Ow.

Upon reflection, I've decided that engaging in contact sports at age 48 is something of a poor recreational choice.

Not that I had a great deal of choice when it happened.

Setting: The beach at Belmont Shore - July 4, 2008.  A day that will not live in history but will perhaps serve as a reminder that there are times when I'm just not that bright (I know the extreme shock you must be experiencing right now).

Everything started out fine.  BIG barbecue, lots of fun being had by all (in some cases in direct proportion to the quantities of alcohol consumed) - by my tally, 200 lbs of meat cooked (not an exaggeration) - chicken, baby back ribs, carne asada, hamburgers, hot dogs, you get the idea, plus about 5 bags of chips and 2 kegs of beer.  My kind of barbecue (there was some grumbling from the female contingent about the lack of variety in the fare being served, but my take is, if you want lettuce at a barbecue, bring it yourself).

The great thing was, I didn't have to plan anything - just bring my balls (volleyball, football, 4-square ball, paddle ball, beach ball - why, what were you thinking?).  And that's where the plan went just a wee bit awry.

You see, people who drink beer shouldn't be allowed to have ideas.  Any ideas.  Because when you're half lit, any idea you have is bound to be bad.  Bad, bad, bad.  At least for me.

It was my buddy Jim's bash - quite a few people from work were there, along with various and sundry girlfriends, wives, family, drop-ins...

Jim is a great guy.  In fact, you could make a case that Jim is THE great guy - the kind of prototype great guy who defines what great guydom is.  You want to talk sports.  Jim is your guy.  Cars.  Ditto.  Women.  No problem.  Drink beer.  Tell jokes.  Hang out for no good reason at all.  All standard operating procedure for Jim.  He's just about impossible not to like.

So when he saw the football I brought, he got excited, saying something clever like "Bob, let's play football.  Come on." And what do you say to a great guy like Jim? (Hint: "No" is a great start and an even better finish.)  Like I said, sometimes I'm not the brightest bulb in the package.

So football it was. 

This was not the original plan.  I brought the football for the same reason I brought a frisbee - to play catch.  Playing catch is relaxing.  Playing catch is fun.  Most important of all, playing catch is a non-contact sport, at least in the sense that the only contact you're making is contacting the football with your hands, or, if you're slightly less coordinated or aware, your face (not that this has ever happened to me).  Regardless, while playing catch, you're not likely to have several other guys ranging from welter-weight to super-heavyweight launching themselves at you from all angles in an attempt to dislodge the ball from your arms (and your head from the rest of your body).

In the game of football of course, it's a different story.  The first (and only) rule I cared about was just how painful this experience was going to be - for me.  The young guys (by which I mean everyone else), and of course Jim, were all for playing tackle football.  I on the other hand, was all for keeping my shoulders un-separated and collar-bone unbroken, and insisted strongly on playing "touch."  I was able to convince the guys that, no matter how 'loose' some of us were feeling, sand is pretty much just really small rocks, and that's what we'd be falling on. So I got my way.  Sort of. 

Football is a game best played by young men wearing helmets and LOTS of padding.  Young, agile, swift, powerful men who recover quickly from bone-jarring collisions and dislocated humeruses.  Not middle-aged men with spare tires around their mid-sections who spend the majority of their work time staring at tiny computer screens and the majority of their non-work time staring at massive television screens.  Put Jim and I in the latter category.

Things started out fine.  We put the old guys (Jim and I) on opposing teams (by the way, Jim goes into the super-heavy division - the guy's got some serious size on him), then spread the wealth of the young guys among us to try and make it even.  Oh yeah, I got the only other geezer on the field - a 5'6", 148 lb, 49 year-old bantam rooster without the good sense to figure out he's not 23 anymore (unlike me).  He also had a personality that could charitably be described as irritating and by the time we'd been playing for 15 minutes, I wanted to kick his ass myself - and he was on my team (any 49 year old who shows up for a beach party wearing his shorts just barely above his crotch line, with about 6" of skivvies showing, deserves what he gets).  I'll give him credit though - he actually kept up with the young dudes pretty well (though I bet he's feeling it today - more on that in a minute).

Being the tall guy, I got to be the quarterback.  I started out pretty well, completing 6 of 7 passes, including one for a touchdown (the one incomplete was to the banty-legged 49 year old who dropped it when I laid it right in his hands - after he'd griped for the 4th play in a row that he was open - "didn't you see me?" "No, but I can hear you just fine...").  I even caught a pass for another touchdown when we switched QBs and let the middle-aged midget throw the ball, just to make him quit whining.  I think the other team was so shocked that he completed the pass - and that I caught it - that they just stood there while I trotted into the end-zone (clearly marked by a random stick planted in the sand).

So far, so good.  That's when time began to catch up.  In the first place, there's a big difference between working out in the gym and getting your exercise on a football field (er, sandy beach) - the primary difference being that when you're on a treadmill or doing bench presses, the equipment isn't trying to pummel you into submission.  And the whole "touch vs. tackle" argument was definitely leaning into the "tackle" dimension.  I was getting clocked by guys whose definition of touching did not come from the Esalen Institute.

By the time the fireworks were ready, the scoreboard read Good Guys (us) 21, Bad Guys (them) 21 (we assumed the extra point conversions were good).  I'd also scored a sand-burned knee, wrenched back, slightly bruised ribs, and possibly a mild concussion - though it's possible I was suffering brain damage before I ever went on the field, so we'll let that one pass.  The other highlight of the game was watching Jim, all 6'3" and 260 lbs of him, run a sweep left and completely annihilate my Rooster-teammate with a classic Larry Czonka drive, running directly over him for a first down (I should be ashamed of myself for giggling at the pain of my teammate).  I've got to hand it to the little guy though - he bounced right back up and kept playing, though there was a definite wobble to his strut for the next couple of plays.

Rooster-guy wanted to keep playing into the night (what is it about certain little dudes that they absolutely have to prove they're the baddest and the best), so I encouraged him to do so on his own.  I promised to root from the sidelines, where I prepared to receive mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from the cheerleading section. 

Unfortunately, the EMTs came and carried me away on a stretcher as the 4th of July fireworks went off overhead, so I'll never know who won.