THE ALL CASCADIA KICKBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS

it was raining at overlook park in portland, ore. u.s.a. for the all cascadia kickball championships on saturday afternoon. the vancouver, b.c. contingent had arrived well ahead of anyone else and was camped underneath a large deciduous tree that let only some -- though in larger droplets, it seemed -- of the rain through its leaves and branches. in addition to three coolers filled with who knows what, there were a dozen cases of beer piled near the players' cheering accessories, all of it purchased, incidentally, for the price of a single sixer in canada. beer and kickball, it seemed, were as synonymous as beer and canada, so the show would go on (and well fueled), even for the rain.

not that the rain is anything that should phase anyone who'd call herself a cascadian, but this was the first weekend that the weather had confirmed the passing of summer, and there was palpable regret at overlook park over the lack of sun for the event. if kickballers are going to get wet, they'd prefer to do it head first into home base on the slip and slide. the weather did, however, keep seattle from showing. at three o'clock, an hour past the scheduled beginning of the championships, portland's team of select competitors (apparently there are close to two hundred teams here) had arrived to meet the canadians, but it was clear that no one would be coming to represent washington. not that anyone was surprised. once more with feeling!: seattle, well, i'm sorry.

thank god, portland! you brought a tent. it may be a rose city taboo to open an umbrella, but portland knows that fall sports heckling is best done from the easy comfort of shelter, and that tree wasn't really coming through. what's more, now there'd be dry spectating from a vantage nearer the diamond. the spectating was fine, too, since team moon wolf mandates short shorts on each of its players. the flea market outside chinatown got credit for most of team vancouver's jerseys -- but who knows where that one girl got that wolf head merkin. as time and game moved on, her team members weren't wearing much more below the waists. what had probably started the morning in seattle as proper jeans were cut further and further up the moon wolves' thighs, sometimes to the marked chagrin of their teammates more eager to get on with the game. "you two, stop scissoring. we need another dick in the field."

vancouver went up early. and big. there was a scoreboard behind home that passing players turned every time they came through, and it showed ten to zero in favor of the canadians before the end of the first inning. perhaps portland hadn't expected their rag tag opponents to be any competition and hadn't yet put their heads in the game. after all, the canadians are known for their lassitude when it comes to procedure, and it wouldn't have been unexpected had portland not expected vancouver to perform under the rules (strictly enforced except for the length of the game) of america's national pastime. but the moon wolves shined under the pressure that grey afternoon -- if not under any big lights to mark the scale of the match-up. by the fifth of seven innings, portland hadn't managed to answer a single point to vancouver's fifteen. the moon wolves howled.

it was a different kind of howl, though, that echoed through the tent when a report from the camp at the tree came to inform the managers that the stock of beer had almost been depleted. america must have been poaching from the north, an incisive metaphor for something, no doubt, and it seemed to have worked to their advantage. while it's possible that the moon wolves had merely drank too much and passed their booze to performance acme, portland's rally in the final innings was just as likely a result of americans' not-so-secret pinch kicking advantage: they can do everything better drunk. when the final out of the final inning was made (a one handed catch, probably; a suitable close to a game in which the choice between saving a beer and making a play is the measure of dedication in both directions), portland had narrowed its point deficit to under ten. under five, even? besides portland's creepily fastidious manager, no one seemed to be counting at that point.

and that was it. with no team from seattle, vancouver had won itself the all cascadia championships with its one victory. there was a to-do over a trophy (like the merkin, who can guess the origin of the jumping dolphins?), but more commotion over the beer run, which was obviously going to be an imperative precursor to the friendly game to be played next, this one with canadian rules, which is to say there'd be hardly any, or at least to say aim for the head. cheers. and then whatever they say in canada.

one-hundred and forty-one dollars and twenty-two cents bought one-hundred and seventy-four beers that made it back to overlook park just in time for the rain to pick up and for teams to be picked. and for the teams to shotgun one of whatever they could find in a can from the new pile. it was hard to say how things went in game number two with no one keeping score, although someone must have been counting outs, because the teams kept switching sides; but there was really no being sure of that either. after twenty? thirty? minutes, the sheets of rain that were battering the diamond had, all of a sudden it seemed, chased most of the portland players off of the field -- but not under the tent, so they must have just gone. a shame, or a deferential tribute maybe, that they didn't leave with their share of the one-hundred seventy-four. an admission of defeat at any rate. vancouver, the all cascadia kickball dolphins jump for thee.

really, though, rain? it's only september. but the crowd cheered, most of it still on the field. "take of your shirts!" it was the man himself yelled it, and the crowd obliged, still cheering. pants would surely have come next were the wet post-scissor shorties not a point of vancouver pride. "this is my place and my time," their smiles seemed to sing in unison, and the jewel of the west shone down brilliantly from the true north. ironically, this was a foreign place, but it was as unanimous as the elation (remember how many beers?) that this couldn't have happened anywhere else. portland does, after all, know irony.