Kickball Fridays
Fridays we were on our worst behavior.
Fridays in high school were brutally unproductive. Senior year it was considered a feat to stay for the rest of the day after lunch.
Fridays in Kickball season were especially difficult.
Every Friday we spent the whole day looking forward to gathering with all of our closest friends under the lights of the softball field parking lot to smash Watermelon four-lokos before our community co-ed recreational kickball game.
We played in a Friday night spring/summer recreational co-ed weekly kickball league. There was a playoff to qualify for and a championship to win. It was a friendly league for every other game that we weren’t playing. We were the most athletic, the most competitive, and the rowdiest team in the league, and we brought the heat every week.
Fridays we were on our worst behavior.
Bondy was a goofy state university bound high school student that suffered from a perpetual cold. He was loud, ill-tempered, and got a thrill out of picking fights. Naturally, we were best friends.
We’re not sure how it happened, but Bondy and I had the same class schedule for both junior and senior year. Our English and Newspaper teacher thought it was a bad joke.
“Surely they didn’t put you two in classes together AGAIN!”
“Oh! Oh! Oh! Uhhh, yes they did, and don’t call me Shirley! Up top!” Bondy held his hand up to our teacher for a high five, pleased he finally told that joke. I high-fived him since she left him hanging.
Bondy was the person I spent the most time with those years of my life. We spent all day at school together, hung out after school, and spent the weekends together. I never got tired of Bondy.
We fed off each other’s bullshit. We were, collectively, full of bullshit. The teachers knew it, but they knew we were bullshit black belts and they’d rather let us do our thing than have to talk to us. Especially on Fridays.
Fridays we were on our worst behavior.
The Kickball team was Bondy’s baby. An athletic multiple sport varsity athlete, he lived for competition.
He was fifteen minutes late to Chemistry one rainy spring morning junior year, a brand new purple windbreaker zipped up to his chin.
Bondy slithered between desks to the back of the class, flicking specs of water off his coat onto everyone’s papers. He unzipped his jacket and produced a huge yellow envelope, which he splashed onto my desk.
“Kickball!” He exclaimed while his stuffy nose whistled. “All we need is $400 and twelve friends!”
“You don’t have twelve friends!” Eli threw at Bondy. “But I’ll play.”
Eli was one of the guys in our circle. He spent mornings at our high school but left at lunch on a bus downtown to hang with all the artsy kids in afternoon classes at the “alternative” high school. Bondy never forgave Eli for his duel enrollment.
“Nobody said you made the team art-boy,” Bondy retorted with a hint of jealousy. “We need 14 players; 7 guys, 7 girls.”
Once I found out there were gonna be girls involved I was committed. I asked who got to be coach. Bondy assumed those duties. Eli wasn’t going to go quietly.
“Wait, is that what this new jacket is? A coaching jacket?”
“Duh, every good coach has a coaching jacket, don’t be ridiculous.”
On the day of the first game, Bondy set the tone for how serious we were going to be about winning.
He arrived to class late and triumphantly threw down a white box full of customized pinnies. Our team colors, Red, White, and Blue, and the star logo that adorned our name: Justice League. They were the real deal, made with that mesh douchey lacrosse players love. These jerseys meant business.
On Friday I took care of the academics so Bondy could prepare for the game. He drew up warm up exercises during Chemistry. Statistics was spent on depth charts. Then we both blew off Newspaper to start the pregame shenanigans.
Fridays we were on our worst behavior.
The first game was a riot. Like, there was almost a riot.
Drinking malt liquor in a parking lot really gets the competitive juices flowing. We weren’t here to make friends, we were here to win, no matter the cost. Plus it’s a Friday and keep in mind,
Fridays we were on our worst behavior.
Game one was out of hand from the first inning. Bondy knew what he was doing when he picked the team and made the lineup-we were crushing the other team. Just after the third inning we were winning an unsportsmanlike 9–1.
We didn’t let up on the scoreboard, on the bench boozing, or on the shit talking. We went full throttle all seven innings.
The other teams in the league were various community groups. I watched as the 830 matchup stretched and nervously watched our game. The Catholic Kick (church group) and Pitch Perfect (community choir), watched as we lay waste to Kicking the Habit (recovering addicts).
It was the top of the final inning of game one, and yours truly was pitching some serious heat. I was super drunk at this point, given that Bondy and I started drinking beers in his parent’s basement at 3.
The kicker at the plate was a big, heavy set guy with a backwards hat that was clearly upset with his team’s performance. He bombed a bouncy pitch deep into center field.
High school babe Lindsey was holding down second base, waiting for the throw from the outfielder, as the runner rounded first. As the 285 lbs runner approached second base, he lowered his shoulder and smoked 95 lbs Lindsey.
There was that brief silence that falls over a group of people when they see some jackass go way over the line.
That’s when I charged.
I put everything I had into shoving this guy and was yelling all sorts of curses into his face. The benches cleared and pulled us apart, and the umpire ended the game early.
“NEXT TIME YOU’RE DEAD!” I screamed across the field.
Fridays we were on our worst behavior.
Surprisingly, there were no suspensions after the first game. The season continued, and each week the whole team got more invested in our clear path to the championship.
Eli took coaching to another level. Working closely with Bondy they developed a league crushing lineup. We cruised through the season undefeated into the playoffs and that’s when we started to lose control.
It was the first playoff game, and our superstar kicker wasn’t available for the game. He was a lanky, goofy soccer all star that had a leg on him that was unforgiving to kickballs. He was fresh out of getting his wisdom teeth removed, and sat on the bench with the team high off his ass on pain killers. Complete with the bandage that goes from under the jaw and tied on top of his head. That’s the level of commitment we got from our players.
We were, surprisingly, losing half way through the game. Bondy knew what we needed, and he pleaded with Dan to coax him into playing.
“You only have to kick! We can have a pinch runner start at home plate!”
“Alright, if I only have to kick, but you should know, I see three of you right now.”
Dan stepped up to the plate and I stood next to him.
“Ready to run?” He smiled and wound up.
Dan whiffed so hard on the first pitch I had to catch him to make sure he didn’t eat dirt. On the second pitch, he didn’t make the same mistake. He booted a flat out moon ball and I raced around the bases. The home run kicker went back to his spot in the dugout in his OxyContin fog. The game was tied.
We were losing by two in the bottom of the final inning. The bases were loaded, and there were two outs. Eli and Bondy tapped the designated kicker, and Dan and I walked out to the plate.
“Ready to run?” Dan smirked as he re-tied the bandage on his head.
Dan pointed at the parking lot behind the fences, and kicked the dirt twice. OxyContin be damned, Dan kicked the first pitch that came his way and walked back to the dugout with his fist over his head. He didn’t even need to see where the ball landed, he knew it was well over the fences. I jogged across home plate to clinch our championship appearance as the kickball bounced through the parking lot.
In the championship game, we faced our arch-nemeses Kicking the Habit. I was less drunk than before and I could see their jersey logos. It was a syringe with a smile that was kicking a kickball. You can’t make this shit up.
Lindsey noted that the self-dubbed pain train on their team showed up for the game. I silently sat on my plot for revenge. Maybe I can rhyme rematch with relapse, I thought through my trash talk as I squirted vodka cranberry into my mouth out of a Gatorade bottle.
Fridays we were on our worst behavior.
We were in control of the game immediately, and didn’t look back. Captain douche of Kicking the Habit was running his mouth as I was pitching, but I ignored it. I’d wait for my opportunity.
Fortunately, he was the kicker that stepped up to the plate with two outs. I rolled him a heater, he bunted, and I heard Bondy yell “PUSSY!” I realized this was my chance! Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was Smirnoff, but everything slowed down. The ball rolled right to me, and I ran towards first.
If I was on my best behavior, I would have underhanded the ball to first and taken the easy out to win the championship. But, I was not.
I turned to peg the runner, and he looked at me and I could see the fear in his eyes. I pump faked, and he slid, feet short of the base, and directly beneath me. In the worst display of sportsmanship I’ve had to date, I Gronkowski-spiked the ball into the back of the helpless runner. The noise confirmed he was going to have a red ball imprint on his back as he cried himself to sleep later that night.
No, I did not take the high road, and honestly, it felt fantastic. Our bench spilled onto the diamond, and we all mobbed to celebrate our championship.
The league commissioner (pretty sure it’s a volunteer position) handed over the trophy.
As good as it felt to be the bad guy, it didn’t compare to the happiness I felt when we hoisted Bondy and the trophy on our shoulders. He couldn’t stop grinning and he sought for a bottle of champagne out of his bag. Who cares we were 16?
Fridays we were on our worst behavior.
