This post is a couple weeks late. Sue me. I have a series of better-late-than-never posts I’ll be blasting out this week, some going as far back as last October, and take it mind it is now the following August. Derp.

I’ve gone to OTL (Over the Line) a few times before but this was the first time I have ever actually played in the official event on Fiesta Island.

For those of you not from San Diego, if I had to explain OTL or Over the Line in a nutshell, it’s basically poor man’s baseball, played on the sand, with a smaller field, just 3 players per team, and with no gloves.  Your own teammate pitches you a ball, which you then attempt to hit over the line to get “a man on base”. Hit the ball over the last fielder’s head fora home run. For the official rules in all their splendor, go yonder.

Now, that’s just the official part. The cultural part, or the uniquely San Diegan part of the sport that makes participating so much fun is the drinking involved, the decked out wagons, and the outfits. But best of all are the outrageous team names people give themselves which are so vulgar, raunchy, and hilarious it makes Deadpool pale by comparison.

I had the honor of being asked by my good friends Brett and Ryan to play on their team this year when a spot opened up, and our team name was “Any Hole’s a Goal”. Which is true. However this was Disney-rated compared to some of the other team names out there. Most memorable to me were:

• HA HA HA I gave you AIDS
• If everyone has herpes it’s like no one has herpes
• That’s not bird shit in your wife’s hair

You can’t make this shit up. Well, I can’t. But San Diego is clearly home to some of the funniest people in the world. It’s what makes us American’s finest city.

I’ll be honest, I was super nervous about playing. For one, I suck at sports. Yeah, I can just admit it. I didn’t play a whole lot of sports growing up and to this day I can hardly make contact with a golf ball to save my life. So a week before the event we had ‘team practice’. They say you’re supposed to practice the way you play, so naturally the three of us had to bring a couple dozen beers. After straight up missing the ball like 10 times I finally made contact and from there it was like riding a bike. I wasn’t gonna Mark McGwire anything out of the park but I could consistently get the ball over the line and away from fielders. Good enough. Hey, any hole’s a goal, right?

A couple possibly broken fingers later and I think we were all ready to dominate next Sunday.

Well next Saturday I had a wedding. Not only that I was in the wedding, so I was in for a long haul. I had to walk that fine line between getting trashed at a wedding and not drinking so much I couldn’t wake up at 4:50am the next morning to drag my ass to the playing field. I managed.

So… how did we do? We dominated! No we didn’t. We lost 2 for 2 but we sure as hell went down swinging. I think our first game we lost by one point, something like 4-5. And… I won’t even share the score for our second game.

But either way I had a blast. I would definitely do it again, and I even have some ideas for a kick ass OTL wagon I want to get started on for next year. Brett and Ryan, thanks for the invite! Looking forward to OTL 2017!

BTW, I realize I have no photos of our actual team on here. We suck at taking pictures. Will try to see if anyone else took any and add later!