Who says you have to pick just one?

As my regular readers know, I play in a variety of kickball leagues. For some reason they are all sort of nasty about their competition. I guess it's like Pepsi going after Coke in their television ads, but it still seems a bit pointless to me. Most of the people I play kickball with couldn't care less about the business side of kickball. We just want to play. Plus, it's not really an either/or proposition when it comes to kickball.

I realize that most people have a finite amount of money to spend on fun things like kickball and so that is a factor. However, I also realize that a striking number of people join kickball, pay the money, and never show up to a single game! They basically throw their $65 (or whatever amount) away and apparently don't care. I mean, you'd think they'd at least come to get the stupid t-shirt, right? The point is, obviously the money is not all that finite if people - a lot of people - can just waste it like that.

I guess, too, their is a time factor. Most people also have a finite amount of time to spend doing leisure activities, so they may just want to choose one league to play in. However, in this area it seems like most people spend their time trying to meet other people who are like them. If I'm right about that, then it seems like joining more than one league would be the most efficient way to do that. I mean where else will you meet semi-athletic, semi-alcoholics who also enjoy playing a kid's game. Maybe Mark Foley's basement, but that's another story... and they'd all be too young.

Lastly, I guess there is the loyalty factor. As with Coke and Pepsi, and the first one you drank; there are people who probably feel some insane loyalty to the first league they joined. I call it insane because really it doesn't make any sense. Do any of these leagues have a loyalty to you? Sure you have friends and fun in the one you play with; but would you be allowed to play if you couldn't pay your registration? When you're out defending DC Kickball or NAKID to WAKA people who are shouting at you, does anyone who works for these places thank you or come over to help you? And aren't you depriving yourself, by staying true to just one league, of possibly a better kickball experience? Or at the very least the chance to hook up more?

See, she gets it!
I guess it really comes down to this, at least for me: try 'em all. One of the good things about being a kickball dork in this area is that we have several leagues to choose from. Hopefully that will make all of the leagues better, but that will only happen if many people are able to compare each of the leagues. So I hope people will do that. And I guess I'll try a Diet Pepsi today instead of Diet Coke.