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Summer kickball league ends season with fun and booze

By Andy Greenhaw

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Beer, base-running and big balls — that’s what students saw Sunday night if they attended the Kaw Valley Kickball Championship at Hobbs Field, where Jayhawk Guttering made a ninth-inning comeback to defeat Sun Creations 13-11.

Kaw Valley Kickball is an underground, summer kickball league made up of KU students and Lawrence locals. Teams meet every Sunday during the summer at fields all over Lawrence to drink beer and play kick ball. Sunday night marked the end of the summer playoffs, which began Aug. 17.

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Photo by Jerry Wang

Brit Nieder of Jayhawk Guttering, far left, makes an attempt to kick a bumpy pitch at the plate.

Sunday’s championship game went back and forth all night, beginning with Jayhawk Guttering taking an early 7-2 lead. Sun Creations tied the game at 7-7 in the bottom of the sixth. It later kicked in four more runs, bringing the score to 11-7 by the end of the eighth inning. Down four runs with two outs, Jayhawk Guttering made a last-inning comeback to take the lead as it scored six runs in less than six minutes with an inside-the-park homerun that put them in the lead. Jayhawk Guttering prevented Sun Creations from scoring in the bottom of the ninth, sealing its victory.

Jayhawk Guttering stormed the field throwing up high fives and pouring beers on one another moments after the third out was called. Cort Rolfingsmeier, who kicked the inside-the-park home run, was named the MVP for Jayhawk Guttering.

“It feels great; I want to thank the Lord, my mom and say hi to her — hell yeah,” he shouted as he hugged his mom after chugging beer from the championship trophy.

Paul Peach, a KU alumnus, said he’d almost lost hope as his team entered the ninth inning, down four runs with two outs.

“I thought we were cooked, to be honest with you,” Peach said. “Then we came back and it all happened so fast; I thought we were cooked.”

The game kicked off after the third-base umpire, dressed in a Winney the Pooh costume, kicked a pregame line drive into the outfield and circled the bases while chugging a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer in front of hundreds of cheering fans. Pooh, a man in a burger costume and a man in a chicken costume circled the bases again during the seventh-inning stretch as the crowd sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

What might seem like ridiculousness to an outsider is just another game to the regulars of the sport, which is infamous for its crazy costumes, wide-scale binge drinking and loyal fans. The game is played similarly to how students might have played it in their fourth-grade physical education classes — if those classes were made up of people in their 20s who smoked cigarettes and drank beer.

The pitcher rolls a big, rubber ball to the kicker, who tries to put the ball in play. Once the ball is in play, the kicker runs around the bases and tries to score at home plate. The defense makes outs by either catching a ball that’s been kicked, throwing a runner out at a base or simply throwing the ball at a runner who’s not on base. Three outs and the teams switch sides — just like baseball.

The league was launched in 2002 and now features 28 teams. Curtis McCoy, member of the Kaw Valley Kickball League council, said the league was all about having fun. “Sometimes it’s about going out and trying to win, and sometimes it’s about just getting drunk and getting injured,” McCoy said. He said a lot of the injuries included pulled hamstrings, broken fingers, broken toes and dislocated shoulders from diving for balls. “When you get a lot of people who are out of shape and smoke a lot and try to play kickball, there tends to be a lot of injuries,” he said after his team, Rangelife Records, lost in the second round on Sunday, Aug. 17.

Abby Dotson, fifth-year graduate student who played for Astrokitty, said she injured herself one or multiple times every game. She said her injuries usually included scrapes and cuts from sliding, which forced her to get a tetanus shot last year after receiving a wound that wouldn’t heal. She bruised her knee when she dove in to score at home in the first round last Sunday.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself because I’m insanely competitive,” Dotson said. “If I have a bad game then it brings me down for the rest of the night and if I have a good game then it’s totally worth it.”

The championship game is about as serious as the league ever gets, but a lot of the teams come out for the sole purpose of hanging out with friends and having fun. Ashley Janzen, Wichita senior, said her favorite part of kickball was the camaraderie. Her team — the Dead Cats — immediately huddled together and started a, “Drink” chant after it lost to Rangelife Records last Sunday.

“The motto is to drink a lot of beer, have a really good time, try to play the best and play with some balls,” Janzen said.

Natale Collar, KU senior, said she didn’t play, but had been a kickball fan for about three years.

“I always have friends that play on different teams and it’s funny because there’s always this kind of pseudo heckling with each other about the other team, but everyone is ultimately friends,” she said. “And it’s really organized. Nobody’s getting paid for it and everyone’s just doing it out of fun.”

Collar said that students who were interested in playing should get involved in the Lawrence community.

“Everyone involved in kickball is part of a local, downtown or outside-of-downtown business, so anyone who wants to get involved with kickball should really try to work for or get to know somebody who works for a local business,” Collar said.

Students who are interested in playing for next summer’s Kaw Valley Kickball League can visit its Web site to check out the list of local businesses that play in the league. Students who want to start their own team must pay a $100-entry fee and buy three rubber kickballs. All the money is used to cover the cost of equipment, renting fields and to help pay for a party at the end of the season. This year’s party will be held at Liberty Hall at 9 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 29. It will feature a video replay of the championship game on a giant movie screen. The party is open to the public and costs $5 to attend.

— —Edited by Brieun Scott

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