Man up Indiana!

It is only with the slightest hint of hyperbole that I say that this story may ruin my entire Thanksgiving meal.

Look, I love Indiana. I like looking out over the nice mall to the Scottish Rite Castle. I like the Canal area, walking around and avoiding the vagrants who helped me move in. I like my 1 minute 15 second commute to work. But God this story has me mad.

First off, the silhouette and voice changing? Really? Dude got hit in the nuts, he didn’t out an Al Qaeda plot. Enough of the anonymizer shit. If you get hit in the junk, you man up. First rule of nut hitter club is to never talk about nut hitter club.

Second, what is with the melodramatic voice modulation? It’s ball tapping, and I assure you Bev has no friggin clue about the intracacies of Ball Tapping.

Third, if you get hit in the junk, you do not go to a school nurse. Not ever. You go to your gym teacher.

Fourth, Ball Tapping was not invented in Indiana. I got news for you Channel 13 Investigates (if that is your real name) I was ball tapping 20 years ago when I was in the 3rd grade (for the 5th time.) I even found a ton of historical references to Ball Tapping.

From Marco Polo’s report of Kublai Khan’s Park, c. 1275:

In this city [Shang-tu] Kublai Khan built a huge palace of marble and other ornamental stones. Its halls and chambers are all gilded, and the whole building is marvellously embellished and richly adorned. For sport, the men hit each other in the testicles, and then fall upon themselves in mirth.

Or, how about Cristoforo Fioravanti’s “Observations of a Venetian Traveller” discussing Norwegian Fisherfolk, 1432. (Spelling errors from text included.)

In this lland there are twelve little Houses, with about one hundred and twentie persons, for the most part Fishermen, and they are by nature indued with understanding to know how to make Boates, Buckets, Tunnes, Baskets, Nets of all sorts, and every other thing necessarie for their use and trade. And they are very curteous one toward another and serviceable, desirous to please rather for love, than for hope of any gift or good turne to bee done them againe. At times, upon each others familie jewels they will athwack, and falling nearby shall engage in the most boisterous laffter….

Or how about Sergeant Major Edward Cotton’s “Dawn with the 7th Hussars” which he wrote on the eve of the battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815:

At the break of day, all who were able began to be oin the move. There were many who from cold and fatigue were unable to stir for some time. Some were cleaning arms, others fetching wood, water, straw etc, from Mont St Jean – my present place of abode – some trying from the embers of our bivouac to light up the fires. As time passed and some refused to rise, I set the men on then, to deliver one strike each to the left testicle of each recalcitrant man, and thereby to encourage him to arousal to meet the enemy.

So enough all ready. A direct shot to the nads is actually less painful than a grazing shot. I’ve taken some of those 3 step grazers in my life, and you think you are fine, but before the sole of your foot strikes down for the 4th step, you are on your back holding your boys tight and praying for a quick death. So the force exerted is not actually all that much of an indication to how much it hurt.

Someday if I get my wish, Ball Tapping will be an olympic sport. And when it is, we can blame Channel 13’s investigative reporting for why we don’t bring home the gold. I’m guessing it’ll be a country like Lichtenstein that wins, because there you can strike a man in the nuts and he doesn’t bitch to the first television camera.

Now, Man up Indiana. Don’t make me show you the brain.

You know, it occurs to me that only one dude in history has never lost at ball tapping. This guy. Which is why they put him on the Ballsy Award, presented annually by the Downtown Athletic Club. Or something.

Category: Politics