My back is killing me...

(me in the foreground, with Jill, Adam, Emily, and Jellybean in the background)

...but damn it's good to be back.

The Moth Balls played last night against a team called "I'd Hit That". Before the game even began, their captain admitted to us that they had never played dodgeball before and that if they broke any rules, we should just let them now.

Well, they knew that if the ball hit them, they were out. But that's about all they knew.

For those of you who are new to this blog, the rules were a big problem in both the recreational and intermediate dodgeball leagues I played in last season. In particular, head shots were contentious.

This team, however, knew next to nothing. To their credit, they were very honest and worked hard to learn the rules. They asked for clarification a couple of times and actually called their own teammates out over relatively minor infractions like holding on to a ball for too long or crossing the line.

I was impressed. They'll be a good team by the end of the season.

As for our team play, we actually played one of the best games, if not the best game, in the Moth Balls' history.

Jellybean had four catches, usually at key times. (Including one impressive catch where the ball bounced off her face.) Jill also had four or five catches. Good teams make the easy catches.

Perhaps most impressively, Emily held her ground and took out the entire team one round. She made catches, sniped some throws, and generally picked them off one-by-one. It was a fantastic performance.

My play was alright. I made one catch purely on instinct because I got hit in the nuts and my body automatically snapped in to a fetal position... fortunately, doing that trapped the ball between my knees.

Pathetically, at the age of 25 I am now playing like I am past my physical peak. I'm relying on clever plays and quick thinking. It gets me my outs, but I'm hardly as quick or flexible as I used to be!