Kickball and Bags Fun – Chicago, IL

Callous-un has some friends who’ve decided they’d like to do a kickball league during the cold season (both temperature and ailment). When Trash, CorpseKitten, and I made plans to come down, Callous-un told the kickball people she was bringing in ringers from out of state for her team. We were late getting to the park because of our awesome breakfast, but we were still one of the first ones there. When we arrived, one of Callous-un’s coworkers had brought all kinds of fun outdoor park games. She had Bags (which some people know as “Cornhole”), a kickball and bases, a soccer ball, and some a Frisbee. This was going to be awesome.

Since we were early, we thought we’d get warmed up with some Bags. Trash and CorpseKitten had never played before, so we had to get them caught up on the rules. The game was even more difficult since we forgot our alcoholic beverages (used for counterbalance in Bags) at Callous-un’s condo.

CorpseKitten and I pulled off an incredible 17-point comeback against Trash and Callous-un during the first round. During the game, some other stragglers started to arrive, so we switched to kickball.

Kickball has made a huge comeback in recent years and most people played it when they were a kid. Most have fond memories of it until you actually have the reality of kickball as a 30-something year old staring you in the face. Then you recall there’s lots of running and the possibility of being pegged with a big round ball while doing the aforementioned running. Then people start to bail on you.

We didn’t have enough people to do an actual team battle in kickball, so we played one-team kickball, which ends up being hilarious. Everyone plays the outfield unless you’re kicking or running the bases. With 6 people, you could have one kicker and 5 outfielders. Or you could have bases loaded and an outfielder and a pitcher who runs somewhere after rolling the ball. It got hilarious. Probably some of the most fun while playing kickball I’ve had in a while. There was tons of laughing at each other, as it should be.At one point, I made the comment that this was like Special Olympics since we were all n the same team and all winners. That might have offended some people…

Much of the laughing came at the expense of CorpseKitten, who is getting over some flu-like symptoms and doesn’t have full lung capacity. So someone got her a camp chair and she sat on third base. Literally, ON third base. If a ball came in her direction, she would jump up and try to grab it – usually ineffectively, which was even more funny. And at one point, Trash kicked the ball straight at her and screamed, “WEAKEST LINK!!!” bringing tears to my eyes.

We finished up with another round or two of bags while Callous-un and I played some catch with the Frisbee. This amounted to seeing how far Chao is willing to run after hilariously errant throws from Callous-un. We did this for an hour or so until we were back on Callous-un’s rigid schedule of events for the day. We did have to meet Baconator at the bar for drinks, after all.

Did I mention how bad my thighs hurt from all the running….?