Dave Barry: I joined a co-ed kickball team full of old people. We’re pretty bad

So I joined a co-ed kickball team.

It seemed like a fun idea. Granted, I had not played kickball since roughly 1956, when I was in third grade and Dwight Eisenhower was president. But as I remembered it, all you had to do was kick the ball and run around the bases, and I figured I could do that, even though I am 77, which is 11 years older than Dwight was in 1956.

I’m the oldest person on my team, but most of my teammates are also getting up there—all but two are in their 50s and 60s— which is why our team name is Kickin’ It Old School. About two-thirds of our players are women. Some of us, when we started, were unfamiliar with the basics of kickball (which is similar to baseball) and thus did not know, for example, which direction you need to run in order to reach first base.

But as I say, I thought it would be fun. It’s kickball! How serious could it be? I assumed the games would be casual and relaxed. Unfortunately, I failed to anticipate what turned out to be a critical part of the kickball-league experience: other teams.

All of the other teams were younger. WAY younger. Most of the players were in their 20s. Also most of them were guys. Some of these guys were extremely competitive. I am using the term “extremely competitive” because in a family newspaper I cannot use the term I want to use, which is slang for a bodily orifice.

So basically we were a predominantly female team of senior citizens, some with little or no sports experience, playing against young, aggressive mostly male teams. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? You’d think our team would have no chance.

But there’s an old saying, which goes: “Youth and talent are no match for age and wisdom.” And I am here to tell you that, as far as co-ed league kickball is concerned, whoever invented that saying was an idiot. Because despite our age and wisdom, we sucked. We sucked a LOT.

One of our biggest areas of weakness was catching the ball, which turns out to be a useful skill in kickball. We had one teammate—Tom, one of our two younger members—who could reliably catch the ball. We prayed that the other team would kick the ball somewhere in Tom’s vicinity. That was our best play.

But if—God forbid—the ball went somewhere else, we were in serious trouble. Our outfielders, seeing the ball coming their way, would frown at it with genuine concern, knowing that somebody should probably do something, but before anybody could, the ball would fly past them, chuckling audibly, and they’d wind up pursuing it, sometimes onto distant kickball fields.

Meanwhile, the opposing players would be running around the bases, scoring runs. They could easily have sauntered home, but some of them— I’m talking about the real orifices—would sprint furiously, as if they were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers, instead of Team AARP.

After the other team had scored a bunch of runs, they would finally make three outs, usually because they had kicked the ball to Tom three times. Then it was our turn to kick, which unfortunately was another area of weakness for us. Often, when we kicked the ball, instead of sailing majestically into the outfield, it would roll on the ground approximately the length of a Hostess Twinkie.

So we did not have a lot of power. Ideally, we would have made up for this deficiency with speed, but this was also a problem area, because to run, you need working body parts. I learned this in our first game, when I pulled my left hamstring attempting to run to first base; and in our second game, when I again pulled my left hamstring; and in our fourth game, when, for a change of pace, I pulled my left groin; and in our final game, when, after thoroughly stretching my left leg to prevent further injuries, I pulled my right hamstring. These injuries definitely affected my speed to first base. The opposing team could have gone to dinner and still have been back in time to throw me out.

So to summarize: Our two areas of weakness, as a team, were (1) defense, and (2) offense. Our biggest area of strength was refreshments, thanks to our team captain, Carolyn Seckinger, who brought a cooler full of adult beverages to the games.

We played eight games, and we lost them all decisively. The last team we played was so unconcerned about losing to us that the pitcher was vaping, and the first baseman was holding a cocktail for the entire game (really).

So from a purely statistical standpoint, Kickin’ It Old School did not have a successful season. But you know what? It was great. I mean that; it was genuinely fun. Once we realized that we were terrible, we could relax (the adult beverages helped) and enjoy the small victories, such as when somebody besides Tom managed to catch the ball, or one of us got to first base without injuring anything or—this actually happened—we scored some runs. By the most important standard, which is did we enjoy ourselves, we had a fine season. I, for one, can’t wait until next year.

After I get my hamstring transplant.

This story was originally published November 14, 2024 at 4:30 AM.