Sometimes cheaters DO prosper

Lots of the posts I write here engender the response that I am taking things too seriously and need to chill out. My favorite is that people use the tired cliche that "It's just kickball" to defend all sorts of different behavior; from treating your customers like crap to cheating in a kickball game. Another example of what I am sure will lead to these comments took place a few weeks ago in the Kash guys' DC Star division.

The Kash guys' rules are clear on what happens when a team does not have enough players at game time - that team has to forfeit. Further there are two separate instances in their rule book governing player eligibility:

4. PLAYER ELIGIBILITY
4.01 All participants must meet the following requirements:
a. must be 21 years of age or older by the date of the first game;
b. must be adequately and currently health insured against any injury that may arise from kickball play;
c. must be properly registered with WAKA including but not limited to full completion of the registration process,

Rule 7.05 A team playing a non-registered person, an improperly registered person, or a person not registered on that team, division, and season, will forfeit that game (see Rule 4.01c). This team will also lose the right to play in any division tournament or World Kickball Championship

(italics added by me as these are the important parts)

This takes us to the DC Star story. In the first round of the playoffs a couple of Sundays ago the teams took to the fields for their runs to glory. Unfortunately two new teams to the division, Your Mom and Playing the Field, did not have enough players show up and as per the rules were told that they had to forfeit. They did, understanding the rules and that they were being enforced. While I'm sure that sucked for them, especially being new teams, there was really nothing they could do - or was there?

It seems that in DC Star there are 2 sets of rules - one for the new teams and quite another for returners. The reason this is evident is because another team in the division, Team Keg, who has been with Star for a number of years now was allowed to play in the playoffs - with unregistered players. A member of Star found out about this and brought to the attention of the head referee and (in some way) the division president and nothing was done about it. The team was allowed to play and won its first game. They lost their second round match. Meanwhile teams full of players who actually paid money to play in the division and obeyed the rules couldn't play.

Where's the other set?

Team Keg must be very proud of itself for being a bunch of cheating assholes. For bringing in players that did not pay money, go through a whole season, and get treated like crap from Kelly's to win a stupid kickball playoff game. It must have been really important to the division president to have a returning team be allowed to play, since she was willing to break the rules for Team Keg and not the other two. And you don't have to take my word for it because in their recap of the game Team Keg boasted about being cheaters:

2) We were the first ever team in kickball history to employ two dead-on ringers that weren't registered…and STILL lose the game.

As you can see they clearly have no shame, and they really should. Actually the president, head ref, and whomever else knew about this should be even more ashamed. I can't comprehend how this would be seen as okay and if I was a member of the teams forced to forfeit and the team that lost to the cheaters I would be furious! They paid money and played by the rules and for that they were treated like crap while cheaters got to play on and brag about cheating.

Team Keg's new logo?

This is all bad enough and pretty pathetic (I mean these are kickball playoffs) - but there's more. Apparently the Kash guys' representative for DC Star plays in the division - and he hasn't taken any action on this either. I have, on many occasions, written about the uselessness of these reps but this is a new low. It is unconscionable that someone who is paid to make sure that the division is run properly by volunteers and that the rules are followed would allow this. Yet this guy is in a bunch of pictures every week goofing around and having fun. That plus his regular load of 8 real hours of work a week certainly makes that $60 worth the price to play, right?

This stuff pisses me off so much because the kickball dorks who read this blog, volunteer for boards, read wakakickball365.com, and the like are usually the ones who suffer because of these rule breakers. Why didn't anyone listen to the person telling them that a team was cheating? What's more telling is that DC Star routinely has posts on it's message board that talk ad nauseum about a fair v foul ball or something equally mind numbing about the rules. Yet there has been zero, zip, nada on their board about the cheating by this team and what the penalty should be. Not even by the biggest big mouths in the division.

DC Star's slogan for new teams not in the clique

Hey Stars, while you are so delusional about how you are "the best around" you may want to try applying the rules to all of the teams in your division - not just the ones you like. This isn't "just kickball", it's just unfair.

Sideshow Bob's awesome crystal ball and mysteriously coincidental disappearing posts

Curiously, since my post one of the links I provided has disappeared from DC Kickball's website. Luckily Sideshow Bob had the foresight to think this may happen and cut and pasted the exchange and has emailed it to me. I thought that this magical coincidence would not occur. Thanks to Sideshow for being so insigthful!

Ahh Sideshow, thanks to you for having OCD

I am sure most of you can understand why this was removed from the site:

NAKID Corrections posted by crabasa on June 18th

Some of you might have noticed (or been told about) some odd statements published in a newsletter by a kickball league called NAKID that was sent out this past week. It was primarily directed at the players in the District (Thursday) and Constitution (Sundays) divisions that call Hamilton ’s their home before and after games. Here are some excerpts:
"After looking around there was only one place that made sense to us – Hamilton ’s Bar & Grill, the place right next door. Unfortunately, they currently host two lesser kickball entities.

However, after speaking with the owner of Hamilton ’s and many members of its staff seeing our weekly turnout, they decided that HAMILTON’S will be our second sponsor bar in the fall!

So this week if you see any members from other leagues at Hamilton’s let them know that if they want to keep going there in the fall, they need to get NAKID!"

Anyway, I am forced to make the following corrections:
Hamilton ’s was told that NAKID just needed some extra space (ie: the downstairs) for a handful of teams
Hamilton ’s will remain DCKickball’s sponsor bar for Thursday and Sunday kickball
Both the District Division and the Constitution Division will have exclusive use of the upstairs Thanks,Carter RabasaCommish, DCKickball
Filed in Blog

7 Responses to “NAKID Corrections”
Kristin Says: June 19th, 2007 at 12:08 PM
You might want to double-check your sources on this one… Hamilton ’s is ONLY hosting NAKID for next fall’s season.

Carter Says: June 19th, 2007 at 02:05 PM
My “source” is very simple: Scott Hamilton. As in, the owner and namesake of the bar. Who’s your source?

NAKID Says: June 19th, 2007 at 03:03 PM
Can’t we all just get along!

Kristin Says: June 19th, 2007 at 03:14 PM
Well then Scott is giving us both the runaround…he said we have it next season. I think we both need to verify what’s going on in the fall…

J Says: June 19th, 2007 at 05:54 PM
Is the nakid league also being sued?

Carter Says: June 19th, 2007 at 06:11 PM
NAKID: if you don’t have a signed sponsorship agreement, you don’t have a lot of room to talk.

Kristiin Says: June 19th, 2007 at 08:13 PM
I have talked to Scott personally and I he said NAKID is the shiznit

I must apologize because Sideshow copied this prior to the final post from someone named "Stephanie" who basically quoted a post on the NAKID message board which stated:

OK, just got word that the confusion has been settled.NAKID has an exclusive contract (in writing) with Hamilton's. DCK will not be there on the nights we are there. Neither will any other sports leagues.

This re-poster ended with "This is what they are saying now" I believe.

I just wanted to post this for those of you who may click on the link in the last post and now, for some strange and highly coincidental reason, no can no longer access it.

Hmm, keep this up and you may have to move to Texas... Oh wait...

Since the post I have come across several other "interesting" stories about the DC Kickball founder. Let's just say he has burned many a bridge in both the kickball and DC bar communities.

Again, dude, you may want to catch Earl.

Carson Daly WAS right

It's been over a month since my last post, so I will need to make this one worth your attention. I have been gathering as much info as I can before writing on this because I am sure the DC Kickball Scout Blog Reader will dispatch a message that will lead to comments galore. Plus I like to have my facts straight before I write and when I haven't, I have been sure to write corrections. I admit here fully that I have not spoken to the DC Kickball founder about any of this because, well, I don't believe or respect him basically. Especially after what has transpired over the last few weeks.

First things first. I am still incredulous at this first story about the DC Kickball founder. About two months ago the founder of DC Kickball decided to go on a trip overseas. While he was gone he had a volunteer assist him with the spring registration for DC Kickball. As someone who has done this before I can tell you that this is no easy task. There are endless questions, teams who need to be updated, people wanting to switch teams, etc. You would think that someone who would be willing to do this while you were vacationing in a faraway land would be appreciated. Well, most of you would.

This woman also agreed to help out to run a division of DC Kickball by volunteering for the board. I call this being "in the can" for the league; it's a term of endearment from one kickball dork to another - but I digress. I refer to this as free labor, and according to the founder of DC Kickball himself, they do all the work on a day-to-day basis for the league.:

"DC Kickball relies on its players to volunteer to run the board and ref the games. The board members are the ones that make all of the major decisions (such as dates and venues) about how to spend the social budget (about $8,000). As well, the board picks and works with a charity throughout the season. In the past, we raised $4,000 for our charity in a single season."

The last two sentences of this quote are the ones that lead to the incredible part of the story. The board this DC Kickballer serves on had chosen a charity for their season and were proceeding with the plans for the season. Apparently a couple of weeks ago they were all notified that they were being fired from their volunteer positions on the board. The board's great malfeasance you ask? They actually believed the DC Kickball founder's above statement about the board being allowed to "pick" it's charity.

Remember, forced charity starts at home!

See, the founder has setup his own "charity" - his legal defense fund to help his case with the Kash guys. The founder has notified at least this particular division (and one can surmise all of them) that they MUST make his legal defense fund their "charity" for this season. When the division's board balked at this demand and explained that they had already chosen a charity and were setup to work with it, they were fired. So, the woman who helped the DC Kickball founder make money while he was off vacationing was dismissed from a position she held to help him run his league because she didn't want donations that could have helped children go toward his legal defense fund. Unreal.

I find it fascinating that a guy who likes to act like he is the greatest thing to kickball since flip cup consistently behaves in the same fashion as the league he is being sued by. In fact in some ways this is worse - the Kash guys couldn't care less what charity a division has and at least are using player dues to pay for this ridiculous lawsuit. (Please note I think they are greedy pigs too, but at least they are not asking for EXTRA money to pay for it). I guess the lesson here is to not trust this guy - even if you help him out and allow him to frolic in Asia. If you don't do what he wants he has no respect for you.

I wonder how registration is going, eh, what's her face has it

Which brings me to the latest saga in this guy's story: sponsor bars. In a previous post I have talked about the fact that DC Kickball and the Kash guys both take money from the bars they send their divisions to. The bars get a promise of a turnout by those divisions, the bar's name on the back of the division's players' shirts, and maybe some extra love (site links, parties, etc). This season DC Kickball on Sundays and Thursdays has sent certain divisions to Hamilton's Bar & Grill which is right next door to the NAKID sponsor bar, My Brother's Place. This has made things somewhat interesting on Sundays as many DC Kickballers have come over to MBP while Hamilton's has been cleared out by 7pm after games.

Probably not what Hamilton's thought it was paying for

Apparently this has not gone unnoticed by the staff and owners at Hamilton's. After one season of paying money to sponsor DC Kickball, they are apparently choosing to do business with NAKID in the fall. Not really tough to figure out, the Sunday turnout at Ham's hasn't been great and they don't have to pay NAKID a sponsorship fee. Hmm, more turnout and costs less - seems like a good business move. NAKID announced to all of it's players in it's Weekly Brew newsletter last week. We were all glad to hear it as it makes access to both bars easy for double the drinking and socializing. The DC Kickball founder was not so thrilled.

I have spoken before about how I do not like the pompous nature of the DC Kickball founder, and this post on his website's blog is a great example. The points that are particularly telling are these:

"I am forced to make the following corrections:

• Hamilton’s was told that NAKID just needed some extra space (ie: the downstairs) for a handful of teams

• Hamilton’s will remain DC Kickball’s sponsor bar for Thursday and Sunday kickball
  
• Both the District Division and the Constitution Division will have exclusive use of the upstairs "

These were all, of course, untrue and he was called out in the comments section of the blog. This is my favorite exchange:

Kristin Says: June 19th, 2007 at 03:14 PM
Well then Scott is giving us both the runaround…he said we have it next season. I think we both need to verify what’s going on in the fall…

Carter Says: June 19th, 2007 at 06:11 PM
NAKID: if you don’t have a signed sponsorship agreement, you don’t have a lot of room to talk.

Yeah, see you shouldn't go around posting pompous ass things on your blog until you have this in hand

The funny part is, of course, the DC Kickball founder was totally talking out of his ass. Her had no "signed sponsorship agreement" himself. Yet claimed all of these promises from Hamilton's - none of which he had received. In fact I spoke to the other people involved in these negotiations and there was nothing promised to DC Kickball after the spring season. And there was a discussion between Ham's and NAKID before spring season started that they would meet later to discuss a fall sponsorship. Which makes the final statement (I assume final as he has cut off all discussion via comments) on this by the DC kickball founder even more ludicrous:

"The fact of the matter is that the owner of Hamilton’s, on multiple occasions this summer and as recently as last week, assured me that DC Kickball would be coming back for the Fall."

What's clear in both of these cases is this: the DC Kickball founder chooses to, well, bend the truth to fit his own ends. Divisions can choose their own charity, as long as he would get the money. Hamilton's is his sponsor bar, except that no one ever told him that. Seems like the DC Kickball founder really does need to go to business school, as he is planning to do soon, because he sure isn't running this one the right way.

Maybe it's time to start making that list, DC Kickball founder

And even if it was true that he got jobbed by Hamilton's as he implies here: "I definitely feel like an idiot for taking Hamilton’s at their word and misinforming you all about the Fall." I'd advise him to watch a few episodes of My Name is Earl. Karma's a bitch Carter, maybe you should start treating people better.