Kickball for grownups

If you’re going to play with these guys, remember the three key

rules: no substitutions, no ghost runners and no bouncies.

Kickball is making a comeback, thanks to a group of

twenty-and-thirty-somethings in Surf City looking for a laid-back

alternative to softball.

In case you can’t remember grade school sports, kickball was that

baseball-esque game with the big red ball and the hulking neighbor

kid who could rocket the thing into the sky like a Scud missile.

And the best part of the game? A dodgeball-esque provision in the

rule book allowing players to throw runners out by hitting them with

the ball.

“It definitely takes you back to the past,” said Chris Hoffmann, a

27-year-old investment banker. “I think everyone remembers playing as

a kid.”

Now the sport is back, sans the six-graders and the badly mixed

Tang. The newly formed local league, which costs $67 to join, offers

a T-shirt, lighted ball fields and an excuse to spend a work night

acting like a kid.

About 50 people showed up for the opening of league play Monday at

the Edison Community Center. Two dozen spectators watched and cheered

during the back-to-back games as teams with names like Pound Sand,

Peloteros, Rubber Ballerz and the Isotopes faced off in five-inning

bouts.

“At first glance, you get a lot of raised eyebrows because it’s a

6-year-old’s game,” 27-year-old league founder Jake Fischer said.

“But in many ways, that’s the beauty of it. You get a bunch of adults

out there running around playing a children’s game but loving it and

taking it at face value.”

Kickball has been all the rage on the East Coast for years,

especially in Washington, D.C., where leagues sometimes play on the

Capitol Mall.

The league was created “by four guys with the inspired notion of

combining kickball and drinking,” World Adult Kickball Assn.

organizer Orion Walker said. “They developed a social-athletic

league, where literally anybody could play, and the mingling at the

bar afterward was as important as anything on the field.”

The game eventually spread west, first sprouting up in San

Francisco and later in Hollywood and Venice Beach.

After a year playing in Northern California and a subsequent

transfer to Orange County to take a job with Marriott, Fischer began

looking to form a Surf City Division and enlisted the help of the

World Adult Kickball Assn., the governing body for the sport.

Fischer launched a word-of-mouth campaign and hosted a few ad-hoc

pickup games. Within about two weeks, 25 people committed to play. By

opening day, twice as many people had signed up.

“This league really lives and dies by word of mouth,” he said.

To many, the appeal of the game is its simplicity.

“There’s not really any good players or bad players,” said Pound

Sand kicker David Imboden, 28, who works as an engineer at Boeing.

“You can still be competitive, but you don’t feel like you’re way out

there in left field.”

Most players get two kicks per game, and team captains regularly

rotate players through the field.

“When you have adults playing kickball, bizarre and wonderful

things tend to happen. You see triple plays. You see infield home

runs. You even see the occasional strikeout,” Walker said. “You’ll

see a guy the size of a house kick the ball a mile, only to have it

caught by a 5-foot-2 girl.”

As for strategies, Fischer said the secret to the game is to keep

the ball on the ground and develop some solid base-running skills.

“Besides that, it pretty much evens out. The big red ball is the

great equalizer. Nobody is awesome and nobody sucks. The ball is

difficult to kick and more difficult to field,” Fischer said.

And the big ball is really difficult to throw in from the

outfield.

“Some people are going to take it more seriously than others, but

I just want to keep it light and fun,” Fischer said. “There are a lot

of people that want to play league sports at a noncompetitive level.

They want to be social, they want to be active, but they don’t want

to be embarrassed and let their team down.”

For many players, the social aspect is a major component of the

league.

“I’ve seen people find new jobs through kickball, even get married

because of kickball,” veteran player and graduate student Kirsten

Berg of the Rubber Ballerz said.

After each game, players meet at a bar to socialize over drinks

and tell war stories of the night’s games.

“We’ve really got a bunch of comedians in this league, and it

makes it a lot of fun,” Fischer said.

As for the future, Fischer said he’d like to establish the Surf

City Division’s board of directors and recruit more people to play.

At the moment, the division has four teams of between 11 and 14

players. Ideally, a team should have about 16 per squad, and each

division should include six to eight teams. Fischer said he expects

the league to continue to grow in popularity. He plans to hold

kickball-related social events and charity drives.

“The opportunities are really limitless as to where we can take

this game,” Fischer said.

For more information, visit o7www.kickball.comf7.