The Sport of Kings

What's up with the national dodgeball fascination? Seems like we've all gotten nostalgic for elementary school gym class, but to be honest, dodgeball was (relatively) cute when you were in fourth grade and significantly less so when you're thirty-seven and unemployed. Besides, it's not like we've seen any major recurrence of adults riding Big Wheels™ bikes in circles or climbing on the monkey bars. (Well, there is the Al-Qaeda training video they keep showing us of the Afghani dude doing the monkey bars at that training camp.... Could the media please stop showing it? Seriously, we're not scared of that guy — he's doing the freaking monkey bars for Christ's sake. I bet after that he plays on a tire swing or something. Asshole.)

See, my theory is that we're all so filled with rage and frustration and... uh, what's a synonym for "rage"... and fury that we fantasize about pegging total strangers with a red rubber ball. I mean, it's a bit more legal than beating them over the head with a two-by-four or hitting them with a Volvo.

At least, that's my theory. I haven't actually played dodgeball since fifth grade, and in six years of dodgeball — which, I have to say, is the longest I've stuck with any sport — I've never been pegged and I only got one person out. In fourth grade, about two-thirds of the way through the year, I caught that British kid Oliver's ball — and he was good at the game — sending him to the sidelines and significantly boosting my dodgeball self-esteem. And now, come to think of it, my classmates did give me my dodgeball props, and I was no longer picked last for teams. I'd moved up, as if fourth-grade phys ed were the Billboard charts, to third or fourth from last.

Gotta say as an aside that Mr. Dubrowski, the Coles School gym teacher, was suprisingly fair about picking team captains. And hypocrite that I was (am), as team captain, I always picked Oliver or Jason or Kevin Brenner or R.J. Milligan first too. I can sense your disapproval as I write this but, hey, I wanted to win.

That's what I remember about dodgeball. It wasn't the hell most other people recall, but it certainly wasn't worth turning into a game show or a movie (okay, maybe a Ben Stiller-quality movie). I don't quite get the appeal because most of real dodgeball memories involve me hiding behind the multi-purpose room stage steps or proscenium with Becky Gindin. Mr. Dubrowski was too busy keeping track of which of the approximately five-thousand kickballs currently in play were slugging our classmates to notice the young love blossoming sub-rosa in the recesses of the gym. For some reason, I just don't feel like that's the point of dodgeball.

No, the point of dodgeball is, as I said, taking out your anger at the world on some pathetic shlub who can't get out of the way fast enough. Problem is: right sentiment, wrong time. On the dodgeball range (Court? Field? "I'll meet you down at the karate rink!" -- Tom Servo), no one's actually in your way. Being a middle-aged dodgeball player would be infinitely less pitiful if, out of nowhere, you hurled a kickball at the greasy guy who always holds the elevator door open for his slow-ass friend or an old lady who insists on paying for her groceries in nickels and pennies. Think of how much more smoothly the world would operate if everyone carried around a large rubber ball for just such a situation!

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Final note: I guess some nerds, dweebs, dorks, and doofuses got themselves elected to New Jersey public office. As of November 18, 2002, dodgeball is illegal in the state of New Jersey.