July 6, 2005
The Wall Street Journal on Adult Kickball
Love it or hate it, D.C. kickball has reached new heights of publicity. Today's Wall Street Journal contains a front-page feature story on the D.C. WAKA and DCKickball adult kickball leagues, complete with a hedcut portrait of DCKickball founder Carter Rabasa. To his credit, Rabasa seems to speak to his audience well:
"WAKA is a monopoly, but there doesn't seem to be any structural reason for that to be the case," says Mr. Rabasa, an information-technology consultant. "Despite their dominance, I can create a compelling product, market it to the same people, and start taking their customers."
Over at the DCKickball blog the players seem to resent being in the shadow of the WAKA league. Our last post about kickball summarized a City Paper cover story on the "war" between the two leagues, and elicited some comments, including one who observed the events were "Once again proving the point that white professional DC is the home of high school ex-student body vice presidents," and another upon hearing about the length of time spent drinking after games asks "should you at least spend time PLAYING the sport?!"
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Carter's league was the best thing that could happen to WAKA. I played in the same WAKA leagues as Carter's "Fockers" last summer, and it is MUCH more fun without his unsportsmanlike team out of the mix! They can compete all they want.
This whole story really doesn't do much for either league. It makes both leagues out to be silly.
Besides... must have been a REALLY slow news day when kickball makes the front page!
Exactly, just because there is some squabbling between WAKA and DCKickball it doesn't mean kickball isn't fun, which is what the WSJ headline claims. I've played in various WAKA divisions and that stuff has had no effect on how much my fun I've had-I didn't even know it was going on until the City Paper article. Some divisions are run better than others, but still, that happens anywhere. This article is something I'd expect to see in the Examiner, not the Wall Street Journal.