Kickin' It: Adults Can Play, Too

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Got a hankering for engaging in an after-school sport? Tired of watching the tykes have a blast on the playground while you languish indoors? Never fear: Kickball is here. No longer just a kiddie game fit for grade school recess, kickball is the new in thing for adults.

Tens of thousands of adult kickballers now regularly lay into that sproinging red rubber ball, according to the World Adult Kickball Association [1]. In case the responsibilities of adulthood have caused the game's finer rules to bounce out of bounds from your memory, kickball is played basically like baseball. The main difference, of course, is that the ball is much larger and is designed to be rolled, rather than pitched, to the kicker, who then boots it. The ball also has the added advantage of being soft enough to throw directly at the body of a base-running opponent. If the ball hits its mark, the runner is out.

Kickball teams consist of a captain and a co-captain and anywhere from twelve to twenty-six players. A kickball season usually lasts about four months and generally consists of eight five-inning games against other teams within a division. At the end of the season, a tournament is held to crown a champion -- there's even a world-championship title, won in 2005 by the Kick Asphaults of the Virginia Dominion Division.

Kickball is more than a trip down memory lane for its adult fans, and not just because of the competition. "It's something that's a lot of silly fun," says David Segal, of Providence, Rhode Island. Kickball leagues, which flourish from Long Island to Los Angeles, also present a vibrant social scene: Segal notes that a typical weekend kickball game might attract, counting players and spectators, a hundred or more people.

Providence boasts a number of teams, fielded by local organizations, generally in a fierce yet playful environment. "It's a perfect mix," Segal maintains, "between really competitive and just not competitive at all."