dodgeball fun   (pic(s), random re me)

Recently I've been playing dodgeball on tennis courts on Sunday afternoons. Lightin' bastids up is always fun. Yesterday was a watershed event, though—we had almost twice as many people in one game as we'd ever had before, and that was even before the Washington Post article on our group came out today! Here are some pics from the article (links go to a scanned version of the article):

I played dodgeball a lot as a kid, in what I like to call "church Boy Scouts", but it was a different type of dodgeball usually. Every man for himself, 2 or 3 balls. You had to sit down when you got hit, but you could still get back into the game by hitting or catching a ball thrown by someone who's still in.

Our group plays what strikes me as a modified version of what I knew as greek dodge, which works really well on a tennis court, because instead of just having people on the far end once they get out, you can be on all sides of the other team. I think it also works better with a lot of people (20+ total) and a lot of balls (3+). There's a lot more strategy involved than you might think, mostly centered around keeping control of the balls and keeping your opponent moving and/or off-balance.

Good times—If you're in the MD/DC/VA area, check out the Yahoo! group linked above and come get your ass handed to you. It'll be fun. Just don't expect us to go easy on you, Nancy Boy.