Last week, Team Saucony wrote me a nice little note, telling me about their web site, www.teamsaucony-originals.com. The site focuses on Saucony’s sponsorship of alternative team sports, the ones “that don’t require cleats, pads or helmets.” That’s totally up my alley. The reason why I got into music in the first place was because I could not for the life of me catch a football or shoot a basket. The first day of little league I got a black eye while they were trying me out as a pitcher. No joke. I just really suck at sports.

But Dodgeball? Four-Square? Holy shit! I am awes-…okay, I’m not great at those either, but I can at least hold my own. {side note: personally, for me, playing sports is like holding my own, you know… But as previously documented, I do like to talk about balls…}

Team Saucony is organizing a summer sports league, focusing on the sports you played during recess.

From Team Saucony:

This summer in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle, Saucony is going to sponsor some select offices to compete against other offices in sports that you may not have played since you were about 12.

Dodgeball? Kickball? Four Square? FOR REAL!

We’ll provide the equipment, uniforms and, of course, some sweet Saucony Jazz Originals. Win or lose, we’ll hook everyone up with plenty of free suds at the local watering hole (clarification: water = booze, hole = your mouth), where you can re-live your sporting glory, or drown those memories of athletic incompetence.

San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Chicago: the only 4 cities that matter. EAT THAT LA! fuckers. You can read about the stipulations for signing up your office on their site. All interested parties can contact sauconyoriginals@drillteammarketing.com to sign up.

If SF wasn’t a 3 hour drive from the Synthesis office we would be all over that. Besides, most of us are too busy with the Synthesis Softball team:

EAT THAT, OTHER LOCAL MEDIA.

Ah, those meddling kids; always ruining plans to steal hidden treasure and proving that the “haunted castle” isn’t haunted at all, it’s just some scoundrels with holograph machines and white bedding… And they would have gotten away with it too….

Apart from traveling the country in search of devious plots to foil, The Meddling Kids dish out the power pop in chunky doses, replete with breakdowns, guitar solos, gang vocals and the kind of lyrics that don’t demand a whole lot of dissection.

I can’t help but bring it up, but more often than not lead singer Tyler Norton sings like he kinda has to poop - a stylistic device popularized by the “Yeah Rock” genre (see Candlebox, Goo Goo Dolls and Matchbox 20) involving a restrained vocal attack, a short sustain and lot of extra breath at the end of a line, and featuring as many “yeah!”s as possible and resulting in rock chix with big asses and overly-dyed hair totally swooning. Their music has more in common with the likes of Cheap Trick and Weezer, going as far as winking at Rivers Cuomo by aping a riff here or there.

Since I’m a sucker for some fretboard gymnastics, I give The Meddling Kids the nod, and if I were at their show I would probably even take a break from smoking cigarettes and hitting on fat-assed, overly-hair-dyed rock chix to catch at least two songs. After all, “I’ve Done Everyting For You” has a solo that absolutely STOMPS over the theme from Beverly Hills 90210. Their CD is available here.