This Used To Be Our Playground: Attack Of The Kicktards
Last night the rugby team arrived at Stead Field to find the part of the field that's often used by youth baseball layered high with gravel where the bases would be as you can see in the photo at left.
The gravel renders about half of the field unusable for rugby, as it is piled at the pitcher's mound and bases posing a danger for tripping. And gravel and tackling don't mix very well. Pea gravel tends to get under your skin when you grind up against it. So we played the best we could on a pitch that is already too small, now rendered unfit even for practice scrimmaging. Basically all we can do safely now is warm-up and practice drills. But we must have the ability to scrimmage in a game-like situation to be prepared for our fall season matches.
We've been playing on Stead Field for years, have paid for our reservations on time, and have on occasion seeded, watered and conditioned the turf with no help from the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) even after the sprinkler system quit working years ago. We had also just paid up for field reservations through November, and now we're screwed. And the DPR had not informed us of the "improvements" that would make the field unusable for rugby practice.
A few of us had thought it was odd that gravel had been added, particularly so high on the pitcher's mound and bases after the DPR had left it alone for so many years. But today a teammate spotted the reason for the odd "improvements" - kickball.
It's possible someone from DCKickball got inside DPR and had this done without community knowledge, and obviously without community input. Nobody asked us about it. I wonder if anyone from Friends of Stead Park are aware of this alteration of the field and would take our concerns seriously if we approached them for help. Stead needs to be fixed back to how it was, or DPR needs to help us find a suitable replacement field quickly. We had high hopes for a successful follow-up in the Potomac Rugby Union fall season to our 11-0 wins in the spring but the DPR screwed us.
Here's a photo from a spring practice, before everything was ruined for kickball:
Photo by M.V. Jantzen.
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Oh hell muhfuggin no! Tell me where I need to go to get this fixed. Fucking hipster ass no athletic ability having kickball btches can pla in fucking parking lot. Kickball doesn't require any base paths, dirt, mounds, or anything else. When I was in school we played on asphalt. Kick those kickball wankers to the curb. Without the Renegades there wouldn't be a field there.
Berto is pissed.
I need to start using this "kicktards" word. They're not even cultured enough to be hipsters, they're just yeah!boys and woo!girls trying to hyperextend their Georgetown/GW "experience".
(And I agree with Amanda Hess: there's a reason these kids call a serial rapist "the cuddler". If they can take over a public park all the time so they can have a 45-minute pseudo-athletic interlude to their all-night "networking" sessions, they're probably so accustomed to their own privilege that they're effectively sheltered from anything anyone ever has to actually deal with ever.)
Welcome to DC politics! If you can be screwed, you will be!
This must be sooo frustrating , can't believe that nobody asked/informed you of these changes . The least they can do , if there not prepared to make the field safe , is to find you and other sportsmen , a decent field to use.
Jimbo,
We would love to see the Renegades at Kingsman Field in NE. It's on D Street between 13th & 14th. Hope that you will check it.
ps: the future dog park will be on the asphalt portion behind the school. None of the playing field is to be used.
pps: the D6 bus goes right pass the field.