Kickball Hardos Are a Different Breed of People
I've recently joined a kickball league. I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting myself into. All I knew is that it was co-ed, and our league was the "recreational division". There are 4 divisions, and recreational is supposed to be the 3rd most competitive. I was very much under the impression that it was a laid back thing. I mean, even in the competitive leagues, people can't take kickball THAT seriously can they?
INCORRECT
Very incorrect. In hindsight I should have expected this. I've played in "recreational" adult softball and hockey leagues, and there always people who take it way too seriously. I don't know why I ever thought those people wouldn't exist in kickball.
I've been observing them for the last 4 weeks. In my head I do the hushed National Geographic voice from the documentaries where they stealthily observe tigers through the tall grass. I'm fascinated by these people.
"Here we have a Kickball Hardo in his natural habitat" - That sort of thing. Please read this blog in National Geographic voice.
A kickball hardo wakes up on the day of a game already thinking about his upcoming match. He most likely dreamed about it. Not dreaming about kicking a home run or anything, but dreaming about what defensive rotations would maximize their team's top talent, and best hide the girls who foolishly thought they were signing up for a fun, laid-back experience.
The hardo packs a gym bag that contains a pair of brand pair of $250 soccer cleats. He might even wear them on his walk to work to help break them in. Cleats are the simplest way to identify a true Kickball Hardo (that or any sort of leg/arm sleeve). A good pair of kickball cleats are brightly colored, so that everybody at the kickball complex can quickly identify you as a serious player. Cleat wearing Kickball Hardo's do a Jeep wave-esque head nod when passing each other on the field (I've witnessed this first hand).
A kickball hardo likes to get to the field at least 1 hour early to stretch dramatically in a highly visible area so that everybody sees him when they arrive. Like the world's saddest peacocking. As his teammates roll in, he gives them each a casual fist bump and says things like, "Big game tonight", and "Let's get after it", and "I was thinking last night that we should swap Jennie for James in the field. I think James is more valuable at 3rd base than in CF, and Jennie hasn't had her head in the game lately. It's almost like she's drunk."
Yes, of course Jamie is drunk. We're all drunk. Because we're playing kickball.
But between the lines is where a Kickball Hardo really earns his stripes. What makes them stick out so much more than other hardos is the disparity in skill-level between the best and worst players on the field. On one end of the spectrum, you have the hardos who are there to fucking win, and on the other end you have nice quiet girls in their mid 20's who recently moved to the city and joined a kickball league to meet friends, have a few laughs, and get a little exercise. These girls are the bane of a Kickball Hardo's existence. They don't know what a force out is. They don't know when to advance a base, or what it means to tag up. They just thought kickball would be a fun way to spend 1 hour a week for a couple of months in the spring. Boy were they wrong.
It falls on the shoulders of the Kickball Hardo to whip these girls into shape. The team hardo must make it clear to them from the jump that laissez-faire attitudes will not be accepted. There's a handful of ways the hardo goes about doing this.
The hardo's favorite thing to do is loudly shout detailed directions to every person on the field before every pitch. Jamie needs to know that if she fields a groundball, it is imperative she looks back the runner at 3rd base, before throwing the ball to 1st for the force. Nevermind the fact that Jamie has no concept of what it means to "look a runner back", and doesn't have anywhere close to enough arm strength to throw out a runner from across the diamond. It's a physical impossibility. Weak arms + heavy ball = not gonna happen. When she inevitably fields the ball and politely hands it back to the pitcher, the hardo will sigh loudly from left field, making his displeasure known to all.
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Another classic hardo move is to run the baserunner ahead of them off the base. If the hardo kicks a ball to the fence, and there's a runner on first, that runner on first better put their head down and run, because the Kickball Hardo is going to be on their ass by the time they reach second base. When the full speed hardo catches up to the runner in front of them, he'll begin to scream, "RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN! RUN!" as loud as he can directly into his teammates ear to let her know that he is displeased with her speed. Letting her know that if she even thinks about slowing down, she will be trampled by the cleats of a 200-pound adult man playing a recess game. If either of them end up getting out, it is NOT the hardo's fault for running his teammate off the base. It is his teammates fault for not being fast enough.
But my favorite Kickball Hardo move happens when he's simply had enough of his teammates incompetence. At some point during the game, the hardo will come to the decision that a particular teammate can no longer be relied on in the field, and will start fielding their position for them. I once watched a man catch a ball in center field, and instead of throwing it to the girl standing on 2nd for the force out, he did a full-out sprint, barely beating the runner and nearly causing a massive 3 way collision. You can throw safety and caution out the window when it's a 7 run game in the 4th inning of Week 3 and Team 19's Hardo has a chance to make a big double play
If the hardo does his job right, by mid-season, the underperformers on his team will either have their shit together, or will have stopped showing up to games entirely because he's made the kickball experience completely miserable for them. Either way, it's a job well done by the hardo. You have to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I love these people. Not personally. I'm not interested in interacting with them. But I love that they exist. Any good rec league team, no matter what sport, needs at least 1 person who treats the games as life or death. If you're a Kickball Hardo reading this, please do not take my insulting words too personally. Not that I don't mean what I said. I think you're a very strange breed of person. But the world needs people like you. It's all part of the Rec League Kickball experience.
