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Clean Up, Play Ball
By
Jen Carlson
Published May 14, 2005
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Carlson
Published May 14, 2005
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Today is "It's My Park Day"! Which means that citywide you can volunteer to help clean up a park near you by planting, painting, restoring and just making it green again. Parks are important for things like: suntanning, reading the paper, people watching and of course...sports!
One park being cleaned up is Brooklyn's McCarren Park, where every Sunday night from 6 to 11pm the Brooklyn Kickball Society play ball. The teams, or those awake before noon (we've seen some of these kickballers), will be out there from 11am (on) today cleaning the place up. Ah, we remember kickball. Lining up, getting picked for teams only to then get hit square in the face by a red ball travelling at a speed that would definitely leave a mark upon impact. You may be thinking we're confusing the game with dodgeball, but we're not. This was certainly our elementary school experience with kickball. But we digress. The kickballers are always looking for new teammates so if you're interested head over to the park today, or on Sunday for the weekly game.
Another oddball sport gaining hype in Brooklyn is Bocce. The bocce folk won't be helping save the parks today but they will be playing some games. Because today is the New York City Urban Bocce Tournament of 2005! This toungue-in-cheek event is part sports tournament, part costume party and we're betting a whole lot more performance art than you'd originally think. The tourney is called Red Hook: The Ring of Fire!™ and it pits 24 teams of two in matching uniform against eachother (sidenote: best team names...Ralph Boccio and Sonofabocce). This happens from noon today to sunset on the baseball fields of Red Hook Park [Columbia Street], and the final rounds will take place at a later date in Coney Island.
Tagged
art
baseball
brooklyn
Brooklyn Kickball
city
columbia street
coney island
event
fire
games
mccarren park
new york
new york city
parks
people
performance art
red hook
red hook park
sports
the game
the ring
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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