March 20, 2011

  • Beat The Clock

    So let me start off by giving you a link so you understand what I'm referring to when I say Whirlyball.

    http://www.whirlyball.com/what/

    I first discovered Whirlyball about 15 years ago and have been playing with friends no more than about 2-3 times a year and sometimes even less than that. In fact, we had not played in about two years. So Friday night we went to play for my sister in law's sister's 30th birthday. We had the court for two hours and had probably about 20-25 people to share a court that plays 10 people at at time. So, we broke it down to 10 minute games.

    Now I have always been an awful Whirlyball player. I can't score to save my life. In all these years, I have scored only once. Well Friday night we were playing in one of the games and somehow I have the ball as the clock was ticking down to the end of a tied game. Or at least I'm next to the ball, trying to scoup the damn thing up with my racket. As I'm fighting to get the damn ball, the ref is counting down the time from 10 seconds. I can hear him counting down "10, 9, 8......" and so forth when I finally manage to get the ball into my racket. There were only about five seconds left and nobody else open for me to pass to so it pretty came down to a very bad thing for me and my team: I was the last chance to win. I was probably about 10-15 feet from the basket and it was on an angle so it was not the easiest of shots but again, I was our only hope. And the ref counted down the time: 5, 4, 3, So I flung the damn thing up and much to my shock, it fucking went in with two seconds left. By the time the ball came out of the basket, the game was over.

    Overall it was a pretty fun night. The thing about Whirlyball is that it is a painful game to play. You keep getting slammed in your bumper car over and over. For little guys like me, it is a way to actually hit somebody hard in a way we couldn't do outside of a car. The next day you always feel like you have been in a minor car accident and have bruises in places you don't want bruises. But it is worth it because it is a good time. I don't know if they have Whirlyball outside of Illinois, so you might just have to take my word for it unless you come here to play.