from The San Jose Mercury News
Dodgeball! Underground game is sweeping the catacombs of Los Gatos
It will be midnight soon, and the mortgage underwriters have all gone home, taking their hybrids and Lexus SUVs with them. From the mouth of the building’s subterranean parking garage, a tongue of light is accompanied by a fluorescent hum so loud that it drowns out the whirring of crickets.
The night’s first game of underground dodgeball is about to begin, and Kenny Cox is warming up like a pitcher in the bullpen. In addition to limbering up his arm, this drill has the added benefit of terrifying opponents, who stand and watch as he hurls rubber heat at a concrete wall 50 feet away. Each throw produces a sickening, explosive splat.
Dodgeball experienced a brief rec-league renaissance following the release of the 2004 comedy “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story,” whose lovable losers were instantly recognizable to anyone ever forced to play the game in gym class. But this isn’t that. Underground dodgeball is closer in spirit to “Fight Club,” the 1999 film starring Brad Pitt in which young men release aggression by beating each other senseless late at night.