Variety is the spice of kickball life

Most people would not want to eat one kind of food, or even different food from the same place, every day forever. While initially it may sound like Heaven to eat 5 guys all day every day or dine at Citronelle for the rest of your life; eventually it would get boring. And those are examples of things that are excellent. Imagine if you kept going to a crappy restaurant for eternity - how much would that suck? This brings me to this week's open letter to the people who ONLY play in the Kash guy's league:

To Whom it May Concern,

I know that many of you have played with WAKA for many years, as I have. In the last few years a few new kickball leagues have popped up in the area and seem to be growing fairly well. For the most part they are less expensive, get better bar, deals, and one in particular is a much more social event oriented. And many people who play in WAKA, including me, have tried them out - they are fun!

The reason for this letter is to those of you who really care about making WAKA, or whatever league you are in, better. Being a kickball dork I read wakakickball365 fairly regularly and often see people complaining about things they'd like to see WAKA change. Like bar prices increasing or the cheap-o rubber bases they have to use. However, when someone from WAAR or NAKID or some other group posts a response they are met with either silence or disdain from WAKA loyalists. So do people just want to bitch and moan or do they want to effect some change? I fear it is the former.

Also, I wonder where this loyalty comes from? Certainly the Kash guys are only loyal to your dollar bills. After all, aside from a few empty promises by WAKA reps to bring things up to "WAKA central" what real change has occurred? For goodness sake, they won't even give returning players a tiny $5 discount for playing for more than one season! And many of us have worked for free to help them make money, yet we are never considered in anything - except for money collection.

The only thing that gets the Kash guys loyalty

My point is that by playing in more than one league during a season, or alternating between a few, wouldn't you broaden your horizon and possibly get a better experience? Or some ideas to being back to WAKA? Why is it that leagues that have been around for less than half the time WAKA has can afford to not charge for any parties (and have them last 6 hours!), use real bases, and/or charge less? At the very least you would widen your circle for potential friends and hookups. And you may even find you like one of the other leagues better.

This is all a multi-million dollar corporation can afford?

In the end I just don't get why many players are willing to pay more, get less, and put up with people who love WAKA treating them like crap (as in this exchange on a message board). I still play in WAKA but exposing myself to these other leagues has certainly made me see that many of the things I thought could make the league better are feasible and happening elsewhere. The loss of revenue will probably be the only thing that will get the Kash guys' attention, maybe it won't, but at least you'd know. Plus, let's not forget the hookup potential increasing. So why not try one, you may like it?

Kickball Homer