August 5, 2008
Kickball Lawsuit Finally Strikes Out
Credit City Desk for the best news of the morning -- the lawsuit between the District's two main kickball leagues has finally come to an end.
Quick recap: In 2006, the World Adult Kickball Association (WAKA) sued upstart DC Kickball, claiming that founder and former WAKA officer Carter Rabasa had stolen the association's proprietary rules and then defamed WAKA by calling it "the Microsoft of kickball." Offended and pouting, WAKA demanded $356,000 in damages. Had the legal recourse existed for it, they likely would have forced Rabasa to play bocce for the rest of his life.
Alas, it now appears the two sides successfully dismissed the case, bringing to an end a sad period in kickball's otherwise storied history. Unfortunately, no info on the final settlement agreement has been made public, but Rabasa did post a heartfelt apology to WAKA: "Carter Rabasa, DCKickball and DCK Sports LLC regret and retract the defamatory and/or disparaging statements made regarding WAKA Kickball. Those statement [sic] were in error."
City Paper scribe Dave McKenna gets the best line out of the end, finally, of so much ridiculousness:
[DC Kickball's rules] are also pretty much the same rules used by third graders everywhere. No third graders were named as defendants.Zing!
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Kickball is the Microsoft of Dorks. Booyah.
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Just in case someone hasn't seen it yet...
DieYuppieKickball.com
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if it was truly 'adult' kickball i'd sign up to play immediately. my team would have some of the 'hottest women working on the hill' (if you work for a nonprifit or you're male, no need to apply). i'd be the team's coach (and fluffer) and sit on the sidelines in a plush recliner, flocked with nude staffers and interns and a keg of Guinness. oh, and a box of Durex.
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Peace in our time
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A bunch of lawyers in DC playing kickball, and then suing eachother (because this is DC and they are lawyers after all) over who has the right to play kickball, just shows why you never have to write satire in this town, it just writes itself.
"Square #1: Let's have fun, chillax, and play a game for 3rd graders! Yayyy!!! Square #2: Oh no you don't motherf#@ker! That's my game bitch!".. cut to a giant melee with khaki shorts and glasses flying everywhere.
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McGillicuddy... Did you say fluffer? I thought you said fluffer... Yeah. Right on.
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Yawn! Rugby League and Rugby Union peacefully coexist in DC. Players jump back and forth from one code to the other with no animosity or hard feelings. Why is this so difficult for kickball players?
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"Why is this so difficult for kickball players?"
Answer: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
The original WAKA guys struck it rich with this racket, and DC kickball wanted in on the action. Come on $60 a player x 20 players/team x 12 teams per league - the cost of a shirt equals serious cash; no wonder they quite their day job.
But now Local Rec. Departments will jump on and chip away at their pot of gold.
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@ RJ:
They actually charge people to play this crap? I can play on my company's softball team for free and they're charging people $60/head for Kickball???
A) I'm in the wrong business.
B) That money better be used towards buying all the players a round at the post-game bar crawl.
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@RJ
Good point, no one makes money playing or administrating rugby in the US. Still, using the figures you cited that's only 14K per league minus expenses. How of these leagues are there?
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MikeB: It's peace for our time.
And, so long as I'm being nitpicky, the parties to a case may move to dismiss, but the judge is the one who actually grants the dismissal.
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Hill,
They are now national wide (world wide looks like they have one in London). They claim 20,000 players, and many of them play multiple times per year. I counted 220 leagues; there are 37 in DC (proper) alone.
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RJ,
Holy fong! That is quite the money-making machine. I wonder if there's any way that I turn tetherball into a million dollar grossing franchise.
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This is the lamest, dorkiest story in the history of this city. Only we could combine adult kickball and a lawsuit.
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This is the lamest, dorkiest story in the history of this city. Only we could combine adult kickball and a lawsuit.
No doubt. You have folks committing legalized assault & battery on each all over the city in dojos, boxing gym, and wrestling rooms but who's getting sued? Kickball players.
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Yeah, yeah. I looked it up after I posted.
But my main point stands: Our long national nightmare is over.
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In a just world, both parties would lose.
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I wonder if there's any way that I turn tetherball into a million dollar grossing franchise.
I have yet to meet a sport that couldn't be improved with a little alcohol, nudity, and cocoa butter.
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Yknow.. they should just get alllll the kickball players in the DC armory and have a big game of flip-cup and work out their differences. Then lock the doors. And burn it to the fucking ground.
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I remember when they started playing kickball down on the mall and it seemed like a great idea -- most softball leagues are just excuses to socialize and drink, so why not play a game that everyone can enjoy. Then, by all accounts, the same uber-competitive douchebags who had ruined the softball leagues started playing kickball too. You know the ones, the idiots who show up in their highschool baseball uniforms and cleats, take everything too seriously, and throw frat boy tantrums if someone on their team makes a mistake.
That reminds me -- I feel terrible for the women in this town... most of the men are such tools (or gay).
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That reminds me -- I feel terrible for the women in this town... most of the men are such tools (or gay).
And the rest of us are married or otherwise taken.
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that's way funnier than a clown on fire...
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Is there some way I could make money by organizing paintball games where you use douchey kickball players for targets? I promise I would clean up afterwards.
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Is there some way I could make money by organizing paintball games where you use douchey kickball players for targets?
You mean kind of like that canned hunt Dick Cheney was on where he shot his boy in the grill?
Seems like there's a joke in the phrase "canned hunt", but I'll leave it to Monkey to tease it out.
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im suprised there wasnt more coverage of the dieyuppiekickball.com attack on that park by the duke ellington bridge a few weeks ago.
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What occurred during said attack and how can we make sure it happens again?
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Thanks for posting this... we covered this back in May though.
www.kickball365.com
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Seems like there's a joke in the phrase "canned hunt", but I'll leave it to Monkey to tease it out.
Canned hunt, hunting can - same difference?
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"This is the lamest, dorkiest story in the history of this city. Only we could combine adult kickball and a lawsuit."
I'm sorry, this in a city where an Adminstrative Law JUDGE filed a $60 million dollar suit over a pair of PANTS?!
It's not the lamest or dorkiest story, it's a tiny but telling footnote in a 900 page novel about how DC takes itself too seriously.