Captain Eddie and I just finished making new shirts for our Friday night league team. When we first started thinking of ideas, I pulled out some old snaps of a kit I made for the ill fated Grand Life squad that Tommy Saleh and I patched together for the Adidas Fanatic Tournament couple years back. Our ragtag side included my poker/park ball cronies Jordin Isip and Greg Benton as well as reluctant superstar keeper Brian Kelly. My friend Jon hooked us up with a his buddy who helped us outfit out kits with massive gold dookie rolls. What our team lacked in practice, we made up for in floss.
Game day was a beautiful sunny summer Saturday. The air was filled with the smell of burgers and the sounds of King Britt. It was an fantastic day to play ball. With teams like Vice, Kid Robot, Tokion, and Complex Mag plus a continuous flow of beverages courtesy of Heineken, I was expecting a competition of beer pong seriousness. That seemed to be happening on all the other group pitches except ours. We were getting slaughtered. Tommy’s Grand Life team had hoisted the cup a couple of years before which explained why our scrappy squad was placed in Group D. D apparently stood for Death.
As we took continuous beatings, it was clear that our destiny was firmly stomped to the bottom of our group. Though I could see this coming early on, I was still unprepared for the relentless bruises to body and ego throughout the day. My spirit was crushed by a personal deficit of skill and fitness as well as an excess of free beer.
Looking back at the photos from that day, I can still taste the beatdowns but even though we suffered mutiple indignations, I actually remember having a lot of fun. Selective memory? Perhaps. But at least we looked cool.
