While Tim Lincecum was pulling off his second career no-no last night, and the U.S., German, Ghanaian and Portuguese sides were surely practicing for their matches today that determine who will enter the knockout stage of the World Cup, I was strapping on my bright white sneakers to do something far less impressive: kick a big pink rubber ball.

It was a banner night for me: three at-bats (at-kicks?), three outs.

Which isn’t to say I’m a bad player necessarily — at least by the standards of my team.

You see, our kickball team is really more of a beer-drinking team. Sure, some people take the ball-kicking side project more seriously than others, but all are welcome, regardless of athletic skill.

The team started at a previous job, and while most of us have moved on to other endeavors, it turned out we actually enjoyed having a reason to still see each other each week during the summer.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to see these lovable misfits?

Photo used completely without the permission of my teammates.

If that’s not enough to convince you to join a team “sport,” you may be a lost cause. But in case the difficulty of kickball is holding you back, I present three fun alternatives.

Cardboard tube dueling

This one is self explanatory.

Cheese rolling

Roll a wheel of cheese down a hill. Roll yourself after it.

Extreme ironing

OK, this one actually seems kind of hard.