Last week, when my friend John Daubert and his wife came to visit the Myers plantation, we had a good time. A part of that good time included John and I returning to a classic Daubert/Myers activity; playing Ken Griffey Jr. baseball on N64…but with an exercise twist.
Long before the advent of the Wii, John and I were inspired by a boxing game we played at Kings Dominion (an amusement park here in Virginia), where you held “boxing gloves” attached to the console with wires and stood in a certain place where the computer could gauge your movements. To make a long story short, the boxing game was so active, I had dead arms for the rest of the day. It was great fun. The further you went, the more your body paid.
John and I were fully aware that playing the N64 was not so full of exercise, so we invented exercise to go with Ken Griffey baseball. The rules:
1) Every time your adversary scores a run, you do ten pushups.
2) Every time your adversary steals a base, you do twenty curlups.
3) Every time you get caught stealing a base, you do twenty curlups, and
4) Every time you strike out on a pitch you shouldn’t have swung on, you get punched in the nuts.
…ok, #4 doesn’t happen. Especially when John’s pitching with John Smoltz, who’s almost unhittable in the game as his fastball is quicker than the Orioles’ descent to mediocrity each season, thus making me anticipate the fastball, thus leading to John using a curveball that could hit the persons sitting behind the third-base dugout, which I of course swing at because I’m all jumpy and almost weepy from how scary the fastball is.
Well, this time we added another exercise to the game. I had recently gotten an exercise wheel at a local thrift store for a buck-twenty-five, and you could choose to cut your pushups or curlups and do half as many wheel repetitions.
We played three games. First time, Orioles (me)/Braves (John). 5-2 Orioles. Second game, Orioles/Braves again. 6-1 Orioles. Third game, the longest we ever played. Nineteen innings, Pirates (me)/Braves (John). 6-4 Pirates, after a massive clutch-ninth-inning comeback by John.
So, John’s total exercises before deciding to do some wheels: 170 pushups, 210 curlups.
My total exercises: 70 pushups, 150 curlups.
Needless to say, I got off easier, but the last game finished at 1:30 and we were both so spent by the end that we were giggling like schoolgirls. Just like old times. After finishing, we both almost wept as we considered how sore we would be in the morning, but then I remembered I had the magic potion: Powerbar Recovery. It didn’t even hurt in the morning, due to modern innovation…basically Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell (the innovators), Henry Ford (the organizer), and the Industrial Revolution at large is responsible for us not suffering. Essentially, human beings are completely self-sufficient now. Are you stabbed? Shot? A city of civilians nuked? Drink some Powerbar Recovery, and you’re golden. Basically.
I even have picture documentation of the event.
Signs Amidst the Rubble 
