Kickball

I read recently on another blog that the hipsters in Williamsburg had adopted kickball as their sport of choice. Kickball? I hadn't seen or heard of kickball since I played it in elementary school back in the early sixties. Well what do I see today in Chinatown? A kickball game! This is incredible. It's like baseball except the ball is much bigger and you kick it instead of batting it. Nine players to a side, three outs to an inning and seven innings to a game. Three strikes and you are out, but four fouls will get you out also. I will assume that four balls will award you a walk but I didn't see this happen. I kind of remember that if the ball was kicked, the fielder was able to get the batter out if he hit the kicker with the ball before the kicker reached base. This didn't seem to be the case in this game but maybe my memory is faulty or we just played a rougher version. After all I did grow up in a very tough neighborhood. Since baseball and softball are no longer Olympic sports, I wonder if the IOC will replace them with kickball for the London Games in 2012?