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You're It!!

© Colby Vargas

We're crossing the boundary from hardcore street sports into little-kid games here, but I'm sure we've all played some form of the game Tag. And I know there was at least one time, maybe when you were eight or nine and all the big kids were coming after you, that your palms started to sweat and your heart was going like a trip hammer and you promised God you'd stop it with the Playboys under your covers if he'd keep you from pissing your pants out of pure excitement. Now that's a sport.

Tag starts innocently enough. Dad or the one Uncle who isn't at rist for a coronary chases you around the yard after Thanksgiving. No rules, just good fun. Pretty soon you're playing Hide and Seek with all the grubby cousins, a game that allows you to disappear for long stretches and curl up in piles dirty clothes and explore that backs of closets. Remember what it felt like when the Seeker got to 30, and you weren't sure if Aunt Millie's slips were going to cover you enough? If you can't remember that rush, you need to play Hide and Seek.

My generation adapted the game to the sick cultural wasteland of our times and gave the world TV Tag, where players redeem themselves by knowing more about television programs than their friends. I classify this version with Freeze Tag and Crab Tag and the other Bored Camp Counsellor Games.

Tag and Chase exist in their most primordial forms in the out of doors, where Capture the Flag and Forts continue to thrill new generations of kids. This is where we train the next generation to fight and run, like Plains Indians counting coup in mock battles. The fact that we no longer need an adult populace with warrior skills is another issue entirely. Does the essential nature of the game change if the players are holding paintball guns or water balloons or rocks? Not if you ask me.

For the true athlete, there's Smear the Queer (football) and Pickle (baseball). These racous games allow players to highlight key skill such as the Shuck and Jive, the Pitter-Patter, the Head Fake, and the Make 'em Miss. And the squirrelly little kids who never get passed to can shine at Tag.

If you see the local kids running around your neighborhood, don't ask the rules!! Join in!! You're either playing Tag or helping the local gang catch and beat down one of their rivals.