Category Archives: play

Dave delivering the yellow pill

Mike pulls a single out of the hat

Rick swallows the yellow pill

Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast–
And half believe it true.

And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
“The rest next time”–”It is next time!”
The happy voices cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out–
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.

Alice! a childish story take,
And with a gentle hand
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined
In Memory’s mystic band,
Like pilgrim’s withered wreath of flowers
Plucked in a far-off land.

excerpt from All In the Golden Afternoon / Lewis Carroll

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Onset: Free Play Softball League winter blues.

As it turned out, the gentle slope in the westward direction of Forest Hills (and its Field #8) allowed us to set up an impromptu diamond in the southeast corner and play in rather decent conditions for the last four weeks.

Last Sunday’s game may well have been our last of a season begun the SUnday after tax day. It was a notable Sunday for several reasons. First, for the second week in a row Jedi Matt launched a ball over 300 feet. This time I paced off the distance when I retrieved a second 300 foot shot into foul territory. Secondly, our cast of characters allowed us once again to play the minimum type of game with at least six to a side, a game in which we slice the outfield in half, give up the right fielder, a second baseman and some times a catcher, yet retain the first baseman to avoid the dreary game dubbed ‘pitcher’s mound.’ Finally, it was our fifth game in a row in which the home team had a chance to win in the bottom of the seventh.

Because I keep track of my own hitting, I can report we played 27 Sundays out of 30. We enjoyed this year the best weather and the most dynamic group relations of any season since I commenced my own participation in 2001.

Those features combine to knock out a data set about, this year and in a nutshell, ‘ludic aspirations, aging, and the interplay of masculinities.’ Ha!

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I asked by email for twelve and twelve came.

There’s more to it than that. First: MONSTER SLAM BY JEDI MATT! Estimates as to length of home run varied from 375 feet to a parsec; still, a top five mash for sure.

My research focus is on serendipity and this also means that I am ensnared on a good day with the problem of contingency as it happens in causal chains of human action. I told Dave B. as we departed the parking lot on Sunday that it was his own email to me earlier in the morning that compelled me to bring the equipment and learn whether or not we would gather enough Free Players together for a November game.

Mike covering second base, Matt on the base, Carman pitching.

Before his email I was ambivalent and leaning toward announcing by email that the field was too wet, the day too cold, and the season too aged, to play. Earlier in the week Francis, acting as our scout, reported the field would be playable on Sunday. Except this was in the middle of the week and Friday came a day-long, soaking, rain.

Matt running from first on Marc’s line drive.

The Dave’s email arrived in my in-box. I leaned the other way and shot out an email and stated I would be doing my darn duty and hoping we could play with enough forces to have a first baseman for each team. And, my colleagues made it so.

A close game, the fourth in a row, unfolded on a day past the ending of the real world series. Mark us down for one of best seasons whenever we’re playing in November. We tucked our improvised diamond in the southeast corner of the park and except for scattered miniature ponds in left field, the field was in fairly decent shape.

The ball was leaping off the bat. Monster blast! It came down to the last at bat. With one out I laced a shop into the gap, Stacey zoomed and grabbed it, darn kid! It didn’t matter we came up short, but everybody won the day.

Francis slapping a hit to score Matt.

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Yesterday’s Free Play Softball game was epic. For starters, 27 players were on hand. Dave Kolb thought this set the record for turnout in September. It was the best turnout this season, and, the icing was the appearance of both new first timers and some returnees from past seasons.  We ended up with my ideal outcome, a one run game.

When is it beneficial, or necessary, to make the effort to learn more about what each group member’s reflections are about their own experience of the group?

Describe the kinds of Free Play softball games that you enjoy the most.

phenomenological (and social-psychological/anthropological) reflections…

(more…)

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On Sunday we enjoyed an iconic Free Play Softball League contest. Perfect weather greeted us. The home team won on what surely was the first walk-off two run, two RBI sacrifice fly. It was hit by John. He was making his first appearance in a Free Play game. I later learned what brought him to our game for the first time.

The game was iconic because it obtained almost all the implicit goals of our weekly softball games: the game was well played, very close, included some absurdist theatre, and showcased several individual feats. The photo below captures a bit of our happy collective mood in the game’s aftermath.

Given the “case” this particular game presented, I, with my researcher’s beanie set a kilter on my head, found the morning’s affair to be especially wondrous. We’ve been doing three experiments, one started last season, one started at the beginning of this season, and one started six weeks ago. Collective informal, ad hoc, social experiments aimed to identify possible avenues of change interest me a great deal. This past Sunday offered up a good, let us call it, ‘experimental circumstance.’

Experiment No. 1. Set in motion last season, and implemented by virtue of a voice vote, we began to call balls and strikes using a nifty affordance, a mat placed over the rubber home plate. It delineates a strike zone determined entirely as a matter of a pitch striking it on the fly. At the time it was a daring experiment because it attended to a problem only a few people felt was a problem: batters waiting for the perfect pitch under the old regimen, under which balls or strikes weren’t called. We have stuck with the experiment, having the catcher call the ball or strike. We have also gone back to the old routine under specific extreme circumstances having to do with wind velocity!

Experiment No. 2. Set in motion at the beginning of this season, and implemented willfully by me and several others, this experiment had a singular hypothesis. Should we actively promote the entertainment and sporting opportunity to our personal networks and on local bulletin boards, our numbers will increase. New players have arrived and stuck with us. We’ll see if our numbers stay robust as the weather becomes less attractive in the fall.

Experiment No. 3. Set in motion six weeks ago, and implemented without any input from the group, we have moved from having me determine the line-ups–a role I had for nine seasons–to me picking up teams school-yard style with Mark Jr. There were two basic goals, the primary one being to spread the talent around more equally, and, secondarily, to offset the advantage Mark jr. himself offers to the team he is placed on. This latter goal follows from his own tracking of the performance of his weekly, temporary team. By doing so he quantifies our results and certifies that his team wins 75% of the time.

(I’m tempted to say we’ve also been doing a meta or over-arching experiment that has something to do with giving me such a hand in the proceedings! As I mentioned to Kurt on Sunday, if I’m bossy, it’s the only day of the week I’m like a boss. Oddly, my imperial authority is partly rooted in the fact that I carry the collective equipment in the trunk of my Civic, and store all of it over the winter. He who trucks the crown and throne and battle gear. . .)

Because of this secondary goal of picking two teams, offsetting Mark Jr.’s track record, he and I have figured out a rough formula. My team is always the home team, and, I get the first pick, and, I start with longtime player Francis, and, in the fourth round Mark Jr. makes up for my extra player, and, finally, we may haggle over the last few picks.

Francis is the key gimme because he plays shortstop. Mark Jr. brings his own performative edge to his own team because he is a lock-down shortstop on our bumpy grassy infield. Others among us have tried their hand at shortstop, yet is has come down to Mark Jr. and plucky Francis.

This approach held until last week. Experiment No. 3 constitutes a series matching one person’s picks against a second person’s picks. In the experiment MArk and I determine our own line-ups, figure out in which slot players bat.

The 15-8 game was the only game where some players thought the distribution of players at the outset determined the outcome of the game. Mark Jr. has won 50% of his games. So far this experiment is progressing. Its most positive effect so far is twofold. First, players no longer feel my solitary, inept picking is ruining their chance to win. Second, when players express displeasure with the line-up, the blame is distributed to two possible culprits. The experiment has dramatically dampened second guessing about weekly competitive balance.

An Epic Fly

We play on a diamond with a screened backstop and no other fences. (Our field reminds me of the country fields I played on in Vermont decades ago.) As far as I know, this is different than the set-up for most of the (higher-than-our-modest level) slow pitch softball played year in and year out in our region. Next door to our favored wide open field #8 are four manicured, fenced, typical fields. On those fields, hard hit drives and flies can leave the field in classic home run fashion. On our field the hitter probably has to run out a home run. Outfielders, especially when the field is dry and hard play to prevent balls from skittering past them.

Parma’s State Road Park, one of upper level softball’s most storied diamonds

Sunday, John, a friend of Carman, shows up to play with us for the first time. He goes out to shortstop for our batting rounds. He looks experienced. He’s wearing actual baseball/softball jersey pants. He’s big. Then he takes a few practice swings, and the ball just soars off his bat.

I think to myself, “He’s pro.” This is my way of stating what was obvious to me, this is a high level player, one whose hitting approach is to launch the pitch over the fence. And, then I thought, here’s a guy who offsets Mark Jr.. And, this meant we might just do a straight back and forth choosing of players for the first time ever.

So we did. Francis got to play with Mark jr. and happily showed his mettle and versatility with one of the season’s most stellar outfield catches, a running chase-down of a falling bullet.

It came down to the last inning. The visitors took a 13-9 lead in the top half of the inning. In the bottom half, the home team grabbed three runs and John, the brawny newcomer stepped up to the dish with the bases juiced. Francis, in left field, was something like 350+ feet away. In a fenced-in softball field he would have been standing on the other side of the leftfield fence.

I don’t know squat about elite softball but I suspect top level players who come to the plate with the game on the line, one run behind, bases loaded, knowing any hit wins the game, nevertheless want to send the ball into a definitive orbit.

Mark Jr., for whatever reason, commanded his pitcher move to short, and he took the ball and stepped to the mound. Okay, he stepped to not a mound but, rather, to a rugged gash where a mound never existed. He threw some practice pitches. He took some grief from the home team. Tom, our elder was catching and warned Mark Jr. about “too much arc.”

Standing on the sideline, I understood this was a case of mano-y-mano, taking the game literally in one’s own hand, live by the sword or die by the sword, gamesmanship. Ha! Absurd! Crazed! It was a beautiful distillation of everything our free play game isn’t ordinarily about–yet our game can be about anything.

Then John blasted a 3-2 pitch in the direction of heaven itself. There’s no fence! I half expected the fly ball to sprout a parachute on the way down. The outfielder catches the ball and three runners tag up. It wasn’t even close. The tying run scores and the next, winning, run scores and would have beat any throw.

Game, but not match. John, you da man. (It turns out John is visiting us to get reps before autumn’s league and tournament league action.

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Twenty-three out of twenty-four attendees are in this photo from Sunday’s game. This was our best turnout so far.

Ideal conditions evoked a crisply played game. Just like last week, a single seven run inning staked one of the teams to a big lead. However, this advantage almost completely evaporated during a stirring top-of-the-seventh rally.

Free Play Softball, Sundays, 9:45am, at Forest hills diamond #8, Cleveland Heights.

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Free Play Softball league – tag – all historical posts

Findings – The case study suggests that play in a ludic learning space can promote deep learning in the intellectual, physical, spiritual, and moral realms.

The capacity for such integrated judgment seems to be borne out of transcendence, wherein the conflicts that those of us at lowe levels of insight perceive as win-lose are recast into a higher form that can make everyone a winner, or can make winning and losing irrelevant. And finally, with centering comes commitment in the integration of abstract ideals in the concrete here-and-now of one’s life. When we act from our center, the place of truth within us, action is based on the fusion of value and fact, meaning and relevance, and hence is totally committed. Only by personal commitment to the here-and-now of one’s life situation, fully accepting one’s past and taking choiceful responsbility for one’s future, is the dialectic conflict necessary for learning experienced. The dawn of integrity comes with the acceptance of responsibility for the course of own’s own life. For in taking responsibility for the world, we are given back the power to change it. (D.A.Kolb)

Above was originally quoted in the first blog post about the Free Play Softball League, eight years ago.

Learning to play, playing to learn
A case study of a ludic learning space (pdf)

Alice Y. Kolb
Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University,
Cleveland, Ohio, USA

David A. Kolb
Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University,
Cleveland, Ohio, USA

learningfromexperience.com

Abstract
Purpose- In this paper we propose an experiential learning framework for understanding how play can potentially create a unique ludic learning space conducive to deep learning. Design/methodology/approach- The framework is developed by integrating two perspectives. First, we draw from multidisciplinary theories of play to uncover the underlying play principles that contribute to the emergence of the ludic learning space. Then, we examine the formation of a ludic learning space through a case study of a pickup softball league where for fifteen years, a group of individuals diverse in age group, gender, level of education, and ethnic background have come together to play. Findings – The case study suggests that play in a ludic learning space can promote deep learning in the intellectual, physical, spiritual, and moral realms. Originality/value- This paper uses the play literature to inform the experiential learning concept of the learning space.
Citations
755 RK: Case study research: design and methods. 2 edition – Yin – 1994
601 Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development – Kolb – 1984
526 Thought and Language – Vygotsky – 1962
468 Mind in society – Vygotsky – 1978
268 The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding, transl – Maturana, Varela – 1988
219 1872) The Expression of Emotions in Man and the Animals – Darwin
163 R: Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior – Deci, Ryan – 1985
153 How we think – Dewey – 1910
152 1871) The descent of man and selection in relation to sex – Darwin
114 Truth and method – Gadamer – 1960
111 Qualitative Case Studies – Stake
86 Childhood and Society – Erikson – 1950
83 Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being – Ryan, Deci – 2000
73 Play, dreams and imitation in childhood – Piaget – 1999
61 The ambiguity of play – Sutton-Smith – 2001
60 Conflict, arousal, and curiosity – Berlyne – 1960
47 Homo Ludens – Huizinga – 1938
46 The interpretation of dreams – Freud – 1976
34 Playing and Reality – Winnicott – 1971
16 Punished by rewards – Kohn – 1993
15 Animal play behavior – Fagen – 1981
14 Play and its role in the mental development of the child – Vygotsky – 1967
6 Qualitative inquiry and research design – Creswell – 2007
6 The hurried child – Elkind – 1981
6 1898): The play of animals – GROOS
5 Intentional icons: Towards an evolutionary cognitive ethology – Bekoff, Allen – 1992
4 play and games – Callois, Man
4 Man meets dog – Lorenz – 1994
4 S.: Ideas are born in fields of play: Towards a theory of play and creativity in organizational settings – Mainemelis, Ronson
4 Does play matter? Functional and evolutionary aspects of animal and human play – Smith – 1982
3 Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology, Rice University Studies, 60(3):53-92. [reprinted, in a slightly changed form – TURNER – 1974
2 The school and society and the child and the curriculum, The University of Chicago – Dewey – 1990
2 Play: An interdisciplinary integration of research. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation – Kolb – 2000
2 The Playful, the Crazy and the Nature of Pretense – Miller, S – 1974
2 Relationship play therapy – Moustakas – 1997
2 Social play in the domestic cat – West – 1974
1 A critical reanalysis of the ontogeny and phylogeny of mammalian social and locomotor play: An ethological hornest’s nest – Bekoff, Byers – 1981
1 Animal play – Bekoff, Byers – 1998
1 Evolution and play – Brown – 1995
1 An ethnographic study about a casual sport context”, Unpublished manuscript – Calhoun – 2007
1 Drawing on the right side of the brain, Tarcher – Edwards – 1989
1 The power of play, Da Capo Lifelong Books – Elkind – 2007
1 Why people play – J – 1973
1 Play and behavioral flexibility – Fagen – 1984
1 Applause for aurora: Sociobiological considerations on exploration and play – Fagen – 1994
1 A team with no name: Winning is not about keeping score”. Unpublished manuscript – Goldman – 2002
1 Chimpanzee and others at play – Goodall – 1995
1 Smart moves, Great Ocean – Hannaford – 1995
1 The endangered minds, Simon and – Healey – 1990
1 A comparative approach to play: Cross-species and cross-cultural perspectives of play in development – Height, Black – 2000

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Set-up for autumn play with home plate where 2nd base is; looking north.

Kolb leaves for Hawaii and Kofa shows up for the second time this season. Go figure but once a Freeplayer, always a Freeplayer.

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