steady diet of fastballs

Kim Coletta and the D.C. punx/softball scene

From Issue #3 of ChinMusic! Magazine

For your special shortstop.

Monday night softball with ex-Jawbox infielder Kim Coletta Interview by Kevin Chanel

Kim Coletta: We started playing about 7 years ago. A bunch of local folks just got together and began playing on a nearby field. It's always been Monday at 6 pm. We're nuts though. We play as long as you possibly can in this area. We begin right after daylight savings time in April and go until October. The only thing that stops us in October is lack of daylight! We start at 6 pm and play until it gets dark. In the middle of the summer that can be almost 3 hours. We pick different teams each week and try to balance the players on each team based on ability so it's a good game and evenly matched. If we fuck up and one team is creaming the other, we just switch a couple players mid-game.

CM: That's so very polite. It's such a drag when one team's getting creamed and the winning team doesn't wanna just kill the game. Who all is involved?

KC: We're just a bunch of friends loosely connected by music and/or work. A lot of us live out in Silver Spring, Maryland (northern suburb of DC) near the field, but others drive from as far away as downtown D.C. and Arlington, VA (30 minutes away). Music people (past and present) include me, Bill Barbot (Jawbox/Burning Airlines), Amy Pickering (mail order at Dischord), Melissa (sales at Dischord), Darren and Eric (Kerosene 454), Ian (Fugazi), Stu and Mike (Shudder to Think), Al (Regulator Watts), Mike (The Better Automatic/Resin Records), John (Held Like Sound fanzine), Katy (Bald Rapunzel) and Chad and Hilary (Smart Went Crazy).

KC: It's not league at all because we think league play sucks. I've played league games in this area and there are all these bullshit rules--games only last one hour! In co-ed play, men start with one strike against them, etc.

CM: Leagues definitely suck. The only good thing is that you don't have to cardboard boxes as bases.

KC: We're very fortunate. We used to use pieces of carpet for the bases until two summers ago. A kid we played with was a camp counselor that year and at the end of the summer he stole these nice rubber bases for us!

CM: That's great that so many of you have been able to keep it going for so long. Are any of you adamant about which positions you play?

KC: I'm pretty adamant about playing first base, but everyone's respectful of that. My goal this summer is to play around the infield more. I want to give second base a try. There are others who gravitate to infield vs. outfield, but it's very loose. We rotate the catcher position because no one ever wants to play there. Too boring.

CM: I'm pretty adam ant about first base myself. I think it's strange that I fear the hot grounder, but for some reason somebody aiming it at my face intentionally doesn't scare me at all...

CM: As far as you know, did any of the others play Little League, or high school...or--god forbid--College?

KC: I know none of my fellow players ever played college ball and probably most didn't even play on their high school teams.

KC: I played city softball when I was growing up. I really wanted to play Little League, but girls hadn't busted in at that point. I grew up in New Hampshire and my kiddie highlight was making state champions and getting to go down to Long Island for a tournament... where we got our asses whooped by the very tough New Yorkers.

CM: That's pretty cool that you got that far. How old were you when you did this?

KC: We were called the Blue Demons. Don't need a nickname when your name is already that damn cool!

CM: Were there any occasions on tour with Jawbox where you just had to pull over at some park and get a quick game in? Perhaps some 3-on-3 "duct tape ball"?

KC: Unfortunately, this never happened with Jawbox. Bill and I were ball-inclined, but J. and Zach didn't share our great love of the sport.

CM: Aww...didn't you give them peer-pressure? You gotta needle 'em. I'm interested, when you were growing up, did you (or do you still) follow any pro teams? I'm guessing you're too young for the Senators. For that matter, I'm only guessing that yer from D.C.

KC: I grew up in southern New Hampshire, just 35 miles outside of Boston. My brother and I were huge Red Sox fans and did go to games at Fenway Park. I used to go to punk rock shows in Boston and as you walk by Fenway, home run balls would just pop into the street. There's something so amazing about a ball being hit out of a stadium. You miss that in the new stadiums. My dad was and always will be a Yankees fan. To this day I have no idea why because he's never lived there and he never even travels to New York. And I don't need to tell you how bloody obnoxious Yankees fans are. I secretly admire them. I now support the Baltimore Orioles and saw a couple Orioles/Yankees games last summer. I always manage to get seats in sections where the busloads of Yankees fans are sitting. They are very loud! Camden Yards in Baltimore is a cool stadium--really modeled after the old stadiums like Fenway. It's smallish and has great sightlines. Because people from DC and Baltimore go to games, it's hard to get good tickets. But there are also a million games of baseball a summer, so I expect to go several times. I'm always on the lookout to befriend season ticket holders... And for the record, certain business groups in DC are going full-bore to try and get a team back to Washington, D.C. proper. It's very controversial for a variety of reasons, so we'll see what happens.

KC: I also want to say that once each summer we get together a baseball game. It's completely dangerous because we suck at pitching and the odds of someone getting hurt completely increase. But it's so much fun! That little ball really flies when you hit it.

KC: Uh, there have been a few spectacular injuries. A woman playing with us took a grounder in the face and actually spit several teeth out. Also, Al from Regulator Watts slid into home face first, caught his arm on the bag and dislocated his shoulder. He was in so much pain he didn't even know where he was. Besides that, just the usual host of black eyes and pulled groins (this is a man injury). My body is still sore from softball on Monday. I'm 32 now and it was definitely a lot easier 10 or 20 years ago. The recovery time is longer now. My goal this year is to slide a few times. Now that will really fuck up the body, but it's just something I have to do.