Sunday(s) in the Park Where we once thought "the fertile crescent" was a hand salve.

Week 6 was another excellent week of kickball.  The weather was in the mid 90’s for the early games making it tolerable compared to the 10-15 degrees hotter it was the previous week.  By 9:00 the Game of the Week weather was amazing and spectators came out in droves – that and the fact the there was a competitive game going on.

My hat goes off to Slowride who kicked the ball all around the yard and made the Screamers look uncomfortable for nearly the entire game.  It’s nice to see a team bounce back from two consecutive losses and play some good quality kickball.

After all of my hype of speedster Tony Blevins, I found out that instead of burning around the bases at his teams’ Game of the Week he was lazily floating down a river.  Oh well, I suppose that is what the summer is for.

We’ve been begging for some rain in this area of the country for some time now (just not on Sundays) to no avail, but the Hobbs Park has been raining Jello shots galore lately.  I’ve had at least one every week and this week I was tattooed in the chest by a projectile Jello shot while I was in the middle of taking one.  Keep it up folks, Bill Cosby is a huge kickball supporter.

Heading into the final week of division play we have crowned three of the four division champions:  The Barracudas from the William S. Burroughs division, Pita Pit in the John Brown division, and Das Boot represents Carrie A. Nation.  As for the Langston Hughes division, the final game will decide who will wear the crown and who will have to settle for runner-up, the Goats or the Love Garden Squids.  For my money that will definitely be the game to attend in week 7 if you are looking for a game that will be filled with nerves and attention to detail.

A few other games of note from the past weekend are the Corksuckers defeat of the Rockets, Red Lyon taking down the Goats, and the lopsided match-up between Das Boot and Wildman Attack Force.  Week 1 I watched the Corksuckers battle against Love Garden for about six inning (I want to say it was 3 run game up to that point) that ultimately ended with Love Garden running away in the end.  The Corksuckers have the pieces to compete if they can keep it together.  Pool play will be key to their postseason success.

Red Lyon continued to impress with a victory over the Goats.  I’m not certain of this, as my information comes from a player who was half a country away during the actual game, but am I right is stating that Red Lyon took down the Goats with only 9 players?  If so that is quite an accomplishment.  The Goats may have been looking down the road, but a win this week will right all the wrongs from the past week.

Lastly, Das Boot destroyed Wildman Attack Force 14-2, at least on paper.  Das Boot is a tough team to play from behind because they possess one of the top defenses in the league.  As for Wildman, this game may take them in one of two directions.  Either they’ll learn from their mistakes and progress moving forward or take a step backwards with the wind knocked out of their sails.  They have another big matchup this week against Sacred Sword that will determine if they will be competing in the 2^nd or 3^rd Pool.  If you ask me they need to look at this as a playoff game because they need to face the stiffer competition in pool play to move forward if they hope to prove they are one of the elite teams in the league this season.

Happy holidays to all the kickballers out there.  Grilling, beer drinking, and fireworks are already staples in the KVKL, so what better way to celebrate the holiday than with more of the same.  For those of you who are off come out and celebrate starting tonight at the podcast at Harbour Lights.  Myself, Jacki “Baker” Becker, and Jammin’ Joel Kelly will be spinning some jams immediately following the podcast.  On Wednesday, the 4th, there is talk of some celebratory kickballing going on.  I’m not sure of an exact location but if anyone has anything set up be sure to spread the word along.

Cheers,

KM