Snivel. I looked at the beat up old pump. Snivel. The player in front of us wore ragged camouflage, sneakers, and a faded green t-shirt. I poked my buddy in the ribs so he watched, too.
This dude pumped, shot a ball, 260. He stuck a rod down his barrel. "What is he doing?" I thought. He turned the rod, pulled it out, and shot again. 285, just right.
Two shots later, both 285, and he plugged the barrel and walked off. "Target," I snickered to my
buddy. We chrono'd our semi's. A few minutes later, they called us for the safety briefing. Again I saw this raggedy player. He wore a black harness, carried a few tubes and 12-grams stuck in loops. I figured he would join one of the private games.
Nope. The open class players headed for The Rocket field. All 42 of us: 41 with semi's, and this scraggledly pumper. When they put him on my team, I figured, "It doesn't matter. He can't do much anyway." Game one, 10 or 11 minutes into the game, it was down to six or seven of us trying to hold off about 12 of them. I emptied my last pod into the hopper. Then (to my surprise), one at a time, they started to get out. Up went the markers, off they walked.
Three minutes to go. I didn't see any more of them. "Flag, let's GO!" somebody yelled. I jumped up and broke into a run. Huh? Trotting toward our flag station, with the flag no less, was Mr. Scraggledly with that awful looking pump. He hung the flag. "We did all the work, he gets the credit," said I to my buddy.
"He saved the game, you dork. You guys were toast. He got around back, shot 'em out, got the flag, made you look pretty helpless."
Four games later, he crawled (CRAWLED, mind you!) up to the 50 in speedball. Pulled the flag, shot three of them. Hung the flag. I will never judge a player by his clothes, or his marker, again.
Jeremy King has joined the ranks of pump players. How about you? Try playing with a pump. Send your pump game stories to co2@actionpursuitgames.com.
