I promise I haven't died

I've just been really busy, that's all. And, now I've gone and gotten you all excited that there's actually a new post, and it won't really be that long.

I spent part of last week in Phoenix for the National High School Journalism Convention, and I have tons of cool photos to post from that, as well as a trip to Minneapolis the week before that. I will do it this week.

When I got home yesterday, I headed straight to Panera to do some grading with Betsy. For some reason, I get more done there than I do at home. Adam was working at the Home Depot (or, the Dee-POT, as I call it) when I got back in town, so Betsy and I passed the time until he got home.

Adam and I ate at the "sushi train" restaurant - not really called that but it's what we call it. Shawnee-ites will know it as Sakura at 75th and Nieman. We loved it last time we went, but this time it was too close to closing time. The same pieces of sushi that no one wanted kept coming around on the train. Lesson learned - go earlier in the day if you're going to be eating sushi off of a train that circles a bar.

Then, of course we had school today. Stayed til 5 to get some stuff done, and then I HAD to get a run in. Only did that once while in Phoenix, and we go 18 this weekend. Yikes.

Check back with me later this week for photos and more. Kickball practice Thursday and the season starts next week, so that oughta be some good blog fodder...

For now, bedtime!

Dave's got questions, I've got answers - El Guapo's season preview

Reigning Kansas City Kickball champs El Guapo are making spring season preparations. Fans and players are confident going into spring's games, but some worry that the team's reputation as the dominators will put a target on their backs.

The chances for an El-Guapo tres-peat (or, three-peat for the uninitiated) have really inspired the league's lesser teams to bring out the big guns against the handsome juggernaut.

"We know they all want to beat us," Manager Mike said. "That just means we'll play our Mariachi music a little louder and wear our sombreros a little bigger. We're not afraid to use intimidation techniques."

Manager Dave worries that El Guapo's star closer, Jill Chittum, might not be able to live up to expectations set by her perfomance in last season's championship games.

"We worry a little bit about her mental toughness going into those clutch situations," Dave said. "We know she can do it, but she lets the nerves really get to her."

The team looks to capitalize on Catcher Travis's catlike reflexes from behind the plate to keep up the defensive performance.

"Defense wins when it comes to kickball," Dave said. "But, it's still pretty damn sweet to blast a three-run homer out to deep center field."

Other teams in the league have compared El Guapo to a junkyard dog.

"They might not be pretty, they're quite the ragtag bunch," one opponent said. "But they'll kick anybody's ass who tries to step on their turf. You gotta watch out for El Guapo."

Reunited...and it feels so good

Kickball team extraordinaire El Guapo got together last night for our end of season kickball team party. It was REALLY the end of season party, since the season ended, um, back in October.

Most weeks when we played, it was freezing-ass cold outside, so we were layered up like Randy in "A Christmas Story."

Why does this matter at this juncture?

Because when we got to the party last night, I hardly recognized anyone. No one was wearing stocking caps, sweats, gloves, and four coats. People look really different when their heads aren't covered, you know?

It's almost like we're Kickball Superheroes. Mild-mannered young professionals who sometimes enjoy playing Rock Band by day, but come Thursday nights, we jump into the phone booth and miraculously change into uniforms for kicking some kickball butt.

I enjoyed some really good homebrew, and Adam and I both got to eat smoked ribs and brisket.

And, as with any party of twenty- and thirty-somethings in 2009, after dinner, the Rock Band was fired up. Seriously, what did we do with ourselves before that game was invented?

We are the champions, my friends

Despite freezing temperatures and a brutal wind chill, El Guapo was en fuego Thursday night for the semi-final and finals for the MOKC WAKA kickball championships.

Our semi and the final went into extra innings! There's weird rules for extra innings in kickball. It's not like baseball where you just keep playing like normal until a team ends an inning scoring.

I got the call from GM - I had to come out of the bullpen and pitch during both games, in the extra inning. I'm pretty sure when they told me that, I probably looked like the proverbial deer in headlights. I prefer anonymity in my kickballing - I don't want the responsibility of pitching. Especially on the night we're playing for the league championship!

What if I walked four kickers in a row? What if somebody kicked it back to me and I didn't catch it? What if I couldn't make the throw to first? What if I died of insecurity right there on the mound? Okay, well, it's really more of a "spot" than a mound.

I took a few practice pitches. I took a few deep breaths. I heard encouraging words from the sidelines. I focused. I became one with the ball.

First kicker up? A dude. I STRUCK HIM OUT - LOOKING! Sucker.

That was the confidence builder I needed. I was still scared shitless, but it was a lot more fun after I knew I could get the job done. I'm pretty sure after that first strikeout, I celebrated like I had just won the World Series. Seriously. I was jumping up and down, hooting and hollering; Rita, playing third at this point, ran over and hugged me.

Yeah, I probably looked silly, but here's the thing - everybody else was cheering too. Pretty sure they were cheering out of relief, not excitement as I was, but I'll take it anyway!

I'm not gonna lie - it was pretty freaking cool.

Dave and Andrea celebrate!

Duuuuuude - We Rule! Check out the game ball, the sombreros, and the Championship Belt there in the middle. The league folks were there shooting video of the blessed event, so as soon as I hear of the link, I'll put it up here, so you can relive my, I mean, our glory...

I'm so glad that Azie and I happened to be talking one day and kickball came up. I have had so much fun this fall playing with this team. Playing co-ed rec softball in Wichita really helped me make some of the best friends in my life to this day, and I hope that my kickball relationship with El Guapo is long and strong.

Of course, I'll be out of town this Thursday for the end-of-season party, but I think we should totally have our own team end-of-season party in a few weeks.

Viva El Guapo!

El Dia de Los Kickballs (Or Muertos)

This is an historic post, O readers of the Chittum Files: You are about to see the first post with photos taken entirely from my iPhone, not a digital camera of some sort. I'm not posting from the phone - I don't have the patience or attention span to try to type all of this on the miniature keyboard.

El Guapo played the first round of the end-of-season playoffs tonight. True to our Mexican roots, we celebrated El Dia de los Muertos while on the playing field. I knew that was the plan, and I needed to get there earlier if I wanted to get my face painted.

Of course, newspaper is on deadline, and their worknight was tonight. They packed it in at 6:30, I scooted home, quickly changed clothes and headed off to Penn Valley Park.

Let me tell you - most of you probably don't know how far it is from 159th street to downtown. Downtown (at least where we play) is around 25th street. I didn't think I would get there in time for the game, let alone for the pre-game revelry.

But, I made it home, changed, hopped back in the car and got to the game in time for Andrea to get my pre-game ritual taken care of.

My face felt so itchy after she painted. I don't think I really was itchy, but since I knew I couldn't scratch it, or touch it, for fear of smearing, all I could think about was how my skin felt funny and needed to be scratched!

CY and Rita definitely win the prize for complete costumes - check out their bones! Cap'n Dave, one of the instigators of this blessed event, is conspicuously makeup-free over there on the right...He SAYS it's because he had to ref the game right before and it went over. Maybe he just wussed out on the makeup?

Nah, I doubt it.

That's me, getting made up by Andrea. I shot that Hail Mary style with the phone while she did the work.

Checking out everyone's handiwork. That's Kristin back there on the left, working on Andrea's face. Wait til you see how it turned out. It's freaking great.

Bag of bones.

There's Kristin's handiwork. Check out all of the shading in those flowers. Not bad for a job completed in the dark, in the dugout.

What do you think about the iPhone photos? I might be able to eke 4x6 prints out of them for my scrapbook. Those'll be a little pixelated, but I think they look pretty damn good on here, considering they were shot after sundown, only lit by baseball field lights. I'll be interested to see what else I can do with the phone, photo wise.

Oh yeah, we crushed the other team, good ol' Swunts and Swalls. So, I think we play twice next week. I went 1 for 2, with a single and a run scored.

How do you say "0 fer" en Español?

Because that's what I was tonight - 0 fer 2. Even with my superfans in attendance, I couldn't get on base!

Here they are: Amy "I'm doing my best to look nonchalant" Laws Meyer, Mitzi "Oh wait, she's taking a picture" Peterson, and Adam "don't bother me while I play with my wife's iPhone" Chittum.

I did, however, kick a pop foul that went over the fence and bounced off of our mariachi jukebox (aka Mike's Jeep). Whoops.

El Guapo's mojo was a little rusty in the beginning - not much offense in the first inning, and the other team scored a couple of runs. We had a little injured reserve issue - the top two in the lineup were both out tonight - a bike accident and a kickball injury from last week kept JB and TY out of the lineup tonight. Little did I know that our manager, Travis "Sparky" Young, would raise us up to victory with his shrewd kickball strategizing and cheering from the dugout.

Even with the slow start, we came away with a 6-3 victory. It's the first time we've allowed more than one run in a game.

This seemed to the be the other team's offensive strategy: Bunt. Bunt. Bunt. Bunt. Bunt. Bunt. Kick it as hard as you can. Let the girls do whatever they can.

Yeah, yeah, our team tends to do a little bunting, but every time?! Thus, it was a slow night for us out in the outfield. TJ got a workout behind the plate, though.

I shot a bit of video, but I'm going to save it up and hopefully edit a little piece together at the end of the season. We'll see how it goes.

As promised - here's the wrap from last week's game against Swunts and Swalls (I think I just threw up a little in my mouth as I typed that).

I think Creighton wrote it, but maybe Dave or someone else can correct me.

So, after this week, we're a big 7-0. I'll get you the official wrap up from this week as soon as I see it.

•••

We went to the marathon expo before the game - got our race packets and some shwag. I'm ready - I just hope it's not freezing cold Saturday. A girl can hope.

Ahhhh, how cute, you're trying to use big words...

but I don't think you really know what they mean.

Check out this recap of our kickball game from last week (written by the other team).

From the WAKA newletter last week

Can you be "over prententious"? I think it's "overly pretentious." And, while I am being quite pretentious in this here blog post, that's the LAST word you can use to describe our kickball antics.

A pretentious team would not play mariachi music from the sidelines.

A pretentious team stay completely sober the entire game so that they could make sure the rules are followed to the letter of the law.

A pretentious team would complain about every call even when they're beating the other team by 13 runs.

A pretentious team would leave the sombreros at home so that they could be completely focused on the game at hand.

A pretentious team would make damn sure they got their write-up written in the newsletter.

This is not us. This is not El Guapo.


I think there's already a recap in the works for last night's game, so I'll get it posted when I see it.

We're not pretentious - you're just jealous, since we've kicked ass in every game we've played so far (knock wood).

Even playing a game with a kickball so juiced it felt like kicking a bowling ball provided by the other team, we still scored 13 runs to their 1 or 2 (I can't remember exactly - maybe a team member can clarify). Betcha didn't know a kickball could be juiced, but jeezy petes, it was. It had so much air in it that on one bounce it would fly about another mile.

"Oh, we just bought that today! We didn't air it up!" Yeah, right.

It was a big night for me - got moved up in the lineup, went from about 15th (a slight exaggeration) to third. Why, you ask? For my speed, of all things. Adam found this quite funny when I told him that. He kicks my butt every time we have a foot race, but I guess I'm the fastest runner on our team, so I've been moved up to the sacrificial lamb spot on the roster.

If I get on base, it's gravy, because my job is to advance the guys who kicked before me (who are, in fact, lightning fast). The change in strategy seemed to work for us last night. We'll see how it goes the rest of the season.

The Upright Citizen's Brigade (or, El Guapo rocks WAKA KC)

I've been spending my Thursday nights lately down at Penn Valley Park playing kickball in the World Adult Kickball league. One of the teachers I work with mentioned one time that she plays, and the team is always looking for girl members (ah, the constant lament of any recreational adult sport), so I joined up.

If you're wondering about the Mexican regalia, it's because our team is called El Guapo. We listen to mariachi music during all of our games...It's a theme thing!

Right now, our team is rockin' the league. We're undefeated!

Even though it's a bit of a drive to PVP, I love playing up there. There's a great view of the downtown skyline from our kickball fields. We live out in the burbs, but I still get to play in the city!