That Was The Week That Was Week 1 DCKickball Capital Conference May 5, 2006 If this column sucks... it's not my fault. I'm just as out of practice as you are. Good morning Capital, and WELCOME to the "and they're off!" edition of That Was the Week That Was. What a great first week of kickball we had, with beautiful weather, great turnout on the fields and at the bar, and a crisis averted at the last minute to make the prospect of miming Thursday night's games not necessary. THANK YOU to everyone for coming out and getting the season started off right! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? ANOTHER EMAIL? For those of you new to kickball, "That Was The Week That Was" is a weekly wrap-up of Capital's activities on the fields and at the bar. The content herein solely represents the opinions of Division President JP and the voices in his head. Contributions are welcome at any time, drop me an email. Okay, let's get right to the good stuff. THIS WEEK'S RESULTS: Thick Femur 13, Got Balls 0 DC Detention 10, AA-Team 2 Kick-Ass Ballers 2, Bad News Barristers 1 Afternoon Delight 4, Here for the Beer 3 Yet to be Determined 5, Red Rovers 2 Big Kids 5, Your Mom's Team 4 Team Lush 2, Seconds from Disaster 0 Lunchbox KC 3, Recess Appointments 0 We'll skip THIS WEEK'S STANDINGS this time out because everyone's either 1-0 or 0-1. WOWSERS This is a really unique division in that we have seven teams who have been pounding kickballs around DC for three years or more, a couple of renegade teams who are mixed, and whole lot of people who haven't played kickball since they were in pigtails. Even the guys. But the quality of play out there was really high this week, we were all impressed watching what we saw unfold on the fields. WELL DONE to everyone out there, we are really off and rolling. Big ups to the spirit of the rookie teams this week, between the tube socks, the 99 yellow balloons floating in the summer sky, and all the screaming, yelling, and cups flipping, we geezers are impressed with what we're seeing so far. LOFTY GOAL OF THE WEEK THICK FEMUR doesn't mess around. The boners were one of the dominant teams in that other league, and are clearly the favorites to take the trophy this year. They added a number of high-caliber players from their archrivals and made a sort of uber-team out of themselves. And their overwhelming performance against Got Balls on Wednesday was the first notch in their belt - though Got Balls courageously hung in there for a couple of innings there. Anyway. Femur's leaders have big plans for the team this year. Get this: their goes is to go UNDEFEATED and UN-SCORED UPON this season. The way they played Wednesday, they're off to a great start. TWTWTW plans to nickname them "The Black Death" this season. TEAM OF THE WEEK Let's give a shout-out to the plucky kids in key lime green. AFTERNOON DELIGHT played with only NINE players on Wednesday night (must have been a busy day in the office), played some stellar kickball along the way, and not just hung in, but WON their game against Here for the Beer in a tight contest with great play throughout. When the rest of their team shows up, if they play with that kind of spirit, they're going to go far. GAME OF THE WEEK Week One games are usually just about shaking off the rust. There might be some excitement, but only rarely are they played well. Well, this year the BIG KIDS and YOUR MOM'S TEAM waged a mighty back-and-forth struggle on the diamond, with each team roaring back from behind to take leads with big rallies. Well done to both teams! PLAY OF THE WEEK You kids keep THIS up and there's going to be a lot of injuries this season. There were great plays all over the place this week, but let's give special citation to Afternoon Delight's BIG STEVE, who fielded a ground ball, fell to the ground, and from the seat of his pants flung the ball to first base from the pitcher's mound to get the kicker out. Honorable mention goes to an outfielder on the RECESS APPOINTMENTS who made a catch while falling on his butt, then got the ball back into the infield to tag up for a double play; the shortstop for the KICK ASS BALLERS who made a fly ball catch with a BAD NEWS BARRISTER baserunner all over her; TEAM LUSH's deflected fly ball catch for an out; LUNCHBOX KC's ringer (used to play kicker for the Yale football team) slamming a home run so high and so far it had frost on it when it came down; and the BIG KIDS who relayed a ball in from the outfield to nail YMT's lightning-quick JJ before he crossed the plate. PROPS OF THE WEEK Most, if not all, of SECONDS FROM DISASTER'S players work up the street at National Geographic (or, as we in the biz call it, "Nat Geo"). So they chose bright yellow for their shirt color, brought yellow balloons to the field, wore tube socks and mirrored sunglasses, and sailor hats. It all makes sense now. To someone not named JP. Great start to the season! A NOTE FROM THE UGLY MUG The staff at the Ugly Mug last night noticed that quite a few teams who were sitting at tables got a little loosey-goosey with their bills last night. Everyone paid, and that's great, but they had to be looked for. Please remember to PAY YOUR TAB BEFORE LEAVING YOUR TABLE from now on, so the wait staff, already overworked from being hit on by Carlton and Russ, don't have to go chasing you around. Got it? Great! Also, keep in mind the Ugly Mug has a policy of including a gratuity on the bill for tables of six or more; they suspended that for this week, but we've encouraged them to bring it back from here on out. Frankly, it makes it simpler for people, and it encourages one of Capital's commandments: Thou shalt take care of thy waitstaff! All good kickball nights are enhanced by a bar who likes us and wants to serve us, so let's be good to our people here! GUEST DJ OF THE WEEK The guy behind the console Wednesday night was none other than DCD's SPARKY, who had a blast playing Pour Some Sugar On Me and Sweet Caroline. INTRODUCING: THE CRYSTAL PITCHER If you've played kickball with us before, you know there are really TWO awards worth fighting for: the division trophy and the CRYSTAL PITCHER, which is awarded to the biggest party team in the division. Judging for the Crystal Pitcher is a complex formula based on bar attendance, party attendance, loud cheering, excellence in mingling, and overall team spirit all wrapped up into one big cocoon of kickbally goodness. Past winners playing in this new league include the Big Kids, Team Lush, Red Rovers, and Thick Femur. Highlights from this week include: --AA Team playing hours of flip cup in the back room on Wednesday --Kick Ass Ballers pretty much with them every step of the way --DC Detention's impressive takeover of the front of the bar Wednesday --Second from Disaster's takeover of the front on Thursday --Impressive turnout by ALL of the Thursday teams (man, the bar was packed last night) --YTBD gets a plus for filling up the back room, BUT- what was up with the unexplained en masse departure from the flip cup table when the other teams were getting in there? Ah well, we're all out of practice. QUOTE OF THE WEEK "Can you ref? I have to take my pants off." - Afternoon Delight's BIG STEVE looking for a teammate to line ref. Honorable mention: GOT BALLS catcher (sorry, I never got the name) in an exchange with her game ref: "I caught the ball. What do I do now?" "Get it back to the pitcher, the kicker's out." "He's out?" "Yeah, he's out because you caught it." "I caught it?" THANK YOUs OF THE WEEK --To all the THURSDAY teams who came out and waited patiently while we were desperately seeking kickballs to play the games with. Our sincere apologies for the late start (and early end) to the early games. --To all the team captains who gathered up the t-shirts for their players and got everyone dressed in time for the games to start. --To everyone who helped truck the t-shirts from my car to the fields. --To Carter Rabasa for (a) starting DCKickball; (b) bringing the equipment Wednesday; (c) for being the ninth player for Afternoon Delight; (d) the great pictures on the Web site; and (e) the kickball delivery last night. --To everyone who came out to LINE REF. We can't do it without these folks. Please keep this at the front of your minds as we go on this season. --To the HEAD REFS who did a fantastic job this week with a new rulebook and nine teams wondering how the hell to play this silly sport. --To all the teams and players who showed up and reminded us why we do this every year. Okay, this is getting ridiculously long. Get back to work, SLACKER. Questions? comments? Unspeakable outrage? jp@ctam.com or AIM: jaypea99. Have a great weekend and we'll see you on the fields next week! John "JP" Powers Co-Captain, Big Kids President, Capital Conference DCKickball     ***Everybody Scores!***