Remember that game you played when you were in first grade with the big red rubber ball? Like softball only you boot the ball and the fielders can either try to throw you out at the bases or just wing it at you while you’re running… Well I recently discovered that it’s not just a game for first-graders anymore. My friend Benny talked me into joining his league and I gotta say this sport kicks ass (in fact our team name is the After School Specials so our cheers always involve some derivation of the word “ass”). It’s always cool to discover a whole new subculture that you never knew was there. I had no idea there was a World Association of Kickball Players. And in a weird way it’s strangely comforting to know that at any given time, somewhere in the world there is a group of grown adults playing kickball.

We had our second game last night against the Ball Maulers and so far we’re undefeated. The level of dedication people have to the game is amazing – the lights on the field went out at one point and the teams kept playing in the dark (Point Break style with a few lights from cars in the parking lot). I think kickball might become the new craze in terms of social functions. My team hit up a bar after the game and I got a chance to jump onstage to do a couple sets for an openmic. I had my iPod in my guitarcase and recorded the first one. The audio quality is poor (clearly the iTalk is intended only for talking – even with the sampling rate bumped as high as it will go it doesn’t capture the dynamic range high enough for music to sound good) but the set itself went over pretty well. I’m sure Tom Petty could never imagine that his “Free Fallin” would someday be remixed to the tune of “Now I’m Kiiiick… KickBAALLLin.”

The audio from that show here.