09.08.06 Rise of the kickball anti-bunting lobby

Beyond the tropical monsoon and distressing number of injuries, the biggest bummer of this summer’s World Adult Kickball Association championship in Miami was the realization that all the best teams shared a strategy that hinged on the repetition of the single most boring play in all of kickball: the bunt.

When I was playing pickup ball back in the late ‘90s (he says, clearing the old-man phlegm from his windpipe and easing back in his rocking chair), bunts were expressly forbidden. Yes the surest way to get runners on base is to hit slow dribblers up the third base line. But how fun is that? It’s truly dispiriting to watch players robotically repeat the same noodle-legged kick again and again in a competition to see who can be the most precisely wimpy.

So I’m heartened to discover an advocacy group devoted to the elimination of bunts in kickball. NoBunting.com includes the 10 commandments of the movement (“Number 5: Behold, bunting is an abomination unto me, and maketh thy opponent’s head like unto spoiled fruit”), an advice column called “Ask Dr. Kick” (“Are bunting addictions different for men and women?”) and a shop filled with No Bunting merchandise.

The site is the work of a 23-year-old creative marketing manager from Arizona named Russell Perry, who tells me via e-mail that “simple nomenclature” inspired him to start the group:

“The name of the sport is KICKball. Even with creative word games you cannot even begin to extract BUNT from that. Any team that intentionally bunts is obviously a team that is on the field for reasons that more or less are derived from pent-up playground losses as children. You would have been picked last every single time in grade school if you were known as a bunter. Those who bunt have found an avenue where they can win by simply playing a different game than kickball. Where as us kickers come out, have fun, have a beer, laugh, and kick the ball, the bunters feel the need to strategically manipulate the game taking advantage of an blatant oversight in the rules, obtain an empty victory, and do so in such a way that probably keeps them up at night.”

I’m in full support of Perry’s good work, though as a kickballer with a childhood record dominated by spastic errors and asthma attacks, I take issue with his macho posturing about players working out pent-up playground losses in their adult kickball careers. The game is big enough for all sorts – those child stars who play to relive moments of glory and those formerly picked last who play to overcome childhood humiliations that would otherwise jolt them awake in cold sweats at 3 in the morning.

But on this, we agree: for both sorts of players, the best way to enjoy the game is to cut out the bunts and kick the damn ball.

In other kickball-media related news, Newsweek just did a brief item on the resurgence of kickball and there’s a new episode and home page for “View from Home Plate,” the kickball chat show filmed inside a moving subcompact on the streets of L.A.

I think the bunt is neccisary just to give the catcher something to do.

Don’t hate the player - hate the game.  Until they do change the rules - bunting is part of the game.

Sincerely,
Your east coast Tiki.  ;)

My team recently finished 2nd in a non-WAKA league and we had a blast.  We were 1 of 2 new teams that recently left a WAKA league.  The league generally has a no bunting policy which requires the ball to travel a certain distance. Our reasons for leaving WAKA were mostly over cost and how the game was played.  WAKA players are always stating how bunting is not illegal but also not encouraged, but when it comes down to wins and losses, winning teams bunt because it is basically the loophole in the rules.  If they changed some rules, that could eliminate some of the shameful bunting. They need to cut the fielders down to 10 to open the field up a little more.

I went back to watch a WAKA game this past weekend and it was more of the same. I don’t miss it at all.