rate, watch and enjoy!

EKM: Preview

2007-03-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

As you know, I do the newsletter for the division. By do, I mean have vigorous sex with, then send out to the 300 plus people as sloppy...I guess seconds through threehundreds.

Each week this season we've done a different themed "magazine" of sorts. We had "Kick Fancy", "Cosmoballitan", "Kicks & Ammo" and "Martha Stewart Kicking". They take a whole lot of time. Usually while i'm working, so that's cool.

BECAUSE I love the Ninjas more than anything (sorry Mommy), I'm giving you (yes YOU) the Awesome Helicopter Ninja Blog reader a small sample of what will be in the next issue.

Under the "Classic Gaming Section"

Spitzy Kong:

"There are some games that are such a part of Studio gaming culture, that you can't help but associate the two. Certainly Super Manfredi Bros., Tecmo Kickball and Alex Kidd in Shirley's World are some of the standouts from the early days of console video games. But none are as iconic as Nintendo's Spitzy Kong. Its a classic tale. Spitzy Kong kidnaps the fair maiden, bartender Saana, as Scotty Jones tries to rescue her. Along the way, he dodges kickballs hurled by the beast, making his way up the crooked iron scaffolding to sweep her to safety.

What sets this game apart is it's endless game play. We never get tired of hearing of the constant battles between Spitzy Kong and Scotty Jones. Over and over. And OVER and OVER. To the point where you almost don't want to think about these two characters. But you keep coming back for more. Will Scotty flip the bird to Spitzy at the top of the ramp? Will he grab the ninja swords and cut the deadly balls down? Or will Spitzy knock the crap out of Scotty with his fearsome rage? You don't know. I don't know. All I do know is that this game is much better than Spitzy Kong Jr. "

"...by the Awesome Helicopter Ninjas."

2007-03-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

Tyler Granlund: Valley Girl. Mustache Contest Winner. Flip-cup Champion. Friend of the Ninjas.

He sent me this article he found today, from Entertainment Weekly.

Since its kinda hard to read, here is what the "Backstory" thing says on the bottom right:

"Last year, CSI's Jorja Fox and Eric Szmanda (above) were teammates on an Adult Kickball League team called the Royal Blue Balls. How did the actors fare on the court? So-so: The Balls were eliminated from competition in the semifinals. "

The article should have ended with "...by the Awesome Helicopter Ninjas, who went on to wint he championship that season, even though their season was even soer-so that the Balls."

Well, I can't wait till we play them on the "court" again. Hopefully, the end score can be 40-Love. Or I can perform a slam-dunk through the goal posts to Birdie the last hole.

Things Announcers Would Say if The Awesome Helicopter Ninjas Were In The NCAA Basketball Tournament Instead Of Kickball

2007-03-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

"Well, I think Georgetown's 7'2" center Roy Hibbert would definitely have posed a challenge for the Ninjas down low. But, of course, we all have certainly by now heard of how his Achilles' tendon was mysteriously slashed by an unknown assailant on the way to the arena tonight."
-----------------

"North Carolina needs a three to tie. Martin gets it in the corner and fires a shot that is...wait, the ball popped in midair! It appears to have been shot down by...some sort of a blow dart."
-----------------

"Now watch this: Winfield is going to set a screen...I'm mean, it's a smoke screen, so I guess that's what you would call it. At any rate, the Kansas defenders can't find the ball in the confusion, and Love-Smith goes in uncontested for the easy lay-up."
"I think that has to be called a "Moving Screen", Jim."
-----------------

"Oh my God, is Scott Jones humping the UCLA Bruin mascot?!?"
-----------------

"Well, this is an interesting offense set: the Ninjas appear to be...maybe...YES! They are stacking themselves one on top of each other! I've never seen this before, Billy!"
"It's like they are chicken fighting, John."
"I think that's Cameron Davis on the top of this mass of Ninjas. He has the ball, and he must be 15 feet off the ground. He's got it...and it's a double somersault, 1080 spin slam dunk!!!"
-----------------

"This is incredible! You saw a few minutes ago that both teams mysteriously walked off the court with 10 minutes to go in the half. Now, only the Ninjas have returned, and they are scoring uncontested basket after basket! Let's go to Erin Andrews on the sidelines to find out what in the world is happening."
"Thanks, Dick. Apparently, at the last TV timeout, the Ninjas convinced the Blue Devils that the half was over. Apparently, they made a compelling case that the NCAA decided to have halves be 10 minutes long instead of 20 'to conserve energy as a way to fight global warming.' The Blue Devils have realized that they've been tricked, but the Ninjas weld all of the doors in the locker room shut before returning to the court."
-----------------

"Is that...does that bottle on the Ninjas bench say 'FLUBBER'?"
-----------------

"The Ninjas have promised an entrance for the championship games that, in their words, 'knocks the cock off' of anything they've done before. And here they come now, The Awesome Helicop...Oh My Mord, No! No ! No, no, no!"
"Oh, this is terrible..."
"I can't believe what I'm seeing. This is just..."
"Wow!"

A pyrotechnics flash gun

2007-03-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

Is it dangerous? Well, it shoots flames out of your hands 10 to 15 feet in the air. Do I want one? Sweet Christ, do I! If I buy one, then I need some sort of speaker system hooked up to me so that I can play "The Final Countdown" anytime I need to.

I could also have billows of smoke coming out of my hands, but why settle for ground beef when you can have fillet, right?

2007-03-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

I just want to point out one last example of our trouble causing on Monday night.

-Tipping a certain person a dollar for the free "peep show" at the bar

Good times!

The Magic Returns

2007-03-27T22:55:00.000-07:00

It's back people.

For the last few months, our antics seemed passe to me. We win a ton of games, then throw smoke bombs and confetti. It was fun, it was celebration but the act was getting old, we were looking like a Dennis Rodman parody of ourselves. You've also got to consider the other teams' point of view: Damn Ninjas keep winning and rubbing it in our faces. Of course, if this is your point of view you probably don't know me and I shouldn't be offended that you'd think my love of theatrics has any impure motives. But hey, I understand, losing stinks and nobody wants to be reminded of it.

So now we didn't win a third straight championship (Boo-Hoo, I know) and we're 3-2 this season, finally gift wrapping a close game to Redrum (three things will change before next game) and I feel we've drifted off the radar again. Nobody has us in their sights anymore. The pressure to win is gone and I finally feel like dusting off the confetti gun. In fact, I feel like killing the lights at the park and projecting epic pre-game video to the tune of Van Hagar's "Right Now" onto a paper sheet and then crashing through it at a climactic moment. I want to perform trick plays that defy strategy, logic and public nusiance laws.

A carnival of mayhem!

For months I've lamented that other new leagues I've visited around the area have that special early-days-of-kickball feeling that's missing lately. I had been blaming the decline on too many players or too much competition. Now I'm pretty sure it was part my fault and part the natural pressure that comes from winning. After a while you're just relived to NOT lose a game. So, now the confetti gun is back, we can ease into the smoke bombs and surely we'll think of some new bull crap.

Don't get too excited if you've got us on the schedule, we're still going to play to win.

Trouble we caused last night

2007-03-27T16:47:00.000-07:00

- Shushed people who were trying to play Flip Cup while we were having our Book Club.
- Pantsed someone from Redrum as they were standing on a chair in front of everyone trying to get their attention to start the charity gift basket auction.
- Stood there while said guy from Redrum went red in the face from screaming at us in a threatening manner.
- Stole a gift basket from the table when everyone was watching Flip Cup, only to realize that no one noticed and we actually could steal it. Then bringing the gift basket back along with all of the contents EXCEPT FOR A STICKY NOTE PAD. (Take that, Boys and Girls Club! How are you going to write memos to yourselves now? Huh?)
- Wrote helpful addition words and phrases to descriptions of gift baskets, such as "penis" and "nutsack".
- Made up for it by way overpaying for one of the gift baskets.
- Had to be talked out of beating the holy crap out of one girl on Redrum who was talking shit about someone from another team who might be the nicest, sweetest girl in the Division.
- Drank water straight from the nozzle gun behind the bar rather than waiting for bartender to get a glass of water (and I mean shooting water straight into the mouth, not just putting into another glass).

Amazingly enough, I wasn't involved in all of these things, just some of them, mainly the pantsing, the shushing and the stealing of charity gifts. The pantsing was interesting, because I believed that the target in question had the type of sense of humor where he would find that amusing. (A married, female player on another team mentioned after the fact that "I have pictures of his pubes from one of our parties", so I find it difficult to believe that his Puritanical sensibilities were crushed.)

He didn't find it funny, and I took the brunt of his anger. Which was great, since there were two of us who took part in things, but someone decided to be a "Ninja" and sneak away and leave me to take the heat. Pretty funny.

In completely, totally, 100 percent unrelated news, Adam Joseph molests raccoons.

So I wasn't involved in everything last night, just some things. This truly was a team effort in havoc-raising, and I'll let those responsible for the other parts of the evening explain themselves.

There's no game next week because of Passover, although there's a strong change that we'll practice on Monday night instead. And for our next game in two weeks: the return of smoke bombs, confetti guns and trick plays. If we're going to be a .500 team, we might as well do it in "style".

(And by "style" I mean "appalling taste and sense of decency".)

Redrum 2, Awesome Helicopter Ninjas 1

2007-03-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

Well, we lost. You know why?

Sam.

Sam didn't show up, it was his "birthday" or something. Thanks a lot, Sam. I hope your cake was filled with um, blood.

And poison.

We had a bit of trouble with backing players up on the overthrow, on the two occasions it happened, a run scored or a runner advanced. So, um, yeah. We'll have to work on that.

That being said, there were more important things going on.

I speak of the Awesome Helicopter Ninja Book Club meeting that took place at the bar after the game.

Joe was reading up on some finer aspects of Ninja Mind Control. A romance novel of sorts, set in the thrilling age of midevil Scotland. Nah, its basically a HOW TO for aspiring Ninjas. Its pretty rad. Basically it tells you how to beat ass, hard. Also, the ancient art of nut grabbing.

Scott was parusing the ever delightful Real Ultimate Power: The Official Ninja Book by Robert Hamburger. The Ninja in RUP is a scamp that should be held up with other iconing american teenagers like Ton Sawyer or Mushmouth. He represents the innocence of the American youth. He is Johnny Tremain, without the horrible deformity. But basically its a fun book about the insanity of one boy's obsession with Ninjas. Everyone should read it.

I feel that there was a deeper, Faustian struggle than was was origionally presented on the surface in Pikachu's Day. This was seen in the torment of battle between Pikachu and Charmander. It reveled that in war there are no winners and losers, only tiers. Also, he is still super cute.

Richard was reading a menu from El Pollo Loco by William Shakespere. It was his last menu ever written. Some say that The Tempest was Shakespere's last great work, and that Prospero one of his greatest creations, but Richard will argue that it was Taquito's humanity that sets it apart from the rest.

Redrum Game Day Special: Free Memorabilia with Fan Club Memberships

2007-03-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

As a way to get some good karma heading into our big match-up tonight, I'm letting you all know about an exclusive offer: the next five people who sign up for the Army of Awesome (the Official Fan Club of the Ninjas) will not only receive the usual cool crap for their $5 membership fees (including a sticker, button, autographed photo, membership card) but will also receive AUTHENTIC GAME-USED NINJAS MEMORABILIA! This could mean a headband worn by yours truly during one of our legendary playoff runs...or a kickball that was popped by Tyler Foster because he kicked it so hard...or one of Cameron Davis' suspenders. Who knows? But it will be something that is suitable for framing and placing in your game room or conservatory.

Remember, this offer is only good for the next five people who sign up for the Army of Awesome, so make sure that you do it NOW!!!

Tonight's...game (question mark)

2007-03-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight is scheduled to be the big interconference match-up between us and Redrum (Grass Field, 7:15 p.m., ESPN2). Obviously, it's a big game, since there apparently is still some sort of rivalry between the two teams, even though we've beaten them the last four times we've played. But, it's Redrum, and they come in fully expecting to win. Somehow, we need to convince them they are the favorites, and that we, once again, are the scrappy underdogs.

The problem right now is the weather. For the first time all season, we're in serious danger of being rained out. The storm that was supposed to hit this weekend didn't, but it's expected to roll in...sometime tonight. So, that could mean after the games, during or before. The Weather Channel's hour-by-hour forecast shows that it shouldn't start raining until 10 p.m., which is right on the border for getting all the games completed. We'll update the situation with our NinjaWatch 5000(tm) storm tracking system throughout the afternoon.

Ryan Dempster, Stud

2007-03-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I have the authority to do such things, but I'm going to go out on a limb and name Ryan Dempster of the Chicago Cubs as the Official Baseball Player of The Awesome Helicopter Ninjas. Why? Because the Cubs' closer is apparently in training to be a Ninja.

My favorite part of the story?:

"'It's pretty cool. I wear the outfit around the house and try to sneak up on people,' Dempster deadpanned before the Cubs lost to the Colorado Rockies 4-2."

Which is kind of bullshit: why would you sneak up on people in your own house? If you aren't able to break into other people's houses and sneak up on them, then what kind of half-rate Ninja are you.

Proof that kickball players make better Ninjas than baseball players, I guess. Plus, I would think all the noise from the tobacco spit hitting the ground and the crotches being scratched would be a dead giveaway.

Tyler Foster's Feets Of Strength: Everywhere You Want To Be

2007-03-22T11:22:00.000-07:00

In Part II of the Feets Of Strength series, we were able to capture some more of Tyler "Bigfoot" Foster's inhuman acts of kickballery.

Tyler Foster once kicked a ball so hard, it traveled around the world, stopping only to pass through immigration.

UPDATE: E-mail for Ninjas Fan Club Memberships is fixed

2007-03-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

I understand that the link that was posted to join the Official Ninjas Fan Club the other day may not have been working. The problem has been fixed. To make sure that everyone is clear, you can send an e-mail to us at ninjasfanclub@gmail.com in order to join the Fan Club. Make sure you include your shipping address and what you would like to order.

Sorry for the inconvenience. I'd like to lie and say this isn't going to happen again, but hey, it's the Ninjas - barely controlled chaos is par for the course.

If anyone has further questions or issues, I wouldn't be surprised.

Tyler Foster's Feets Of Strength: To The Moon

2007-03-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

This is Part 1 in a series of posts dedicated to the amazing and umbelievable and downright mythical things Tyler Foster, three season Awesome Helicopter Ninja veteran, can do with his feet and kicking them...at balls.

Tyler Foster once kicked a ball so hard it hit the moon...

Things learned

2007-03-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

White People are nothing but trouble. It's okay I can say that because I am friends with some white people. Also kickball is kicking my ass.

-Face

vs. the warner pros

2007-03-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

I like the Warner Pros. a lot. Aaron, their team captain, is part of the Studio Newsletter writing staff. He comes up with ideas and does the covers. He's a good guy. He also plays on the Grassy Best in Hollywood. Well, Monday night we played their team.

Ok, backing up a bit. LAST week, there was a bit of a verbal scuffle between a couple members of OUR team and him. He and Kate were umping our game against the Ponies of Death and a Ninja said something jokingly to an ump, that was well, sorta dickish and Aaron stood up for umps everywhere. There was a call of 'cocksucker' at one point from Aaron, too. Good times.

Anyway, it blew over. No realy harm came from it. But I wanted to make it up to Aaron and his team.

So, I thought "Wouldn't it be fun if when I went up to kick, I smashed a record (LP) with my fists". Of course this turned into more than just that, as Richard (The Duke of Kickball) and I came up with a fake setlist for the album of Warner Music (who the Warner Pros. all work for) artists. I say "we" but it was really Richard. But I had the idea, dammit! So Fuck You, Richard!

So, it turned into this: during Rock Paper Scissiors we went and, in honor of their team, presented them with a newly pressed album, showing the titles and incorporating the WP logo. Then...in honor of OUR team, we took out the album, Richard held it, and I put my fist through it. All in good fun, mind you.

This is what happened to the record.

We also won 11-1. so that was fun.

Bullshit at the bar

2007-03-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

Now, I'm not a violent person by any stretch of the imagination. The last thing I punched was a ballot on Election Day. However, when provoked, I can "get my Irish up" pretty good. (Which I know is a hopeless racial stereotype, and one that doesn't even make sense - but it sure beat the more ethnographically accurate "get my part-Mexican part-Italian part-Okie up".) As a word of warning, this post contains some less-than-pleasant language, including one word (not spoken by me) that is about as bad as it gets (hint: that word ain't "moist").

The game itself was pretty straightforward - we beat the Warner Pros. 11-1. We jumped out early and never looked back. I knew a couple of their players from Hollywood Division, and they are generally speaking about the best group of people you would want to play against.

The scene at the Sportsmen's Lodge after the game was pretty low-key - a lot of people were still feeling the effects of St. Patrick's Day from Saturday, and decided to take this week off of the bar. I'd day the bar had probably half as many kickballers in it as it usually does on a typical Monday night.

As usual, it was 99 percent kickballers there at the bar (the Sportsmen's Lodge is usually kind of...well, let's say that it's an older clientèle - or as someone put it "I came here on Saturday and it smelled like old people and death"). We usually have a few regulars sneering at us for ruining their quiet evening of getting bombed, along with a few guests from the hotel who have no idea what the hell is going on.

So, I get there at about 9:45 p.m., and head to the bar to get my first drink. As I'm standing there, I see three guys who clearly aren't with the kickball league sitting at the bar next to me. They are in their mid to late-30s, and they all look basically the same:

- White guys
- Medium build, but getting kinda pudgy
- Haven't shaved in three days
- Baseball cap
- Sunglasses placed over the bill of their cap
- Jeans and slightly dirty sweatshirt of their favorite sporting team

Basically, these guys just scream "I'm a redneck from Central California" to me on sight. I'm from Central California, and I grew up with these guys - I know my own. Sure enough, as I'm ordering, the first thing I hear out of one guy's mouth (who resembled Garth Brooks from 1998, except slighter of build and less attractive) basically confirmed everything I was thinking. Basically, as I'm ordering, and as he's surrounded by kickballers, he decides to very loudly launch into this monologue with his buddies.

"Man, did you ever think that you'd be sitting in a bar in Los Angeles, surrounded by a buncha faggots playing kickball? Shiiit..."

My first instinct was to immediately turn and say something to him, but I actually was so stunned that I didn't know what to say. So, I just finished up my drink order and walked back to my table as Faux Garth kept on blabbing about how "I bet these people never were good enough to play football in high school, so now they have to do this..." and on and on.

Throughout the course of the night, I'd head back over there to get another round, and by gawd, he still was going on and on about the "kickball faggots". I'd report this back to people, and I had several people willing to "take care of some business", including a few people that I would not want to meet in a back alley (hi Doug from Nuts & Honeys). But cooler heads prevailed, at least for most people.

Except for Scott Jones and I. If I was going to pick one person who I knew was going to get just as riled up about this as me, it would be Scott. Put us together, and man oh man...so at one point, Scott and I went up there to the bar and were talking to some other kickballers while we were next to the Blue Collar Comedy Tour: Electric Boogaloo. When there was a lull in all conversations, I turned to Scott and had the following exchange, loudly:

Me: "Man, you know what would suck?"
Scott: "What?"
Me: "Being a redneck loser who has nothing better to do than to hang out with a couple of other dudes on a Monday night at a bar."
Scott: "Yeah, that must really suck."

And with that, we went back to our seats, mission accomplished.

Except for when the last call came, and everyone eventually cleared out except for me, Scott, and The Blue Collar Comedy Tour II: Electric Boogaloo. As soon as it was just us and the bartenders, Faux Garth made another witty one-liner (I believe it involved "fags who play kickball" - I don't think that he had a breadth of material to work from) directed at us. Which led to me responding, and then back and forth...basically, it started to get ugly once I decided to do my "imitation" of them to Scott:

"Hey, let's get us into our big ole' truck and get drunk at the bar. After that, we can get some chewing tobaccky, and then drive around and see if there are any fags or blacks that we can tie to our bumpers and drag down the street."

At this point, the bartender Saana was going to kick everyone out (and I don't blame her), but Scott wound up striking up a somewhat pleasant conversation with one of their friends who came in late over football (Scott is a Chiefs fan and this guy was a part of Raider Nation). Eventually, they took off for their rooms (they were staying at the hotel from - you guessed it - Bishop in Central California, albeit on the other side of the Sierra Nevadas than me) and Scott and I stayed to chat with Saana and the other bartender, who immediately made sure we knew that they weren't mad at us, and just wanted those "hicks" out of their bar.

There are two morals here:

1. I wouldn't go to a bar in, say, Tennessee, and start loudly complaining about "all these rednecks listening to shitty country music and having sex with their cousins" - it's pretty disrespectful - and if I did do it, I certainly would expect to have a lot of people pissed off at me.

2. I also wouldn't do that because I AM A REDNECK in so many ways. Grew up in the Valley? Check. Listens to country music? Check. Has been to Dollywood? Check. Watches NASCAR and sprint car races, and prefers beer in cans to bottles? Check, check and check. However, just because I'm a redneck doesn't mean that I have to be an ignorant, racist, homophobic asshole who is frightened because he's in "the big city" and there's so much weird stuff going on.

Adults playing kickball? Blacks and whites mixing? Gay people not having to hide in fear? Nope, Faux Garth don't like it none.

Again, I know this all too well. When I went home for my 10 year HS reunion a few years ago, about 25 percent of the people there (who hadn't left my hometown) saw fit to, within 30 seconds of talking to me, slam Los Angeles. "It's too dirty. There's too much crime. It's so big. They have a lot of black people there. I hate it." In fact, Faux Garth said something to me (when he wasn't rambling about "kickball" and "faggots") about how he has a daughter and "I could never see how anyone could raise someone in Los Angeles. In Bishop, she can walk the streets by herself and no one bothers her."

Which, first off, since I overheard you mention to one of your pals that your daughter is 6, I would hope she isn't walking the streets alone. That's shitty parenting, although if Daddy's getting drunk at the bar all night, I guess she needs something to do to keep from getting bored. Secondly, I personally can't imagine raising a child in a place that doesn't have the theatre. Or ballet. Or orchestras. Or museums. Or anything cultural whatsoever. Hell, even my hometown was close to Fresno, which had all of the above things, even if it was in a limited quantity.

So, in summary, I'd like to say something directly to Faux Garth (I know the odds of him having Internets access is slim, much less ever reading this blog, but still...): I'm sorry that your life (despite having a daughter at home) is so devoid of meaning that you get your jollies staying at a bar all night to drink while surrounded by people you clearly despise. Next week, I'll be back at the park and the bar, with several hundred interesting people from all walks of life. Meanwhile, you'll be face down on the bar at Slim's Place, or Two-Hand Larry's, or whatever seedy as hell bar you frequent in Bishop, while the bartender rifles through your wallet for cab fare. I'm not angry, really, just...kind of sad for you.

Also, if I see you again, I'm going to take a tire iron to your head. Cheers!

Kickball Night in America: Week 4

2007-03-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

Tonight's game is against the Warner Pros., which is a corporate team from Warner Bros. Records. I have two predictions:

- Plenty of jokes about payola
- We WILL run a trick play tonight, whether we are ahead or behind. We've gone three weeks into the season without one and, well, it's high time we got off our asses and did something about it.

The Ninjas Fan Club is Here

2007-03-19T12:37:00.000-07:00

Some of you might have heard rumors about it...others might have seen it advertised with the Richard Manfredi autograph booth before the Opening Night game...and for a select few of you, it might have come to you in some sort of sweaty, fever dream involving a flaming key lime pie and former New York mayor Ed Koch (and for those of you who fall into the latter category - we again deeply apologize). But no matter if you've heard about it or not...

The Official Awesome Helicopter Ninjas Fan Club is here!

I think the advertising pretty much says it all. For just $5, you get all kinds of cool stuff:

- One bad-assed sticker. Stick it on your car! Stick it on your computer! Stick it on yourself! Better yet, stick it somewhere else to spread the Awesome Helicopter Ninjas name and logo (it's called "branding"). I'm not going to encourage you to vandalize property, but I'm just going to say that places like bus stops, record stores and police cars are perfect places to place logos where they are sure to attract attention*.
- One rad button. Which was made with the Badge Factory, so you know it's "trendy", "hot", "neat" and other "catch phrases" that seem to be popular with the kids today (at least according to the box). Wear it on your leather or denim jacket along with your other "punk" buttons (like your Green Day, Blink-182, Pennywise or other "hard rockin'" bands). Remember: "Punks not dead" - not as long as you sport this "radical" button.
- One membership card. Use it for special discounts at Long John Silvers, The Pleasure Chest, Jamba Juice and other fine establishments. I mean, you can always try to use it to get a discount - maybe you'll get some 18 year-old kid working the front desk who doesn't know what discount cards they do or don't accept. If you act belligerent enough about it, they might give you the 25 percent off discount just to shut you up.
- An autographed photo. A nice, high-quality glossy either of the team (autographed by several team members) or your favorite player. Ask for you favorite player by name, and they write some pithy, probably obscene message to you!**
- Exclusive content. "Content" being a word used to describe cool stuff that we haven't finalized yet. I do know that it will include e-mail newsletters exclusively for Fan Club members delivered every...oh, few weeks I guess, at least during the season (probably less often in the off-season). Hey, it's a work in progress, and what do you want for $5?

I promise you that you won't find a kickball team fan club that offers you this much crap for just $5 - including shipping! Want to buy even more stuff? Boy, you sure are addicted to buying things! Glad we could help you fill the hole in your life where actual human contact should be buy allowing you to purchase lots of junk. (The Ninjas support rampant consumerism.)

But I disgress. WE HAVE MORE STUFF FOR SALE! Want to buy more stickers? Yup, we can do that...

So, if you are ready to order (and frankly, if you aren't, then fuck you. You aren't the "good friend" you claimed to be when you needed that loan.), it's simple: send an e-mail to us at ninjasfanclub@gmail.com detailing what and how much of each you would like to order along with your shipping address. Someone in our Order Fulfillment Department will contact you shortly with information on how to complete your order (not to be too secretive, but it involves bamboo paper, pomegranate juice and Betty White).

So what in God's name are you waiting for? You don't need to save for "retirement" or "your kids' educations" or "that heart operation" - Order lots of stuff today!

Know a Ninja #1: Megan Griffin

2007-03-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

We're starting a series of occassional profiles of Ninja players here on the blog (this will all be on the Web site as well.) I thought it would be a good idea to start with one of our newest players, Megan Griffin:

Name: Megan Griffin
Nicknames: Meg, Legs, Nutmeg
Hometown: Norman, OK
Age: 22…almost 23 (on April 24) – I might be the youngest in the league
Position: OF
Reason for joining kickball: I just moved here. It’s a great way to meet new people and have fun.
Occupation (other than "Kickball Goddess"): Graduate student at Pepperdine's School of Public Policy
Favorite on-the-field kickball memory: Possibly watching Joe try to slide in to 3rd and just stop about 6 inches short, legs and arms sprawled out, on the ground, as they easily tagged him out.
What being an Awesome Helicopter Ninja means to you: Well, I’m new to this, but I'm gonna go with....FUN, great company, good times, and some kickball awesomeness
What kickball prank would you LIKE the Ninjas to pull: Ooo, I'm not good with the pranking forethought, but I'm always one to help carry out the shenanigans!
What would you like to see the Ninjas do this season that we haven't done before: I don't know what you have and haven't done before.
If the team was involved in a plane crash in the mountains on our way to a tournament (like in "Alive"), and it came down to it, who would you eat first and why: Whoever has the leanest meat! Gotta keep your figure when you're goin' cannibal.
If you could only listen to one CD while stranded in the mountains and eating the flesh of your Ninja teammates, what CD would it be: Mest, “Destination Unknown”
How many pairs of shoes do you own: Ooo, tough one. I'm gonna estimate around the 75 to 80 range.
Favorite Old-School Video Game or Cartoon: Favorite video game of all time was Super Mario World
Post-game drink of choice: Hefeweisen

Ninja 3: The Domination

2007-03-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

I would like to point out that this clip from "Ninja 3: The Domination" has pretty much everything you would want for a perfect clip for our team:

- Does it have a kick-ass Ninja? Yes.
- Does it involve a helicopter? You bet.
- Is it awesome? I'll let you be the judge:

Needless to say, if the team had a Theme Video Clip instead of a Theme Song, this would be it.

Week 3 results

2007-03-13T23:09:00.000-07:00

I wasn't there this Monday night, so I personally don't know a lot of details...but I know that we beat Ponies of Death 3-0, and that according to Scott, our defense was "perfect". Perhaps one of my teammates who was actually there can provide a more detailed recap.

I was out at SXSW this weekend with my company. I was there for the Film portion of things and came back this evening, right before the music part started. Which I think is just as well, because the place was swarming with, from what I could tell, the entire population of Silverlake, and every Silverlake part of every town in America. And I don't like Silverlake much.

Also, I was caught in a massive thunderstorm on Sunday night and was drenched - like I jumped into a shower for about 10 minutes. Good times! But I did get some kick-ass BBQ, so things tend to even out.

Oh yeah, one thing - this afternoon, as the show was winding down, they kept making announcements about how this author or that blogger was doing a signing at a certain booth. So my boss, having heard my story from Opening Night, went to the place where they were making announcements for companies, and had them announce that "Awesome Helicopter Ninjas star and kickball legend Richard Manfredi will be signing data sheets at (my company's) booth."

It was very, very awesome. Of course, no one showed up, but that's besides the point.

Why I Am a Ninja, Part XXVI

2007-03-09T14:27:00.000-08:00

If anything sums up being a Ninja, it's this story from this morning, as told by Ninja stalwart, Pizza Club president and all around complete idiot Michael Winfield.

(Note: My wife and I had an appointment with her OB for a baby check-up this morning. Plus, I sort of have to deal with the media for my job here in LA, so I was a little hesitant to be directly tied to all of this. Also, I'm a giant pussy.)

Take it away, Mr. Winfield...

"Every once and a while the World Adult Kickball Association teams up with a local new station to promote themselves. That's cool. Well, this morning there was another "event" at the Ferrero Soccer Field in Griffith Park. The Awesome Helicopter Ninjas were not going to let this pass without being involved.

Do we play nicely and smile for the cameras? Um, no, we're the Ninjas. Were here to ruin kickball.

Scott and I ditched work for a couple of hours and drove out there. We parked about a quarter mile away from the activities at the park. When we got there, about 8:45, they were just milling about and setting up. Orion and Katie (WAKA reps) were there along with players from various divisions. But there was no sign of the KTLA news truck. We stealthily crept along the side. We were both in our shirts and had accompanying masks. Scott went with the t-shirt ninja type of mask and I had my Ninja Luchador mask I got on Olivera St. for $15. Then we waited.

And waited. They set up the field and Scott climbed a tree to get a better view, taking into account the "if you can see them, they can see you, but not if you're hidden in a tree". Scott also wanted to pee out of the tree, but he didn't have to go.

Finally, we see the news truck pull up, and the antenna extends like a mighty boner to the sky. We start prepping.

"But how did you know when to run out there", you ask. "Shut your face", I say. We had some ninjas on television duty. Most notably: Cameron, Scott P. and Jack. Every few minutes there were updates from our agents in their command centers. And finally, Gail went up to kick, cameras were in place. And the attack was on.

Scott, with his confetti gun (no smoke bombs this time people, really, we looked ENOUGH like terrorists) and I charged the field screaming and laughing. I start to round the bases. Scott runs into the middle of the field and fires off the gun. Wind takes hold and the confetti soars. Everyone takes this with good humor and they are laughing, though they are not quite as surprised by this antic as maybe they would have been in the past.

Scott and I bolt off the field.

BUT...as I'm running off, Jacob from Smurfageddon puts his leg out to fake trip me. Unfortunately, I was running at top speed and though I avoided his leg, ended up tripping over myself and ate turf, hard. (That's what she said) I picked myself up and scampered off. I was winded, needing to throw up, feverish, scraped up, dirty, had mud in my teeth and up my nose and I may have been slightly concussed. I was seeing white all over the place, like the saturation was turned way up.

Scott and I sat there panting and composing ourselves, more so for me. We eventually walked back to the cars where I swigged old water (thank you Scott) and tried to get my head straight. Then we both went to work. Being an Awesome Helicopter Ninja is pretty much the best thing a person can do."

EDIT: Now with video links - click on the "Gayle Anderson" button on the left.

Shirt sold for $10.50

2007-03-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

You might remember my post from last week about one of my autographed T-shirts going on sale on eBay. Well, the auction is over, and someone paid $10.50 for it. The ironic part is that it wasn't a friend of mine, someone else from the Division or even myself under an assumed name. In fact, the shirt was bought by...some random dude, for the reasons of...well...I'll let you read his e-mail to Doug (who sold the shirt):

"Obviously, there is some explanation in order, or perhaps at least well deserved as to why one so apparently unaffiliated with what you do bought the kickball shirt...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. My friends and I, following the weekly religious pilgrimage to Astro Burger (at Santa Monica west of La Brea), sat enraptured halfway through another meal from gourmands of first choice. Our once again repeated scentient happiness with our french fries and grilled sandwiches became punctuated by a uniformed group, reminicing of another cooperative battle. They joked, laughed, looked around and checked out who watched them, attempting to preserve some kind of decorum. My friends' bliss, as well as my own, became interrupted not only by the group and their conversation, but also the adolescent caste system forced upon us within formative years. We turned our attutudes towards joking. What were those guys doing?...What the hell are those uniforms? That is an odd group of people, certainly of the majority, and it doesn't look like softball...they're too well organized and none have expectorated on themselves/others. Derisive comments followed. I figured out this group "kicked" as a means of exercising their frustrations. Immediately, they became the butt of jokes.

I had no idea kickball leagues existed. Maybe initiation began following 6th grade and we were only allowed to progress to the ranks of common major four sport exploits. I loved my hockey, but maybe I was not good enough for kickball. I thought junior high schoolers put kickball down as too childish and stupid? One thing struck my emotional core: I encountered the classic dichotomy between embracing the brotherhood of fellow man, a relativism and capacity of individual taste, and the persuasion to regulate those others to a subordinate and less important role than my own. Discrimination. Racism.

Chauvinism. Oft cited sources of uneducated hate and address of a primal human fear of the unknown or unexplained. My roommate who played basketball at the college level very much likes sumblimating the directives of others as unworthy or unneeded. The pangs of adherence to higher moral callings resonated within me, and yet, I partook in the ribbing. After about twenty minutes, I left the kickballers with friends in tow and returned over the hill to my apartment in Sherman Oaks. I heard jokes over the coming weeks when sports related issues arose as I work where I must interface with sports constantly. That guy Radmanovic sucks...he could probably get drafted by the kickball league though...and so forth.

The point is, the monetary contribution functions as a tribute paid to the church of personal redemption for a past misgiving. Kneeling at the altar of judgment may not hurt as forcefully. This truly will pass to others as well, as my roommate has been known to his mother and countless friends in both basketball and hockey leagues for years simply as "Dog". The degradable tangible item will pass to him, though it's message will echo through the ages, as he will retain the actual interest in the jersey. I reached the heights of food and drink, and the base of individual human experience, all because of kickball. Fin.

Back to reality and Southern California, circa 2007 A.D....We saw a team from the league at Astro Burger most likely following a match within the last 6 months and laughed at the kickball league concept. We go to Astro Burger nearly every saturday night near midnight, and of course in that area, you see the full composition of L.A. people - I still have a picture of a very normal 30's guy and his girlfriend pushing around a stroller with a basketball in it. My mother worked at the studios for years and my aunt as an MCA corporate accountant, but I never remember hearing about kickball. I manage a sports memorabilia shop in Woodland Hills and I attend Loyola Law school. With reference to the shop, I am always looking through every corner of ebay, and I couldn't help but laugh when I saw this at the bottom of the Other Autographed Sports Memorabilia category. Strangely, my roommate's only nickname is Dog. The congruity made too much sense, hence it just seemed right to buy this and give it to him.

Forgive the dramatic recount, but it seemed like a funny thing to do when I started writing.

Let me know what to do to make the transaction conclude.

Further, why didn't you guys just whack up the bid so it shows up at the top of the category? I remember some shmoe put his high school shoes up there and bought the category featured option ($20) which made it show up at the very top of a couple of different categories. That would have got you the good ebay publicity for both your players and the league for sure."

Game #2 vs. Happy Endings

2007-03-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

It's getting to be almost spooky how we do the same things season after season. Our pattern is this:

- Lose the first game
- Play like crap for the first half of the second game, and then turn it around
- Win a bunch of games in a row after that

We've certainly lived up to the first two parts of the pattern. This week we played against Happy Endings, which had been The Royal Blue Balls last Winter season but had taken a couple of seasons off. They also have a few co-stars of a certain forensic-themed, Las Vegas-based hit TV show on their team (I don't want to name names, but the show rhymes with Bee Mess Spy). They were a pretty good team the last time they played, and we knew it would be a pretty good test for us.

Our offense wasn't a problem from the beginning, when we were able to get four runs in the top of the first. But our defense kind of went wonky after that, and we bled some runs away that we absolutely should not have given up (lack of focus, not thinking ahead, etc.)

But then, the same thing happened that seems to always happen in Week 2 of any season when we're suddenly in a close game against a team we should be beating easily - we decided to actually focus and start playing. The result? We went on to win 9-4 and get back on the right track.

Player of the game honors go to Tyler Foster, who kicked two home runs. One of them was kicked so hard that it wound up rolling into the grass field a good 300+ feet from home plate. The other one, I think, was kicked so hard that it went back in time and actually counts as a home run in a game from last season.

Next up: some team...I'm out of town next week at the SXSW Film Festival, so I won't be playing. Obviously, I'm not too concerned about our team's ability to carry on without me.

Note: We're playing the Ponies of Death.

Simply awesome

2007-02-28T15:07:00.000-08:00

At the bar, Doug from The Valley Girls was insistent on getting me to autograph his shirt. I couldn't figure out why, but now I know - he put it up for sale on eBay. While I don't condone getting an autograph from me for purely financial purposes, all I have to say is that it may be the most hilarious thing I've seen on eBay in a long time.

That thing we do at the start of every season

2007-02-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

...which would be lose our Opening Night game, in this case by a score of 5-2 to Sofa King Good. Honestly, I knew this might be our toughest game all year anyway - they are a veteran, very good team from Hollywood, and they came ready to play. And despite any worries that might have been had, their deportment and sportsmanship throughout the game were first-rate. If I were wearing a hat, I would doff it to them.

However, the night was more success than failure. Michael and Ashley set up the Official Awesome Helicopter Ninjas Fan Club (tentatively called "The Army of Awesomeness" in between fields before the game, and put up 50 fliers promoting my autograph session. And there I was, ready to sign glossy headshots and team photos before the game for our adoring fans. And, as suspected, none showed up.

Therefore, comedy ensued. Lots of me (as the disgruntled, egotistical superstar) getting upset and blaming Michael (as the hapless promoter/manager) making excuses and apologizing. And the obligatory recreation of the "Artie Fufkin from Polymor Records" scene from "This is Spinal Tap".

But, by the end of the night, I think we had signed up at least 75 percent of our own team for the Fan Club, which may not sound like much, but you need to start with your local fan base. After all, Cheap Trick was big in Chicago before they became famous worldwide. (Also, they were famous in the Japan before they were famous anywhere else in the US...and we're the Ninjas. Coincidence?)

Good times were had by all. Exceot for that whole losing thing, which was kind of a downer.

Opening Night

2007-02-25T22:44:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like the pageantry of opening night, especially with the Ninjas. But this Opening Night is extra special, because we're launching perhaps the largest fan outreach campaign in North American kickball history. Because Monday night marks the launch of The Official Awesome Helicopter Ninjas Fan Club.

You heard right - now is your chance to join Ninja Nation. When you join the AHN Fan Club, you'll receive exclusive news, entertainment and stuff directly from the Ninjas themselves. It's our way of "giving back" to the greatest fans in kickball by giving a little something of ourselves to you.

Keep checking back for more information on how to join the Fan Club. Or, you can show up on Monday for our Opening Night game against Sofa King Good at 7:15 p.m. Starting at around 6 p.m., yours truly (the Duke of Kickball) will be at the AHN Fan Club booth, meeting the fans and signing autographs. I'm really excited, since I don't get a lot of chances to interact with the public, and even though you all do kind of scare me a little bit (so many germs!), with the help of my handlers, I should have a "good" time.

See you there!

Season schedule announced!

2007-02-25T22:14:00.000-08:00

Finally, the WAKA Studio Division has released the schedule for this season. So, mark your calendars with the games that you want to attend, although really, you should be coming to root on your Ninjas at every game, regardless of which opponent we're defeating. Seriously, true fans show up to every game.

Here's the schedule, with the first game starting tomorrow (Monday) night:

Feb. 26 - vs. Sofa King Good, 7:15 p.m.
March 5 - vs. Happy Endings, 8:05 p.m.
March 12 - vs. Ponies of Death, 8:05 p.m.
March 19 - vs. Warner Pros., 7:15 p. m.
March 26 - vs. Redrum, 7:15 p.m. (interconference game)
April 2 - vs. Mean Girls and Boys Next Door, 7:15 p.m.
April 9 - vs. Hype, 8:05 p.m.
April 16 - vs. Smurfageddon, 8:05 p.m.

Group and family packages are available. Tickets are now on sale at the North Hollywood Recreation Center box office and at all Ticketmaster locations.

Conference draft

2007-02-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

The new season starts in a couple of weeks, and the Division is deciding to do something different this year. Because we are going to have a full 16 teams, Michael came up with the idea to split the teams into two conferences. Basically, you would play each team from your conference once in the regular season, as well as one "interconference" game against a team from the other conference. The playoffs would be like any pro sport - each conference has their own playoffs to determine a conference/league champion, with those two teams meeting in the finals (AFC vs. NFC, AL vs. NL, etc.) Basically, it was a way to do something different, and hopefully create some bonding between teams that play in the same conference (i.e. you would so up to the title game and root for the team from your conference.)

The "draft" was Monday night at the bar after the pick-up game: Michael and Alan from Redrum (the new Board President) randomly drew names from a hat, placing each team on the board to represent each conference. Now, for the record, I suggested having at least two pools of teams - one veteran teams and one new teams - and doing each separately, so that the veteran and new teams would be divided as easily as possible. But, everyone thought that was too complicated.

So what happened? As is usually the case when something is done "random", the results appeared none-to-random. All of the major veteran teams (Valley Girls, Redrum, Wonderballz, Uno Mas, Trey Stafford Explosion, Pregnant Cheerleaders, etc.) were placed in one conference...except for The Ninjas, who are in the other Division. Now, our Division does include the former Royal Blue Ballers (now called Happy Endings), who we beat in the semifinals our first championship year but have taken a few seasons off. There are also at least two teams coming over from Hollywood, and one (Sofa King Good) is a very good team.

Still...it certainly looks like we got a ridiculously easy draw while the other veteran teams got shafted on an idea that a Ninja had. Since we're the big, bad bully in our Conference, I'm sure we're going to be the bad guys all season just because of certain perceptions. If that's what happens, so be it - we'll just play that up by being the best villains we can be.

Also, expect some BIG announcements in the coming weeks before the start of the season that will have a definite impact on you, the AHN fan.

Boise St.

2007-01-07T18:49:00.000-08:00

If anyone didn't see The Fiesta Bowl last week, it was perhaps the greatest football game I've ever seen. Boise St. defeated Oklahoma 43-42 after the craziest series of ending you could imagine. After watching the game, I've decided that even though I am a huge USC football fan, there is no doubt in my mind that Boise St. is the obvious choice as the Official College Football Team of The Awesome Helicopter Ninjas. Why? Several reasons:

Being Underdogs - Much like the Ninjas before our first championship, the Broncos were the huge underdog in the Fiesta Bowl. They come from a conference (the WAC) that is not perceived as a power conference, and they don't recruit big-name athletes. Meanwhile, Oklahoma is one of the biggest names in college football, and perennially recruits the best high school players in the country. But Boise St. showed that by playing smart and working as a team, you can overcome disadvantages of raw athletic talent.

The Blue Field - Boise St. plays on a blue field. Normally, this might be considered a downside for me, since it's commonally referred to as "Smurf Turf", and another team in our Division might want to claim that as their own. But for me, I love the concept of deciding to make your turf blue "just because" they wanted to be different than every other team with artifical turf, who always have green fields (in an attempt to make the field look more like natural grass - silly, since if you want that, just HAVE real grass...)

The Trick Plays - The No. 1 reason. Boise St. scored the game-tying touchdown on a "hook and ladder" play. It's the type of play you try to run in a sandlot football game when you're 12, and it never works. So there's certainly no reason to call it on 4th and 18 with one minute left in the biggest game of your school's history when you trail by a touchdown.

Then, in overtime and trailing by seven, they scored a touchdown again on fourth down, this time by snapping the ball to a WR (who went in the backfield as the QB went in motion), who then threw a pass to the tight end in the end zone. And if this doesn't prove that Boise St.'s coach doesn't have balls the size of the potatoes his state is so well known for, they decide to go for a two-point conversion instead of kicking an extra point and starting a new overtime session - either winning or losing the game on the next play.

And then, they run the freaking Statue of Liberty play! And it works! The best part is that they actually practice this play during the week. And they ran it with their season on the line, even though their own coach admitted that IT NEVER WORKS IN PRACTICE!

I can't think of another college football team that combines the spirit of competition, the joy for having fun and the sheer "Who Gives A Fuck" ability to pull things out of their ass like Boise St. does, which matches the Ninjas to a T. Now, if we could get Boise St. to incorporate some smoke bombs into a play...

Ultimate Fighting Moves That Sound Like Things Found in XXX Movies

2006-12-21T17:09:00.000-08:00

Rear Naked Choke
Fishhooking
Side Mount
Ground & Pound
Small Joint Manipulation
Leg Lock
Head Butt
Kimura Lock
Front Roll
Inner Lion Throw
Scarf Hold Submissions
Cobra Arm Wrap Strangle
Cross Buttock

List of Beatles Song Titles if They Were Named After Major League Shortstops of the 1970s

2006-12-20T14:55:00.000-08:00

Dal Maxvill’s Silver Hammer
Gene Alley You Need Is Love
The Tim Foli on the Hill
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide (Except for Me and Denis Menke)
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill Russell
Marty Perez My Dear
Got to Get Larvell Blanks Into My Life
Helter Mick Kelleher
Lovely Rick Burleson (Meter Maid)
Hey Ivan DeJesus
Jimmy Sexton Sadie
Bill Almon (Go To Him)
Get Rick Auerbach
And I Love Toby Harrah
The Ballad of John and Kiko Garcia
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Don Kessinger
Freddie Patek is the Walrus
Larry Bowa in the Sky with Diamonds
Mean Mr. Rance Mulliniks
Nelson Norman Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
Polythene Pat Rockett
Pepe Frias as a Bird
Tom Veryzer Never Knows

Help needed

2006-12-14T12:21:00.000-08:00

Does anyone know what the regulations are for landing a helicopter in a public park? Who would I need to comtact to get permission, and what kind of fees would I have to pay?

Just curious.

The pressure is off

2006-12-07T20:22:00.001-08:00

Well, since you didn’t see a gloating post on the Tuesday night after the final playoff rounds, we didn’t win the championships. We did make it to the finals, after beating Nuts & Honeys 10-1 in the semifinals. However, we fell in the Championship game 5-3 to the Wonderballerz.

How do I feel about it? Great! What’s the opposite of sour grapes? Sweet raisins? Then that’s what I’ve got, for the following reasons:

- Other teams were starting to hate us, not because of anything we did, but just because we’re the team that everyone was gunning for since we’ve won two Division championships and this last season’s pennant.

- The pressure to win was getting to be far greater than it ever needs to be for kickball.

- The Wonderballerz are really, really cool people. And, they were kind of like us our first championship season: they were the No. 8 seed in the playoffs, and pulled off four straight upsets to win the title. They were fun to play against, and I’d root for them if I wasn’t a Ninja.

New season starts in February. Expect big changes.

Division championships are Monday night

2006-11-20T00:28:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah, we beat Redrum last week 5-3 in the Quarterfinals of the Studio Division tournament. We're in the semifinals at 8 p.m. against either Smurfageddon or Nuts & Honeys, with the Championship Game at 9 p.m. if we win. And Monday night is "Boo A Ninja Night" at the North Hollywood Rec Center. In honor of our showing at the Leaders Cup, we're encouraging all friends and enemies of the Ninjas to come give us a dose of our own medicine and heckle us during the game.

Leaders Cup Weekend Part II: Saturday Morning

2006-11-20T00:27:00.000-08:00

SATURDAY MORNING

Scott, Aaron and I get to the park early, because there’s a captain’s meeting at 8:30 a.m. that we need to be at (even though the first game isn’t until 10 a.m.) Because we were staying downtown and not at the “official” WAKA player’s hotel in the North side of San Diego (the tournament is at Coronado Park, which is south of downtown), we didn’t have access to the free WAKA shuttle that was taking players to the fields and back throughout the day.

So, we hire a town car. Because, when you’re a champion, you travel first class. Actually, it worked out just fine – it was a short drive to the fields (five minutes) and we got to spread out and relax rather than be crammed into a school bus with hundreds of other people. In retrospect, we should have told the driver to just pull onto the field instead of dropping us off at the parking lot, but that’s hindsight…

Here’s a bit of back history before I talk about the captain’s meeting: I’m always very, very skeptical of anyone who works for WAKA, especially at the national level. Until proven otherwise, I assume that they’re arrogant, smug and take themselves (and kickball) way too seriously. They fall into the same category that the “serious” kickball players I’ve seen on the message boards back East are in: they think they the mere fact that they play kickball makes them interesting. I tend to think that as Ninjas, we make kickball interesting with all of the bullshit things that we do. But I digress.

We took our pile of props, set it down at the fields, and went to the captain’s meeting. And, surprise, it took about two minutes to be condescended to by WAKA staff. This came when they were reviewing the basic rules (because clearly, the teams that are playing in the World Championship need to have to rules reviewed – do you think they explained to the Steelers and the Seahawks that football has four downs before the Super Bowl?). The guy running the captain’s meeting (who had all the humor and warmth of a camp counselor) decided it was important to point out when reviewing the strike zone that:

“So, I understand that some of the West Coast Divisions use this plastic strips to show where the strike zone is. That IS NOT how it is supposed to be done!”

Please note that he was staring directly at Scott and I the whole time he was saying this. Some more background: in Hollywood and then later Studio, we used to chop the crappy plastic bases into foot-long strips. If you place a strip on either side of the home base, you can see exactly what the strike zone is (12 inches on either side of the plate). Simple, right? A perfect way for even novice umps to accurately call a fair strike zone?

Except that WAKA decided that they didn’t want us to use the strips. Why? Because it wasn’t standard WAKA equipment. Basically, WAKA would rather have arguments about balls and strikes than budge from “their way” of doing things.

So, as soon as I heard the WAKA lackey make that comment, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I was trying to go into everything with as open of a mind as possible. But as soon as I heard that, it reconfirmed every belief I have about WAKA and their personnel, and just put me back into an adversarial relationship with the organization all over again.

Fortunately, I had brought several name tags to wear during the day (or at least until I sweated through my shirt and they fell off, which was about 90 minutes into the games). They said different things, such as “WAKA is a Monopoly” and “I Support Indie Kickball”. But, thanks to the attitude of the WAKA stooge, I went with a more direct message:

“I HATE WAKA!”

The rest of the team eventually arrived, and we went back from our field to the main stage for “Opening Ceremonies”. Now, if you know anything about our team, it’s that we sometimes can struggle to find togetherness. But, at the same time, we also relish finding a common enemy. Fortunately for us, through their arrogance, WAKA became the perfect windmill for this group of Pancho Sanzas to tilt. We decided to be the antidote to the self-importance that we noticed before the tournament started by being the most frightening team possible. If WAKA wanted “enthusiasm” from their teams, we’d give it to them in a larger amount and in a scarier package than they know what do to with. Basically, if we weren’t the best team at the tournament, we’d be the team that you’d least want to meet in a back alley.

This was helped by us being in the black T-shirts, which I think give us the impact of looking like Raider fans. And the fact that outside of the Dogtown Pregnant Cheerleaders, no one had ever seen us since we stayed at a different hotel and boycotted the official WAKA “Captain’s Party” that night. Why did we skip said party? Because it was free for the four captains to get in, but it would have been $25 for the rest of the team.

And I’m sorry, but I’m not going to go party for free while the rest of the team either can’t go or has to pay through the nose. I came to the tournament first and foremost to be with my team, and they’re more important than any “free” party. Sorry WAKA, we’ll pass.

At the opening ceremonies, they introduced each team, who then proceeded to politely clap for themselves. And first off, we had by far the best team name of any team there. Most of the team names were bad puns like “Kick Asphalt” or “No Small Feet” or somehow named after the names of the captains. Come on, guys, “Tack Wacket” vs. “Awesome Helicopter Ninjas”: which team would you rather be on.

Before our turn, Scott made sure that we knew what to do: scream as loud as possible for as long as possible. And also raise our middle fingers high in the air.

So that’s what we did, and brother let me tell you: it was loud. Very loud, probably five times as loud as any other team that was introduced. And the screaming probably lasted for at least 30 seconds. Add the flipping off of the entire tournament while we were doing this, and I’m sure it made for quite a, umm, “spectacle”.

When we were done, all the WAKA PR Rep/MC could say, in a very disgusted voice, was:

“Umm, thanks for the middle fingers, guys…”

The Awesome Helicopter Ninjas: Putting the “K” in “Klassy”.

Then came the National Anthem. As sung by “Spencer the Gardner”, the lead singer of the band that played the Captain’s Party the night before. My impression ahead of time is that the band was some sort of Jimmy Buffet-type jam band. And while his vocal stylings might be OK on a Friday night when you want to “cut loose” and “have a blast” after happy hour at the Black Angus, when it’s heard in the cold, harsh light of morning?

Ugh. More like “Spencer the Warbler” or “Spencer the Guy Who Fucking Murders the National Anthem”. In terms of spectacle, it was more “Ashlee Simpson at the Orange Bowl” than “Whitney Houston at the Super Bowl”.

Which is why I didn’t feel bad that we disrupted the big ending. Again, an idea that came from our fearless captain, Scott Jones, and his beloved hometown of Kansas City. Apparently, it’s a custom at Chiefs games during the National Anthem for the entire crowd of 75,000 people to shout “The home of the Chiefs” over “The home of the brave” at the end of the song. So Scott told us to do the same thing, except shout “The Ninjas” instead of “The Chiefs”. So that’s what we did, all 15 of us. And it was loud.

Except that the singer decided to pause an extra few beats after singing “And the home of the...” In our frenzy, of course we didn’t hear him and just screamed on the beat. I think (and I’m not sure because, like I said, it was loud) that he actually waited for us to stop, but our cacophony lasted so long that eventually he just gave up and didn’t get to finish the song.

To top things off, as we were leaving the Opening Ceremonies and going over to the field for our first game, what happened to fly directly overhead? A pair of Navy helicopters! Of course, this lead to much rejoicing from our team, as we took it as a sign of things to come.

As for the games themselves: as usual, they were superfluous to everything else. A short list of the extraneous bullcrap:

- The confetti canon: Perhaps the highlight of all of our stuff. Scott went and bought a very impressive, high-capacity confetti canon that we shot off several times during the day, complete with black confetti.
- The pool cue chalk: Used once during our opening game.
- Bribe money: I was very happy that this seemed to be a big hit with the other teams. I picked up a very cool suitcase from the 1960s at Goodwill a few weeks ago. I stuffed the briefcase with fake $20s, and before each game I would show the money to the refs and let them know that “I’m not trying to bribe you, but if you the close calls happened to go our way and this briefcase happened to get left with your stuff after the game, I guess that’s just a coincidence.”

Fortunately, every team we played in our Pool Play was very, very cool and I got along with them a lot. Of course, we knew one of them really well, and they were all West Coast teams, which I learned meant that they took things a lot less seriously than the East Coast teams. In order of our games:

- No Small Feet: The team of Shane from kickball365.com, and the team that won the West Coast Regional in Anaheim last month. They were very, very good and probably deserved to beat us, although not by the final score. We were tied 0-0 going into the third inning, and then we just sort of…fell apart. They got two runners on with one out, and then we made a couple of errors to let two runs score. Once that happened, I think we let our nerves of playing in the “World Championships” get the best of us, and we made a series of dumb mental errors. 15 minutes later, and we’re down 8-0. We got one back in the fourth but the game ended because of the time limit before we were able to finish.

- Pregnant Cheerleaders (Dogtown): Scott and I know and played against several of the people on this team when we were all in Hollywood, and they are all very, very cool people. Needless to say, we were very happy when we drew them in our bracket.

We went down 2-0 in this game, but I think we managed to snap out of it and realize that if we played smart, we’d be OK. We got two back to tie it in the second inning. The Cheerleaders scored two more to go ahead, but we tied it back in the top of the fourth. We were desperate to get them out in the fourth inning quickly so we could get one more inning in, since we were positive that we would get at least a couple of runs in the fifth and have a great chance of winning. And I think the Cheerleaders knew that as well, which is why they took their sweet time while at-bat in the bottom of the fourth.

The game ended in a 4-4 tie. At that point, I thought our chances of making it out of group play were sunk no matter what happened the next game.

- Orange Crush: They were the San Diego Champions, and they, again, were a lot of fun. However, I suspect they aren’t as good as they were in Spring when they qualified, since we were able to score early and often. The final score was 10-3, and it was a really good feeling to win a game. However, only two of the four teams from our group would advance, and the first tiebreaker was runs against. I was pretty convinced that giving up eight runs to No Small Feet in our first game would doom us.

However, somehow, someway, we were able to go through. The Cheerleaders lost to No Small Feet in their last game, 7-5. We tied with the Cheerleaders at 1-1-1. However, what we didn’t know was that when they beat Orange Crush in their Opening Game, they still gave up five runs. So, they give up 16 runs in the three games while we gave up 15, sending us through to the next round by one run.

(Note: Before the game, one of Orange Crush’s female players asked me “What was up with the middle fingers at Opening Ceremonies. Not that I was offended, but it just seemed a little…inappropriate.” Which sounds suspiciously similar to “I was offended but don’t want to admit it.” I tried to explain that we weren’t flipping anyone off in particular, and that it was a gesture made out of love, but I don’t think she was buying it. However, the team was very proud when I reported it to them later, and we can proudly fly the banner of “Most Inappropriate Kickball Team in America”.)

- Tack Wacket: Another team that I knew well, this time being the team from Hollywood. The team was captained by Tatiana and Jon Gellar, who are former Lebwoskis and who were on the Board when I was there. And their first baseman is Superman. And I don’t mean like Super Manfredi, but actually Superman, as in Brandon Routh, the guy who played Superman in the last movie. In anticipation of possibly playing them, Michael had wanted to bring a “Kryptonite” kickball painted green, but we didn’t have enough time.

It was a tough game. Tack Wacket scored a run first, but we clawed back. We had Bill on second and Ashley on first with one out, when I got up to the plate. All I wanted to do was get the ball into right field – if it was caught, Bill could tag up and go to third. If it fell for a hit, even better.

Well, my first kick started out down the right field line, but started slicing foul quickly and hard. However, Superman managed to make a great play and go about 15 feet off the base at full speed to make an over-the-shoulder catch. But this is where Superman turned into Clark Kent, so to say. (Har har har.) Because after he made the catch, he just kept running, leaping over coolers and lawn chairs and going about 50 or 60 feet.

I noticed this, and noticed that neither Bill or Ashley were tagging up. It turns out that like Superman, they didn’t realize that you could tag up on a foul out just like a normal fly out. So I started yelling at them to go, and they did. Bill managed to make it all the way home before Superman realized what was happening. He threw to the plate in an attempt to get Bill out, but the throw was wild and went sailing into the crowd. Because of the wild throw, Ashley was also able to score.

So, credit me with a two-run foul out, and we made the two runs hold up with some clutch defense. 2-1 for the Ninjas, and we were on to the semifinals.

- Kick Asphalt: These guys had won five World Championships, and are generally considered to be the best kickball team in America. And big surprise – they’re very good. They take this very, very seriously, almost like they are a semi-pro team. They keep their roster down to 11 or 12 players, with no random players being added to their team that they don’t know (which is how many of our team started as Ninjas). The other Virgina team in the tournament even goes as far as to hold try-outs if you want to join the team. Both teams are all former college athletes, and needless to say they take winning at kickball very seriously.

However, they are incredibly one-note. All they do is bunt, bunt, bunt, every at-bat. Keep in mind that they play exclusively on all-grass fields in the East Coast, while we play on actual dirt softball diamonds. This means that bunting is much more difficult where we play – balls roll further and get to fielders more quickly. Plus, softball diamond are built so that the ground slopes away from the center and towards foul ground (to help drainage when it rains). This means that any bunt down the lines is very likely to eventually roll foul.

But this doesn’t happen on grass. In addition, their pitcher threw overhand and very hard. Again, balls bounce a lot higher on grass, so you wouldn’t be able to do this. But, they have built their team to their environment, and they’re very good at what they do.

Still, we didn’t embarrass ourselves – we didn’t give up any big innings, and we almost scored (Scott was thrown out at the plate). The final was 7-0, and we were out in the semfinals. Since my original goal for the day was just to make it out of Pool Play, I obviously was thrilled. However…

I know this is going to sound like sour grapes, but I seriously think that we’d have a very good chance to beat Kick Asphalt, or any other team, if we played on dirt. Their team is built for grass, and we’re built for dirt. Take away their bunting ability and pitching advantage and I think it’s a lot closer than 7-0.

We stayed to watch the Championship game between Kick Asphalt and Gonzo. They are both from Virginia and are ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in America. And the game was…really, really boring. All both teams did was bunt the whole game. And because everyone bunts on the East Coast, they both knew how to defend it really well. So, inning after inning of bunt, bunt, bunt, and no scoring.

After a couple of innings, we were getting really desperate to have something, anything exciting happen. So we decided to make it happen, by trying to do anything to get them to stop bunting. Which basically meant booing at every bunt and cheering every time a) someone was out when they tried to bunt or b) someone actually kicked the ball (which was rare). Not only did our whole team do this, but we managed to get a good portion of the rest of the teams watch to do the same thing. We had chants like “Please just kick it!” and “We hate bunting!” going for most of the game, which seemed to really confuse and/or upset the two teams playing.

Now I know what you might be thinking: it rude to boo two teams that are trying so hard to win and putting their all into it. Which is sort of true. But at the same time, the fact that they took it all so seriously became provocation to be even more unruly as the game went on. Each glare that we got from one of the sidelines was more than enough to spur us on to more chants. Plus, it really was incredibly boring. It was the kickball equivalent of the Neutral Zone Trap in hockey – effective in helping you win, but incredibly boring to watch. Eventually people stopped watching the NHL because of the Neutral Zone Trap, and if every kickball game I played was like the Championship Game, I wouldn’t want to play OR watch.

In the end, Kick Asphalt won 1-0. However, I think we were the big winners for causing discontentment with those who take kickball too seriously. To celebrate this, we ran around like idiots with our smoke bombs after the final out, even though we weren’t playing. And any time we can break out the smoke bombs is a win in my book.

The Leaders Cup Pt. I - Friday Night (B)Lights

2006-11-15T00:19:00.000-08:00

FRIDAY NIGHT:

A big group of us headed out to San Diego on Friday night via Amtrak. It was my first trip on Amtrak, and let me say this: it was highly enjoyable. You could walk around and talk to people, make phone calls, see the scenery and visit the diner car. Which, to be fair, featured microwaveable pizza and hamburgers, but you get the idea.

But the sights and the food were not what made this portion of the trip so memorable. No, dear reader, that would be Jim. Jim was traveling with his wife and two kids. And Jim was spectacular. Some highlights:

- According to Jim (har har), he wasn’t drunk, but for some reason the bartender at the train station told him that if he tried to order another drink “he’d be arrested”.

- Jim was a Steelers fan (complete with Terrible Towel), which lead to a lot of bewildering conversations with Scott and his friend Aaron (who came from Kansas City just to watch the tournament). My favorite was this:

“The Steelers used to go to Tennessee, and they’d lose every year. You know why? Because they used to go get that moonshine, that Jack Daniels, and get drunk the night before the game. Then Bill Cowher told them to stop drinking that and start drinking Gatorade, and then they started winning.”

The sad part is that Jim wasn’t kidding.

- About Jim’s outfit: he was wearing a pair of sleep pants that had the Coors Light logo all over them. Over his pants he had a pair of boxers that had the Miller Light logo plastered on it. He also had a sweater on, on top of which he put on his Marines T-shirt with a giant hole in the neck as he told us he was going down for the Marines’ birthday.

Needless to say, Jim was a special, special person.

We arrived at about 10:30 p.m. and decided to walk to our hotel. According to Google Maps, it was only 0.8 miles from the train station to the hotel. However, it didn’t say that it was entirely uphill the entire walk. Seriously, can’t Google maps include some sort of topography?

After checking in and meeting up with the rest of our team that was staying at our hotel, we decided to go get something to eat. We had Mexican food, and it was fine. Of course, it did provide our first bit of team drama for the weekend. The wait at the restaurant was about 20 minutes, which wasn’t too bad for 14 people at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night. However, Scott thought that we would be out too late, and not be ready to play the next morning. He tried to convince us just to get some pizza and take it back to the hotel, but was veto.

So, after sitting down and getting menus, we realized that Scott wasn’t there. It turns out that Scott just…left. While this is anti-social, it isn’t completely unexpected from Scott Jones. When questioned about it the next day, he claimed that he wanted to get to bed, and it would take to long if he said goodbye, and that people would try to talk him out of it…

I love Scott, but sometimes he is completely full of shit.

The whole incident wound up creating a bond with the rest of the team. Specifically, our team toast that night was “Fuck Scott Jones”, and we spent a good portion of the evening taking turns sending Scott nasty text messages and voice mails every 30 seconds.

By midnight, we went to bed, tired and dreaming of what was to happen the next morning. (Well, most of us – some people stayed up all night hitting the bars. And by “some people”, I mean Adam G., Adam J. and Scott P.)

The Ninjas - #4 team in the damned World!

2006-11-13T16:32:00.000-08:00

I don't care how many teams played, or which "powerhouse" teams didn't show up because the tournament was in San Diego. All I know is this - WAKA held a "World Championship" this past weekend, and we made it to the semifinals. Part of competing is showing up, and if you didn't show up, you can't complain. Therefore, we're No. 4!

Needless to say, this weekend was a complete blast. I'm still partially in recovery mode and partially in "I can't believe we have to play a Playoff game in the Division tonight" mode, so a full recap of the weekend's activities will have to wait until tomorrow. Expect to hear about the following:

- Obscene gestures
- Fireworks
- Confetti guns
- Military helicopters
- Rude behaviour
- Standing up TO THE MAN!!!

Leaders Cup on Saturday

2006-11-09T14:48:00.000-08:00

I leave tomorrow for San Diego for the Leaders Cup, which is one of WAKA's two big tournaments every year. The winner technically has the right to call themselves the "World Champions of Kickball", because I think WAKA trademarked the phrase. Since the field has constantly been dropping with each week, and we're now down to 13, mostly West Coast, teams, it might be a bit of hyperbole to say that, but it's officially trademarked hyperbole, damn it!

We're staying in downtown San Diego, although the "official" WAKA hotel is in Mission Valley. Why?

- The fields for the tournament are in Coronado, which is twice as close to downtown as it is to Mission Valley.
- All of the cool bars are in downtown.
- The bar for the official post-tournament party is downtown, although WAKA isn't providing teams with transportation from Mission Valley to downtown for it.
- We like to be loners and mysterious and not socialize with the other teams before the tournament.

Needless to say, we're bringing our best shenanigans to the tournament, including some new, potentially explosive items. Let's just say there's as much of a chance of us getting kicked out of the park than us winning the whole thing.

If you'd like to follow the chaos live, WAKA is posting updates, interviews, results and more on their Web site via live blogging. God help the poor WAKA sap who tried to interview one of us.

Also, you can go on that link and vote for the team that you think is going to win. Please do so, and vote Chicago style - early and often. Hint: after you vote, go to another site and then clear your cookies. Go back to the site and, voila, you can vote again.

The Ninjas win the pennant! The Ninjas win the pennant!

2006-11-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

Well, we finally did it. Monday night was the regular season finale, and we defeated Uno Mas 4-2 in a rematch of last season's title game. More importantly, we clinched the regular-season title with the win and the No. 1 seed going into the playoffs.

How do I feel about it? I would say pretty damned good, if I wasn't so superstitious. We've never won a regular season title before, in fact we've never been higher than a No. 3 seed. And, when we've won both of our playoff titles, we've never finished the regular season with a victory. So, the part of me that worries about history is a bit uneasy with things.

But, more than that, I'm proud of this team. I'll have to admit that it took us longer than usual to hit our stride, and for most of the season we didn't play to the same level of the teams from the last two seasons. But things have turned around the last few weeks, and Monday night was the best game we've played all season. We jumped out 3-0 against a very good team and didn't look back. We gave up a couple of runs in the last inning, but those things will happen against a good team.

So, the playoffs start on Monday, and we play...I don't know. We receive a bye into the second round by being the No. 1 seed, and because we're reseeding after the first round, we'll play whomever is the lowest seeded team remaining. Looking at the schedule, it could likely be Redrum (who because of a couple of bad results and two forfeits are the No. 10 seed out of 16 teams). I really hope that doesn't happen. Not because I'm afraid we'll lose (we wouldn't), but I'm getting of playing them in the playoffs. Too much tension and aggravation.

The Regular Season pennant is decided next Monday

2006-10-31T18:01:00.000-08:00

We've won three games since the last time I've posted. We've played better each week, which makes me hope that we're peaking at the right time. The caveat here is that the games have been against teams that have ranged from average to not very good at all. Yesterday we beat Blackbeard's Ball Buster's 10-1, which looks great on paper. Then when you realize that they are 0-7, it's really basically what we're supposed to do.

I'd like to point out one particularly inspired bit of shenaniganary from last week. Michael built a giant box of chalk, like you would use to chalk up a pool cue. It was about knee high, a square box with blue "chalk" insde. The chalk was made of gardening foam (like you put fake flowers in), spray painted blue and with a circular divit in the middle. Michael and I pounded some blue playground chalk for extra effect. When Michael was up the first time, he deliberately fouled off the first pitch. He then loudly complained that the ball slipped off his foot, and he needed his chalk. So I got it from the dugout, brought it out, and proceeded to chalk up his foot. With blue chalk now covering his shoe, he then went out and...well, popped up. But still, it was a good visual.

So, we're one win away from winning the regular season title. Which is where we were last season when we pulled our choke job against the Valley Girls. This season our opponent is Uno Mas, in a rematch of last season's Division tournament title game. The winner almost certainly will be the regular season champs. This isn't life or death, because we like Uno Mas and wouldn't be upset with seeing them win. Plus, we've weren't regular season champs the last two seasons, but got it done in the playoffs. Still, it would be nice to add another notch to our belts.

New video (not a press conference, but still)...

2006-10-12T16:28:00.000-07:00

So, we're still working on the press conference from the week before! We thought we had everything done on Sunday, but due to some additional technical issues (and us being perfectionists), we still need some final work on it. And I doubt there will be a press conference on Monday night's Redrum game because...they had to forfeit for the second straight week. We played a pick-up game anyway, even though it didn't count in the standings.

I would say that it's sad to see Redrum have to forfeit two games in a row because they couldn't field four girls, but I think it's their own fault in a lot of ways. They onyl had five female players to begin with, and one of them apparently will be missing for the rest of the season because of work issues. If you leave yourself no margin of error, this is what happens. (And if they forfeit one more time, they are no eligible for the post-season tournament.)

However, we do have new video content for you today! Scott and I (along with cameraman Michael and costume designer Ashley) went down to the Hollywood Division's park last night to disrupt their end of season All-Star game. Since Scott and I have played in Hollywood before we switched to Studio Division, we still know a lot of people there, and this was done in the spirit of friendly shenanigans. (In fact, we're discussing some sort of mini-tournament with the AS teams of the three main SoCal Divisions - Studio, Hollywood and Dogtown).

56 people thought that our "attack" on their game was funny. One person did not. Needless to say, wackiness and near injury ensues!

New video postponed

2006-10-06T12:16:00.000-07:00

The creation and post of this week's press conference has been postponed due to AWESOMENESS! Expect the video to be completed and posted later this weekend.

Taiko drummers

2006-10-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

So, I've found a taiko drumming group in San Diego for the World Championships. In order to try and booka group of drummers from their club, there's a form you need to fill out with some really specific information. It seems really complex for me just wanting a couple of people to come and beat on some drums for an hour. I'm seriously contemplating whether this is worth all the bullshit, which is saying something since I always think that anything relating to the Ninjas is worth the bullshit, no matter what it is.

But then again, I think our reputation is starting to proceed us, and we need to do something big at the tournament to keep our reputation as "wacky pranksters". Which I think will also help us in the tournament since no one could possibly take us seriously.

Game Three: Ninjas vs. Rhino Stampede

2006-10-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

It's eerie how similar this season is to last season. Our pattern last season was:

Game 1: Lose badly to veteran team
Game 2: Play terribly for first three innings against new team, then rally to win late
Game 3: Remember that it's OK to play well for five innings, and win easily

The exact same thing is happening this season. On Monday we played the Rhino Stampede, who are now in their second season and are getting better. It should have been a good test for us, since we had several good players missing and we somewhat shorthanded. However, like last season, we seem to have clicked during Week 3. We jumped out to a big lead early and basically cruised from there, winding up with an 8-2 victory (and frankly, we probably could have scored more if we had wanted to - we kind of started getting way too aggressive baserunning to the point of being silly and kicking for HRs instead of playing small ball.)

Honestly, it was the best we've played as a team since maybe the first championship game two seasons ago. Which is not to say that we haven't won by more runs, or beaten better teams. What I mean is that I really can't remember any glaring mental errors that happened during the game. Everyone made really smart, sound decisions and it paid off. I think at this point, if we don't beat ourselves, we should win every game.

Also this week in the Division:

- Redrum had to forfeit against Wonderballz because they didn't have enough females! They only have five girls to start with. One of them (Scott's roommate) was out of town this weekend for work, and another had to miss because of Yom Kippur. The Redrum captain tried to get the game postponed because they were missing a girl because of a religious holiday, but that didn't go anywhere. Basically, if you only have five girls on your team (and they like that so they don't have to "clog their line-up" with girls that they think are "easy outs"), you run the risk of this happening. Plus, only one girl missed because of Yom Kippur.

- And, the Valley Girls were beaten soundly by The Trey Stafford Explosion. This was a huge deal based on past history. If you recall, Trey Stafford was the person who had been heckling one of the Valley Girls' best players (Spitz) by reading aloud Spitz's own poetry that he posts on his MySpace. Perhaps the best and most vicious heckling I've heard in kickball. Needless to say, this has turned into a full-blown rivalry, which hasn't meant much since the Valley Girls have been significantly better than the TSE.

Until this week. Final score was 8-4 and I don't even know if it was that close. This was especially sweet to watch because The Valley Girls, as they are frequently capable of doing, had been getting pretty cocky because they were 2-0, and had beaten us in Week 1. (Pride comes before a fall, except in our case, when pride comes before another championship.) I could have told them that beating us in Week 1 is no great shakes since we always lose.

So, when you play really well and win while your two rivals lose, that's pretty much a perfect night.

Ninjas vs. Wonderballz press conference

2006-10-04T12:27:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, here is the latest press conference, done after last week's 8-5 win over the Wonderballz. I would normally have the YouTube link, but apparently Scott is too good to go ahead and upload the video to YouTube.

First win of the season

2006-09-26T14:38:00.000-07:00

8-5 over the Wonderballz (or Wonderballerz or Wonderbraz...no matter what, it's a terrible name, so I'm not going to take the time to look it up). And it was as ugly as the final score would indicate. We played down to the level of competition for about three innings until we realized that "Hey, we're better than them - let's start playing like it!"

Not to take anything away from the Wonderblahz (who, although technically a new team, have several people who played on other teams last season), who put up a good fight and have several very good kickers. But there was no reason we should have been down 4-1 after the first inning.

My main comfort is that we have history on our side. Not only have we always lost the first game of the season (as previously documented), it usually takes us about midway through the second game before we start playing like the games count. Last season is a good example: we were trailing Trey Stafford Explosion in Week 2 for most of the game before we decided to stop sucking pipe and start playing. The result? A 5-2 victory that let us go from being "terrible" to "decent".

Personally, my stats looked good: 3-for-3 with two runs (including the game-winner). Denfensively, I was better than Week 1, and had about four or five put-outs or assists. But, I'm probably at only about 80 percent of where I can be. I've noticed that I tend to sometimes assume that kickers aren't going to bunt, meaning I don't get a good jump on any actual bunt. I need to stop doing that. I also need to be less concerned about throwing or kicking the ball away when trying to make a play.

All of that, and also I'm now getting paranoid that I'm going to accidentally get in front of the kicker and have a big kick hit me square in the face. And really, when you have a face like this, you want to protect it.

Michael and I umped the lone 9 p.m. game, which of course started at about 9:20 p.m. Meaning that we were able to spend about one hour at the bar. Which is probably for the best since a) I'm broke until the end of the month and b) I haven't been feeling great since this weekend (reoccuring headaches), so anything more than one or two beers would have been, to borrow a phrase, "a fucking stupid idea".

Speaking of fucking stupid ideas, Scott decided that today is "Fuck Up Day" for him, meaning that he's going to do things that he always wanted to do, but thought were probably bad ideas. This coming from a person with little to no self-control to begin with, and who once teabagged an entire house.

The bottom line is this: I'm not bailing him out at 3 a.m. this morning.

Valley Girls press conference

2006-09-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

Just a little bit of history repeating

2006-09-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

The Awesome Helicopter Ninjas opened our fourth season the same way we have opened our first three seasons: with a loss. And not a particularly pretty one, either - 8-2 to the Valley Girls. To paraphrase our team inspiration for this season, we've won two championships after losing our Opening Night game, so I'm not sweating it either.

Actually, we played OK for parts of the game (we led 2-0 after one inning). Basically, they made some really precise kicks, and we had some new players (and veterans) drop some balls that I don't think they'll drop again. Especially the new players - I think people either a) get really nervous the first week and make mistakes they eventually learn not to make or b) come in too cocky and think they should be able to be amazing from the start, and have to learn that you do in fact need to concentrate and take it somewhat seriously to do well.

However, despite the loss, I had a really good time. In fact, it was about as much fun as one could have while getting soundly beaten. The Max Fischer Players Edition got off to about as great of a start as I could have hoped for from a theme standpoint. First off, my uniform was top-notch:

- Red beret
- Black glasses
- Blue blazer
- Blue and red tie with dress shirt (with team T-shirt over the dress shirt but with the tie stick out over it)
- Khaki short

I played in everything except the blazer, which would have been a bit too restrictive in terms of making fielding plays. I can't say the uniform (comstume) hurt me at all, but I will say this: it was hot, even at 7:30 at night. It was even really hot at the bar after the game with everything on. I have a new appreciation for Jason Schwartzman and what he must have gone through while filming "Rushmore" while wearing that outfit and being under hot lights.

And the best part was that I wasn't the only person on my team to go with the theme! Of course Scott and Michael didn't get dressed up, but I didn't expect that because they are jerkburgers. But three of our female players did come in schoolgirl outfits (which, I'm sure some of my less classy readers would be very excited to hear about, and...yeah, it was pretty cool.) This included two of our new players, one of whom went the whole nine yards and was basically an exact replica of Margaret Yang. So much so that we kept referring to her as Margaret instead of by her real name all night.

(I had a single in my only AB - I would have had a better kick, but I was distracted by Michael dancing with Dre to "Oh Yoko" as the soundtrack from "Rushmore" was playing on our iPod boom box. Stupid sexy Michael and his sexy dancing.)

Of course, there were smoke bombs. Duh.

And, I have to compliment The Valley Girls on having the highest level of sportsmanship. I know I've ripped on them in the past, but that was before several of our players got to know several of their players really well, and it was actually a lot of fun to play against them, without the usual passive/aggressive BS that both teams usually bring to the game. So kudos to you, Valley Girls.

The bar was fun and really hectic. We now have 14 teams in the Division, which is five more than we've ever had. Unfortunately, that means that not every team is going to play against each other, which really sucks. But McWAKA (my new nickname for WAKA, since they are trying to franchise themselves as the McDonalds of kickball) likes to have 16 team Divisions instead of capping them at, say, eight and starting new Divisions in the area after that. I wouldn't do things that way, but I don't work there. (Thank God.)

So we play one of the new teams next week (Wonderballs), and I think that we'll be properly motivated by a) our poor performance last week and b) the fact that they have a terrible team name.

Oh yeah, we handed out championship rings in a brief pregame ceremony. I'll post pics later in the week - everyone seemed really happy to be rewarded for their hard work.

New season starts tonight

2006-09-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

So our opening game is against The Valley Girls, which...I won't say that they are our rivals, because that would make them way too happy. It's sort of like how every team is rivals with Notre Dame or the Raiders, because everyone dislikes them except for their fans? It's like that. Plus, we're two of the Original Four teams left, so there is some history. (And they were the No. 1 team in the regular season, so they are pretty good. Even if we would have beaten them in the regular season finale and have been regular season champs if Scott and Bill weren't both out, but that's just sour grapes.)

Most importantly, it's the official debut of Awesome Helicopter Ninjas: Max Fischer Players. Since we sort of got away from the shenanigans last season, we're vowing to redouble our efforts this season, even if it means not winning as much. (At least, until we get to the playoffs, because the regular season is a tad pointless.) Expect a full report (and judging by Scott's fireworks arsenal, perhaps a fire/police report) tomorrow.

And yes, you did hear someone from WAKA on Kevin & Bean on KROQ this morning. It was Johnny, one of the founders from Washington, DC. I didn't hear it, but apparently he said that the Studio Division season "hadn't started yet" and that there was "still time to join". Which will probably mean a bunch of new people and at least one new team joining before the official cut off date in before the second week, meaning lots of scheduling headaches.

Thanks guys! And maybe it would have been nice to let the local Divisions know about this before it happened, and perhaps use some of us as spokespersons instead of the WAKA Founders, who are 3,000 miles away. Not to prejudge (since I didn't hear it), but I'm almost positive that I, or any Ninja, would have been more entertaining on the radio than Johnny WAKA. Incredibly more entertaining. I suspect that perhaps they were worried that we would be so entertaining and engaging that it would distract from the overall WAKA message.

At least, that's what I'll tell myself as I cry myself to sleep on my giant, kickball-shaped pillow...

Pick-up game

2006-09-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

The annual pre-season pickup game was on Monday night, and as usual it was barely controlled chaos. This year was perhaps even worse than usual, since we have so many new people and teams. I believe we're at 280 people and 13 teams, and we had enough people at the pick-up game for six teams.

Once again, I've volunteered for the Division board, even though I always tell myself that I won't after the previous season. However, I'm just a bit too focused on civic duties for my own good. This season, I've agreed to be Rules Chair, since I probably know the rules book better than anyone, and it's a title that doesn't require a ton of weekly work. In keeping with the "Max Fischer Players" theme, however, I have requested that my title be changed to "President, Rules Club".

Speaking of the Max Fischer Players - the uniform for this season is almost complete. I have the beret, blazer and khakis. I also have a shirt and tie, that will be work underneath by "official" WAKA T-shirt. (WAKA has this hard-on about making sure that your official team T-shirt is "visible at all times" during games. One new team wanted to play in orange prison suits, but were told no by our WAKA rep. WAKA, incidentally, is full of weiners.)

The only thing I am missing is a pair of fake glasses. I had no idea how difficult it would be to find a pair. As a temporary mesasure, I wound up buying a pair of sunglasses at the gas station and popping out the lenses, but I would prefer "real" fake glasses with actual lenses. In the past few days, I have gone to every mall store I could think of (Hot Topic, Spenser Gifts, etc.) and a Halloween costume store. No luck so far. Anyone with ideas on where I could find a pair of fake glasses (the Buddy Holly/Elvis Costello kind), please let me know.

Kickball dorks

2006-09-07T11:37:00.000-07:00

After spending some time reading posts on some other sites, site as Kickball365.com, I've come to the conclusion that I'm glad we don't play kickball in Washington DC or one of the other "power kickball" areas. Because, frankly, those guys take the sport part of kickball way too seriously.

I mean, pages and pages of debate on if certain Divisions are major Divisions or just "mid-majors". Days and days of complaining about how WAKA does things a certain way, or how DC Kickball or NAKID (two rival kickball leagues, and I can't believe I typed the words "rival kickball leagues" without doing it in the context of writing a Will Ferrell movie) are superior or inferior. And don't forget the snobbery. One of the posters told me that I should "bring a camera" to the Regionals and World Championships so I could show our Division how real pitchers throw the ball.

I may have mentioned this before, but Scott went to the post-tournament party after the Regionals in LA this summer even though we didn't play. Several of the WAKA "executives" were there. Scott's comment afterwards was something to the effect of "They're a bunch of people who are incredibly pleased with themselves because of the fact that they play kickball." Having done some more research, I know now exactly what he's talking about, and why I never would fit in with that crowd.

At the end of the day, I'm a Ninja first, and more than anything else I'm proud of our team, and all of the absurdist, theatrical bullshit that we do. We've been successful on the field, yes, but that's been a secondary benefit. If I was on a team that took itself way too seriously, treated kickball as a "sport" and not as "a reason to be ridiculous and then go to a bar afterwards", I wouldn't enjoy it nearly as much, even if the team won. I'd enjoy doing what we do just as much if we were on a losing "Operation" league. (Which, after having played a few games during the aborted Board Game Challenge, seems like a fun idea - I own the Funny Bone!)

So, to sum up, I may be one of the Head Ninja Nerds, but I'm not a kickball dork.

2006-08-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

to the Fall 2006 Edition of your two-time defending Studio Division champs:

Awesome Helicopter Ninjas: Max Fischer Players

The plan is for the team to play in red berets, thick glasses, and blue blazers. Needless to say, this theme opens up all kinds of incredible shenanigans.

Expect a box of bees to be placed in someone's dugout by Week 2.

And of course, this means that your Awesome Helicopter Ninjas: Scary Ghost Edition memorabilla is now out of date. Make sure you visit the Awesome Helicopter Ninjas team store for your officially licensed, limited-edition Max Fischer Players apparel. Look for a brick and mortar store to be opening at Staples Center sometime soon.

Your Spring 2006 Playoff Recap

2006-08-22T17:35:00.000-07:00

The season is over. The champion is crowned. As last season’s titleholders, I would like to publicly take this opportunity to congratulatethe Spring 2006 CA Studio kickball champs.

Oh right, that’s us…

BOOYAH! The semifinals and finals were last night, and we took both games to successfully defend our championship. To put this in historical perspective:

- We’re the first team in the Division to win multiple Division Titles.

- We’re the only team in any of the Southern California divisions to win back-to-back titles.

- We’ve qualified for the next World Kickball Championships, which is great because they are apparently going to be held somewhere in California.

- My own personal record in playoff games with AHN: 6-0 (I missed our playoff loss first season).

A recap of the two weeks of playoff magic shall begin:

QUARTERFINALS (Last Monday):

AHN: SGE 11, Trey Stafford Explosion 1

There really wasn’t much to report on this game. The only real drama is whether or not Trey Stafford himself would accept Michael’s Board Game Challenge. Trey managed to blow his knee out on the second play of the season, and has been forced to be Mascot/Lead Heckler for his team ever since.

Michael (also on IR) decided to challenge Trey to a series of board games to be played during the game. Partially it was a way to question Trey’s competitiveness, and partially it was so we wouldn’t have to hear him heckling.

Trey refused to take the bait, much to our chagrin. Michael even went so far as to create advertising and everything…

Like I said, the game was pretty boring – we beat them 11-0 in the regular season, and this was pretty much that game played all over again. I was a little concerned that the team might be lackadaisical because of our past history, but we came out sharp, focused, and other adjectives describing being “on point”.

LAST NIGHT:

SEMIFINALS:

AHN: SGE 2, Redrum United Kickball Club 1 (6)

This is the game we were waiting for. The chance to beat Redrum for the third straight game and knock them out of the playoffs again was in front of us. Plus, the majority of Redrum have apparently decided not to play next season (I don’t know why), meaning that this was our chance to send them into retirement with a loss to us.

I should point out a few things I did before/during the game.

- I bought white wristbands, and wrote on them with black marker. “Die” on one and “Nasty” on the other. They work as standalone messages, or say them both aloud in a row to reveal a secret, encoded message.

- I also found some spare name tags in my bag, and decided to put them to good use:

One was for use against Redrum, the other was for the championship game. I’ll let you figure out which was which.

- I also purchased a red “Participation” ribbon, like you used to get when you didn’t place in the Science Fair but your teacher wanted everyone to feel special because they tried real hard. My plan was to present this to Redrum when we met on the field before the game, and explain that “I know you guys have never won a championship ring (pointing to my ring), and unfortunately you won’t this season, either. So, I wanted you to have something to remember how hard you tried this year!”

Scott objected to doing this. Something about “jinxing ourselves”. Mainly, Scott was just very, very nervous, more so than he usually is. And he’s a very nervous person by nature. On the scale of nervousness, Scott was somewhere between “Realizing you need to go to the bathroom RIGHT NOW when there’s no gas stations for 20 miles” and Albert Brooks filling in as anchor from “Broadcast News”. I know that Scott would say that winning and losing isn’t important to him, but that tends to go out the window when the game starts.

(I should point out that Scott did produce two great signs for the games: one said “One for the Middle Finger”, and featured a giant hand in flip off mode, with a ring around the middle finger. The other was, well, I really can’t say what it was about in a public forum. Suffice it to say it’s
disgusting, cryptic and wonderful. Kind of like us.)

You might notice on the game score the (6). That’s because in the playoffs, you go extra innings if there’s a tie. Redrum went up 1-0 early, but we were able to tie it up in the fifth inning, and then Scott turned a single into the go-ahead run in the sixth by basically running and not stopping until he got home. It was great.

I can’t tell you why beating Redrum is always satisfying, other than that it always is. Basically, they have a real cocky swagger to them, which is funny since they’ve never actually won a championship. They are the team that takes things just a little too seriously, and probably would turn pro if there was such a thing. (Someone with money: make this happen.) Someone mentioned that they seem to have a lot of people who “peaked at 17”, as in they were the cool kids/jocks/etc. in high school, and now it’s 10 years later and they still can’t get over it. So, the fact that the team of A/V nerds (us) keeps beating them is a cake filled with delicious irony. I should point out that the four people from Redrum who actually come to the bar if they lose are top-shelf people and are exempt from the previous rant.

(However, two of their players wear football receiver’s gloves in the outfield. For kickball. Because that’s the difference between making a catch or not…)

FINAL:

AHN: SGE 9, Uno Mas 7

Yes, you read that right – 16 runs between the two teams.

And, Uno Mas defeated the Valley Girls (the No. 1 seed) in the semifinals. Which made us all happy to no end because a) we love Uno Mas (they are the most fun at the bar, our practice partners and all-around good people) and b) the Valley Girls needed a big bite of humble pie. I was playing poker on Saturday with Tyler, one of their captains (and a really good guy, BTW). He mentioned to me that they weren’t that concerned about Uno Mas because “they don’t score
enough runs to win”. I just shook my head – I knew they were overlooking them and they would get burned.

It was the most fun playoff game I’ve ever played in. I didn’t feel a lot of pressure to win, because I would have been very happy if Uno Mas would have won. And the game was high-scoring, but not because of errors – there were just a lot of good kicks placed in perfect spots.

(I did give the participation ribbon and speech to Uno Mas before the game. However, since they are cool and have actually senses of humor, it was taken in the proper spirit instead of met with tough looks of “intimidation”, as other teams might have done.)

And it was a back and forth game. We went up 4-0 in the first inning, and it looked like it was going to be a rout. But Uno Mas came back to tie it, and it was on from there. There were four lead changes during the game – we happened to do it last by scoring three times in the bottom of the fourth innings. And Uno Mas managed to load the bases in the fifth inning with one out before we were able to get a pop up and a ground out to end it.

The celebration after the final out was interesting. I personally was excited, but it was a different feeling than before. Maybe it was the fact that we beat a team we really like. Maybe it was that we did it again. Maybe it was because, for personal reasons, I couldn’t get as excited as
I might have otherwise, but it was more a feeling of relief than elation.

This feeling lasted for about five or ten seconds. Then the smoke bombs came out, followed by much running around topless, posing for pictures, and generally make asses of ourselves. Even today after a long shower, I still smell like a Chinese fireworks factory (burnt gun powder, dirt and sweat). We weren’t able to get to the bar until 10:30 or so, but we made the
most of the time we had there.

Personally, I was happy with how I played. I went 2-2 in the championship game (with two runs scored and two RKI) after going 0-2 against Redrum. I had some very good defensive plays, including turning a double play on a popped-up bunt in the first innings against Uno Mas. Even though I did throw one ball away that cost us two runs. But I did hump home plate when I scored the second time, so that pretty much trumps anything else that happened.

So, in summary, I love kickball. I’m glad to have something to do once a week that gets my mind off of everything else that I’m going through. I’ve made some great friends already, and each season brings a new group of friends.

And we pretty much kick all kinds of ass, which is good because while I don’t need to win at all costs, winning is more fun than losing.

(Also, fireworks are awesome.)

End of the regular season

2006-08-10T16:33:00.000-07:00

We lost. The end.

OK, not really, although it was a particularly crushing defeat. We lost to the "hated" Valley Girls 4-3, with the winner (i.e. not us) taking the regular season pennant and the loser (you know who) relegated to third place. It was especially tough because we gave up two runs in the fifth (final) inning to lose the game, when a couple of our players (I not going to name any names) committed about 12 errors between the two of them in the inning. We need to learn about the whole concept of Risk/Reward. As in, don't throw the ball to try and get someone out at third if there's a 90 percent chance that the ball will instead go flying into the outfield, letting them score the winning run. As a hypothetical example.

Also, one of the Valley Girls players (female, has called or team a Mafia that controls the Division and manipulates the rules in our direction) actually pulled her hand away from me in the post-game high-five line. As in, "high-fiving everyone else, but making a point to pull her hand away from me to move on to the person behind me when we get to each other." Really? Doing that at your age? At least she didn't pull her hand away and then run her fingers through her hair.

I really can't be that upset about the game; two of our best players (Scott J. and Bill) were out, so that's probably a 2-3 run swing right there. We still finished 6-2 and in third place, versus sixth last regular season. So, by my calculations, we should win two championships this playoff season, since we're twice as good. Or something like that.

And at least we're not the Pregnant Cheerleaders, who managed to lose to Redrum 32-1.

Seriously. 32-1. And that's not a typo. And before you ask, yes, there is a 12-run mercy rule, but the Cheerleaders chose to waive it. I can't imagine how much of a masochist you would have to be to be willing to keep getting beat like that.

Shenanigans topped?

2006-08-01T22:18:00.000-07:00

We've been low on shenanigans this season. Meanwhile, Trey Stafford of The Trey Stafford Explosion found poetry written by the star player of the Valley Girls last week, and read it to him from behind the backstop as he kicked.

He went 0-for-2.

Although the TSE lost 5-1, they still get a gold star from us for their hijinx.

Regular season title on the line this week

2006-08-01T22:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry that the updates have basically...stopped. Those of you who know why this happened understand, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

Since we last left...we've won three games. Most importantly, we beat Redrum in the Title Game rematch 3-2 last week to get back to first place in the standings. The best part was that we were able to score twice in the fifth inning to come from behind. Redrum basically thought they had the game won, only to have us break their hearts in a new, exciting way. Needless to say, we're so far up in Redrum's head, we're not only making breakfast, we're making them wash the dishes afterwards.

Redrum managed to have three (three!) people show up to the bar after the game, when they usually get about 12-15 players after a win. Glad to see that they take losses in stride.

Our win last night was a completely uninspiring 5-2 win over The Rhino Stampede. It's starting to worry me that I feel nervous after a three-run victory, and I know exactly how cocky this is going to sound, but...we played terrible, and we should have beaten them (they are 0-6-1 this season) by a lot more.

We play The Valley Girls this Monday in the regular-season finale. The winner is the regular season champion and the No. 1 seed in the tournament, while the loser probably falls down to the No. 3 seed. If we play like we did against Rhino Stampede, we're going to get thumped, AND we're going to get run out of the playoffs in the first round.

Oh yeah, and I'm captain next week because Scott is in Kansas City for his sister's art exhibition. Which at least means one week without someone getting teabagged at the bar. Or on the field. Or in the parking lot. Etc., etc., etc.

Post-game press conference - vs. Pregnant Cheerleaders

2006-06-28T09:52:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, here are highlights from Ninjas coach Scott Jones' press conference following Monday night's game against the Pregnant Cheerleaders:

A painful victory

2006-06-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

The good news: We beat the Pregnant Cheerleaders 12-0.

The bad news: Michael broke his ankle in the second inning and is out for the rest of the season. Mr. "More Heart Than Brains or Sliding Ability" decided to slide into third base in an attempt to beat a throw that wound up beating him by about two or three steps. Actually, it beat his foot by a few more steps, as that stuck in the ground as the rest of him kept moving forward.

The ump said that he "could hear something pop" from home plate.

The best part is that Scott and I were coaching the previous kicker on first base when everyone started heading over to third once they realized Michael was hurt. The home plate ump told Scott that "we need you help because one of your players is hurt". Scott's response? "I'm not a doctor..."

On a personal note: The worst individual game I've played in some time. I went 0-2, including popping out to god damned Shirley to end the first inning. I'm not kidding that this might have been the first out she's ever recorded in a game. It's like having a two-year old steal a basketball from you.

Game Day: Week 4

2006-06-26T16:17:00.000-07:00

We play the Pregnant Cheerleaders tonight. They're a nice group of people, albeit a bunch of dorks. And not dorks in the "using an excessive amount of smoke bombs and shooting model rockets into the trees" type. Apparently, at one of their practices, they did "trust falls" to establish team unity. So, more of the "never got over being a camp counselor" kind of dork.

They were the worst team in the Division last season, including losing 13-1 to us last season. They won their first two games this season, which caused them to suddenly get a little cocky and smirky at the bar. Which is interesting since both teams they beat were playing their first-ever game of kickball. Needless to say, they lost their last game to one of the new teams (The Bookhouse Boys), who at least had a couple of games under their belt.

I want to score 20 runs against them. Seriously. Nothing against them, but I want to really send a message tonight. Kill. Crush. Destroy.

The latest team project? Do you remember how sports teams all seemed to have their own music videos back in the 1980s? Some, like the Super Bowl Shuffle, were supposed to be by the team, talking about how good they are. The other kind was a music video of the team's official theme song, complete with a cheesy 1980s rock song that was usually "Go TEAM NAME, Go!", interspersed with highlights of the team on the field, acting goofy off the field, and the occassional cameo by a celebrity fan. The perfect example would be the 1986 Mets' theme song "Let's Go Mets". So much 80s cheese in there, it's amazing.

So, I discussed this with Scott and Ashley, and we're going to do this for the Ninjas. I'm going to work on a song this week, and hopefully we can get Behn (our videographer) to help us shoot some additional footage to go with our already existing game footage. Expect awesomeness to ensue.

Am I a jerky jerk?

2006-06-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

I pitched one inning during the game. It was the fourth inning, and we were up 10-2. With one out, one of their female kickers came up. She looked at two pitches over the plate for strikes, and then one ball way outside. I then threw kind of an overarm pitch that breaks left-to-right instead of right-to-left that, if you've never seen it before, doesn't look like it has a chance to curving into the strike zone until it skips across at the tail end. She stood there and watched it go by for strike three.

The question is: should I have thrown that pitch, knowing that there was a good chance she would strike out? Being up 10-2, should I have just thrown normal pitches over the plate and given her a chance to kick? My feeling is no: the only way they are going to learn is by failing, and the lesson there is to a) not let two kickable balls go first and b) you have to try and kick it if it's close with two strikes.

Also, does this mean that I'm going to be a "tough love" kind of Dad? Like, "the only way Figgy will learn to not jam something into the electrical socket is to do it once."

Game 3 recap

2006-06-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

We played Legs of Fury, which is another of the new teams. We scored 7 runs in the first inning and that was pretty much that. Final score, Ninjas win 12-2.

Perhaps the most remarkable event of the evening was the continuing transformation of Scott Jones from wacky coach to motivational, hard-ass, Bill Parcells-type head coach. I mean, one of our players kicked a fly ball that was misplayed by the outfield into a home run to make the score 10-2, and Scott was complaining about it, because we stress kicking ground balls with no runners on base, and the fly ball should have been caught.

And you know what? Scott's absolutely right to do this. We've played three games this season - one game against a veteran team that we lost, and then two against new teams that we won in blow-outs. And frankly, those wins don't count for much. As far as I'm concerned, it's almost like there are two Divisions taking place at the same time. One four-team Division for the good, returning teams (us, Redrum, Valley Girls and Uno Mas) and one five-team Division for everyone else (the four new teams plus the Pregnant Cheerleaders, who are great people, but aren't in the same league as the other returning teams.) Playing these new, weaker teams is only going to reinforce bad habits (going for home runs instead of just worrying about getting on base being a big concern) that is going to come back to haunt us when we play a good team at some point. Those fly ball home runs we kicked last night are only loud outs against teams like Redrum.

In fact, I'm making a prediction that we lose to Redrum in the regular season when we play them next month, based on our schedule. We'll have played two (what should be) easy games, and have had a bye week right before it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I see us hitting a lot of fly ball outs in that game, and being surprised that they can catch everything. I'd like to be wrong about this, though.

On a more fun note, Michael and I umped the early game. Michael brought yellow and red cards (actually yellow and pink index cards) that we issued to players for made up infractions during the game. We also ended up giving each other red cards while umping, which was nice.

One factoid from Monday night's game

2006-06-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

I currently lead the league in number of times humping home plate when scoring, at 1.

I was on third base, and Ashley was on first. Tyler kicked a fly ball over the left fielder's head that wound up going for a triple. I jogged home, and then realized that I had plenty of time before Ashley was going to make it home (not that she's slow, just that I had a two-base head start). So, I did what any sane person would do: dropped on the ground and began humping home plate.

I don't consider this "showing up the other team", since it wasn't like I was doing anything directed against them. I was merely showing my enthusiasm and excitement over scoring.

By humping home plate.

Also, odds of me becoming the most hated man in the Division by the end of the season: now up to 8:1.

Finally a win...

2006-06-13T13:12:00.000-07:00

We took an "easy" 7-1 victory over the Trey Stafford Explosion last night. I say "easy" because we were only up 2-1 before we scored five times in the bottom of the fourth inning to break the game open. I pitched the first two innings and the final inning - which I haven't been doing lately. But thanks to some advanced scouting, we had a good idea that they wouldn't be bunting a lot, and that my curve ball pitches would cause them a lot of headaches.

We played a lot better, overall, and I was happy to have an outlet for my anger after the US National team absolutely piled it in against the Czechs.

I think I'm going to hop on a motorocycle without a license or a helmet and plow into a Lincoln...