Cru Jones Society

Whenever I tell someone I play in a kickball league, they usually snicker and make some smartass remark asking when dodgeball starts. Dodgeball is in the winter. Warm weather = kickball, you funny motherfucker.

Chances are excellent that depending on your childhood you either have fond memories of these games and the prospect of playing them as an adult excites you to no end, or you want to turn in the other direction and run away at their very mention. I jumped at the chance, and having now played in three different leagues over the course of 8 seasons, I can tell you that it’s not what I expected. It’s still a kids’ game, but the differences from league to league and team to team are amazing. 

I have just wrapped up my kickball season in two different leagues. One of them I essentially enjoyed. The other I profoundly loathed.

The good one is the league I’ve played in several times now. There are four teams, we’re familiar with the refs, and we play on an actual diamond. It’s what I’d call “properly competitive” where generally everyone tries hard and the majority of players aren’t dicks. Some of the leagues around town are filled with hyper-competitive douche nozzles that would just as soon kick you in the Achilles tendon when you round first as congratulate you on a nice catch.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t try hard. I’ve opened up my shin twice sliding into second. I usually finish the game covered in sweat. And I get to fulfill a repressed fantasy by patrolling centerfield as the guy who reads the ball best off the foot and gets the best jump. I’m like the Torii Hunter of our kickball team covering tons of ground and making the slick catches. Since I was a dumpy corner infielder as a kid,  I couldn’t have asked for anything better in this league in terms of exceeding personal performance goals. My average is well above .800, I’m one the most reliable defenders on the team, and everyone recognizes that I’m giving it my all every play of every game.

Contrast that with the other league. I joined thinking it would be roughly similar until I got their email outlining the rules. They’re the fucking fun Nazis. It says approximately 17 times in the rules that anyone getting too competitive will be refunded their money and immediately asked to leave. OK, if that means no arguing with the ref and no acting like some douchy asshat with an overblown sense of entitlement, I’m all for it. It doesn’t. And there’s a zillion rules to ensure that you do have fun.

First of all, there’s no ref. Secondly, you have to play the entire game with a beer in your hand. I don’t know about you, but I hate combining drinking with other activities. Forcing me to hold a beer in my hand while I play kickball only lessens the fun of both activities. If I wanted to drink, I’d do just that. I don’t need to combine it with sports just as an excuse to get away from my spouse for a night (which is what I suspect some of these sad sacks are doing). How about we play and then drink? That sounds like much more fun with a lot less spilled beer.

The rules get worse. If you kick it too far, you have to do a keg stand. Each half inning, each team has to call a social, which after three times gets fucking old. You’re basically only allowed to advance one base at a time, and if you advance more, you have to finish your beer to slow you down. When you make an out on defense, you have to take a drink. If you’re a good player and sincerely follows these rules, you could conceivably die from all this needless extra consumption.

When you combine this with the fact the bases are approximately 30 feet apart and that when you kick it no one fucking moves because they’re standing in the outfield talking to each other and petting their big ugly dogs, you could feasibly kick a homerun every time at bat without even really trying. You have to try less than the defense or else the game will last forever with great baseball scores like 37 – 25 (one of our actual scores). This league almost becomes like that South Park episode where both teams are intentionally trying to tank the game so they don’t have to play this boring game for the rest of the summer. I personally walk between bases in this league waiting to get tagged out. And no one even cares. That’s the worst part.

And it’s what drives me batshit insane. If you’re going to turn the game into a complete farce with all these inane rules and become the fucking fun police ensuring no one’s feelings get hurt and that everyone is completely shitfaced on a Tuesday night, then don’t even have a game at all. Just call this what it is: A bunch of alcoholic slapdicks smart enough to have a permit to bring kegs to City Park.

Needless to say, should the opportunity arise, I will not rejoin this team next season. I hate drinking in the middle of the week. I hate the disincentives to good performance. I hate that there’s all these rules encouraging binge drinking and then that everyone drives home. And I hate that this league’s lack of competitive spirit sends me into E Dagger Pissface Mode.

Which brings me back to the other league. As I stated earlier, I play HARD. And I’d love it if everyone did the same. But I’m a realist and know that some of my teammates just want to get together with friends and move around a little while the sun is shining. In an abstract way, I understand this. I like catching up with my friends too, but my thought is, we joined a kickball league, let’s play some fucking kickball.

In Sex Drugs & Cocoa Puffs Chuck Klosterman tells a story of when he coached a little league team. Instead of adhering to the generally accepted tenets of youth coaching where everyone gets a chance to play, each player fields multiple positions, and you rotate who hits at the top of the lineup, Klosterman managed the team as if he were a Major League manager. That is, on this team full of 9 year-olds, he had a situational lefty out of the bullpen, a utility player who could play a variety of defensive positions, and two or three lineups he never deviated from to get the most production out of his players. Naturally, the parents were outraged and he was fired after one season. If I were in charge of our kickball team, this is how I would act.

Having played on this team for more than three seasons, I’ve seen enough of these players to know where everyone should play and the order in which they should bat. I’ve also seen enough of the other three teams to know basically where everyone has a tendency to kick it and where the weaknesses in their defense are.

I’d love to be the coach on the field barking at everyone to prepare for the bunt, set up for the double play, and maximize our defensive capability. I’d be up everyone’s ass for failing to hustle. I’d bench players who didn’t run out a grounder or who failed to tag up on a fly ball. I’d be Billy Martin, and we’d be the 1978 Yankees. I think if I ran the team like this, we’d be fucking unstoppable.

Of course, if I acted like this, I also wouldn’t have any friends. And that’s my perpetual internal dilemma.

Nearly everyone on the team seems hyper-competitive, but unwilling to play any better. It’s much easier to blame the shorn-legged ref for making a shitty call and stew about it after the game rather than improve your own play. Condemning the ref who only gives a crap that your team has paid its league dues yields nothing. Looking internally for ways to improve benefits everyone, but can be much more unpleasant to do. In my estimation, you have to play well enough to overcome whatever inconsistencies occur in the officiating. Some calls go your way, some don’t. It’s your job to make that shit not matter. That’s why I don’t blame Bartman, I think Don Denkinger gets a bad rap, and I don’t argue with our refs. Just like everyone else, they’re doing the best they can – although that Denkinger call was unfathomably poor.

The point is, if you’re not going to play hard, then why be there? That doesn’t mean turning into Rodrigo the Kickball Prick and arguing with the refs, but it does mean keeping your head in the game every inning and thinking about what you’re doing. Maybe with runners on 1^st and 2^nd with no outs, you don’t kick it to the 3^rd baseman and kill the potential rally. Maybe don’t try for the homerun considering there’s exactly ONE guy in the entire league who can kick it over everyone. And maybe work on catching the pop-ups by taking three or four practice flies before the game. Just a thought.

It’s interesting… Several of my teammates read this website, so it’ll be interesting to see if this little piece gets me ostracized from the team and earns me a dis-invitation next season. I have no idea. I hope it doesn’t, but you never know.

However, the fact remains that just like recreational softball, Beirut, or Pictionary, kickball always starts in good fun and often ends with people yelling at each other. For those thinking of joining a kickball league: Beware. You think you’re signing up for a kids’ game, and you are. But remember everything that entails – hurt feelings, those who don’t play well with others, and ritual humiliation for some.

In short, your enjoyment level is wholly dependent on matching your level of competitiveness with that of the league you join. Too much competition = douchy guys with pent up aggression at not having enough ability to play sports in college. Too little competition = counter-culture dorks thumbing their nose at the entire notion of competition in favor of drinking cheap beer in the park on a weekday. Finding the perfect balance = nearly impossible for E Dagger. Best of luck to you in your kickball endeavors… until you kick it my way, at which point I’ll track it down and put you to shame.

Until next time…

edagger@crujonessociety.com