Spring Dodgeball - Week Six: Stop Holding Your Balls.

Hey, I finally worked a ball joke into the title. You're welcome, you childish, childish freaks.

As with any good sport, dodgeball is, for the most part, entirely unpredictable. One team can have a good day and beat a team that on most days they wouldn't have a chance in the world against. Of course, it works the other way, too. You can have a rough outing and get torn to shreds by a team that you're clearly better than. I'm not calling our loss this week a fluke, though I would like to. As usual, it can be chalked up to many things, but it's tough to make too many excuses for this one. We got beat by a fair margin, and even if a few things would have shifted our way, it would have been close.

So, I won't go into the gritty (and by that I mostly mean petty) details of the match because it would no doubt end in me whining about things that I am ashamed to care about. But I will say this one thing: playing the whole "hold onto your balls until the other team throws theirs" game plan is weak. Sure, it's a legitimate strategy and it really can make a difference, but as soon as you start employing any sort of real, thought-out, pre-planned strategy in our coed dodgeball league, you can count on me hating you and everything you stand for. Just throw the damn ball. Stop with this time-wasting little scheme of yours that's going to yield a possible victory after a long and drawn-out match. Just throw the ball.

Ugh. As you can tell, our first match was a frustrating loss that left us all, as usual, a little pissy. As you know, this means that we were out for sweet revenge in our next match, and that has historically gone a few different ways: unhinged anger that results in poor play, or focused ire that drives us to win. This time it ended up being a little of both, but mostly the latter.

I swear, we are always playing this orange team. I wouldn't mind, but it seems like there are teams in the league that we're not playing while we're playing these guys like three times. I think I've got my facts mixed up there, but that's how it's all going down in the ol' noggin. Anyway, it's actually not a terrible thing, because they're a good match for us, and the people on their team have a pretty good attitude. Probably better than ours, when it comes down to it. And we often need somebody to remind us that it's all a game. They're good for that. All smiley and shit.

They gave us a good run this time out, and like I've said before, they're going to be really good in a few more seasons. They're still sort of getting their shit together, but once they do, they're going to be a force. And then - and only then - will I get all Gillooly on their asses.

Things were a little too close during the entire match, but towards the end we pulled slightly ahead and held on for the victory. And we needed it. If we would have lost two in the last week of the regular season, I would have quit the team, just to get some attention. Just to feel something that could take away the pain of that loss. You fellow emotional wrecks know what I'm talking about.

Oh, yeah, it was the last week of the season. We ended up with four losses. Not our best showing, folks. We still managed to come in third, but there was a two-way tie for second, so really it's more like fourth.

We've got to really make shit happen in the playoffs if we want to shock the dodgeball world and take the championship. I should probably start doing Tae-Bo.

Standings are here.

Ton more videos here. This Vimeo Plus account is making me feel like a real high-roller.

And if you haven't thanked Joy for filming all of this stuff, you really should. You ungrateful curs.