kickball with the kids

I've been playing kickball the last few weeks with a bunch of friends out at the field behind the public library. Sometimes I'm really amazing and awe-inspiring to watch when it comes to team sports. Other times, I'm the oaf who gets in the way. When I play kickball with these friends, I'm somewhere in between, neither standing out nor failing too miserably.

Last week, I kicked a line drive towards third base. Or second. Or first. Who the hell cares what direction it went to? It was a single, and it was a strong kick. I kicked and shot like a bullet from home to first, ready to stake my claim on the dirty dish towel that serves as our first base plate. But what was that feeling in my legs? Each thigh completely froze up. My muscles were stretched twice as long as they should've been--they felt like those old, crusty rubber bands you find in the back of your desk drawer. "This old rubber band might still work," you think as you stretch it around a deck of cards, only to find that the stretchiness is gone, replaced instead by a substance that is both sticky and hard. SNAP. That's what my legs felt like.

I'm too old to play sports without stretching first.

My friends and I are not ten and under, running free and wild each and every day. Now we must stretch first, willing to admit that we are no longer in amazing shape. The 7th inning stretch isn't a cute little moment, a charming throwback to baseball games attended as children. It's a necessary break as we heave and haw, bringing much-needed air into our lungs. Guys' faces drip with sweat. Jason lights a cigarette. Matt and Jim chug water hungrily, wiping spilled streams with the back of their hands.

We are old now. We are sweaty. We are out of shape. Yet we play.

See you all at four p.m today! Kick it up. Let's hope I don't hobble home.