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.