It’s the bottom of the final inning. The home team is down by 2, with runners on second and third. Two outs. The pitcher stares down from the rubber with malice in his eyes. The wind up… the pitch… It’s a curve. The ball is popped up in the air just over second base. The center fielder dashes up to make the grab.
“No play!” comes the cry from the umpire. “The pitch was too bouncy. Strike three on the pitcher. Yer outta the game!” Pandemonium ensues.
A little league baseball game? No. Softball? Nope. This is the high-pressure world of neighborhood Kickball, as played in Frisco’s Duncan Park, near Curtsinger Elementary, once a month.
If you haven’t played kickball in a while, you should give it a try. It’s truly a game that equalizes the field between big brawny dads and their fourth-grade daughters. Trying to blast the ball over everyone’s head usually results in a pop fly that hangs in the air long enough to consult with the center fielder on the wind direction, grab a drink of water, then saunter over and catch the ball. Meanwhile, you can’t under estimate the difficulty of pegging a three-foot tall kid racing down the base path from 30 feet away with an oversized ball with a penchant for flying off at odd angles.
The Curtsinger Husband Community Kickball League (CHuCKLe) is the brain child of Bryan McNary (along with his wife, Darci, and their two daughters, Bailey and Kinsey). This outgoing, gregarious, database programmer – and self-professed “King of Kickball” - decided that he was tired of seeing people in the neighborhood that he didn’t know. He’d run into folks at school events, nod politely and move on. This wasn’t good enough. So Bryan started sending out invitations to come play kickball. It started out with a few close families but has now grown to include people from all over the Plantation Resort neighborhood. At the last event, Bryan rounded up over 30 moms, dads and kids of all ages. (Note: Members of the first two groups could also be included in the later, based on their behavior.)
Frisco suffers from the same malady that afflicts many bedroom communities. Parents get up in the morning and head off to their jobs, then spend their evenings in keeping up the household, helping with home work and other home-bound tasks. We rarely take the time to step outside and greet the people living around us. Throw in the ubiquitous rear-entry garages, and we may never even SEE our neighbors, much less greet them. I applaud any effort that brings us closer together as a community, even if it’s only for an hour or so once a month.
As we move into the hazy, lazy days of summer, I challenge all of my fellow Frisco-ites to find ways to get out and mingle with the folks in your neighborhood. Here in North Texas, most of us endure the summer months locked away in our air-conditioned homes. But it doesn’t take much to get out and scare up some activity. If necessary, wait until the evening hours when it cools off. I recall when we first moved to Frisco, we were invited to a block party around the corner. Now, nine years later, we’ve been getting together with the same group of people at least twice every summer. A couple of grills pulled into the street… some lawn chairs strewn about… Beverly’s famous “Texas Caviar.” These are the tastes of Texas summer that I hope my kids remember throughout their lives.
Oh and, by the way, if anyone thinks they’ve got what it takes to challenge CHuCKLe, bring it on!
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