Whole new ballgame: WooPride Kickball League heads for championship weekend

WORCESTER — For most people, kickball stopped being a part of their weekly schedule sometime around middle school.

For a set of Worcester residents, the game has been the locus of five weeks full of triumphs and defeats, rivalries and camaraderie, but most of all, unexpected fun, as the WooPride Kickball League wraps up a strong first season heading toward its championships Sunday.

Games will start at 9 a.m. at The School Yahd on 216 West Boylston St., West Boylston, with the final set to start around noon.

Everyone is gunning for the thus-far undefeated Pride Panthers, said player Amanda Earley, whose own team, Bust a Lime, has two wins and two losses, and will be facing off against the Purple People Eaters Sunday.

Two months ago, Earley would have been unlikely to list kickball as a possible Sunday morning activity. When organizer Matt Gonzalez showed up at Femme Bar with sign-up sheets, she was initially hesitant.

“I’m relatively new to the Worcester (queer) community and didn’t know too many people outside of a few friends,” she said. The league presented an opportunity to meet new people in a group setting with a “safe and friendly atmosphere.”

Fast forward to the end of the spring season and Earley has found herself often having dinner or drinks with her team after practice and games and made new friends, which she is sure will transcend the league. “After every game on Sunday, there’s been a pretty big group for brunch, typically at the Femme Bar,” she said, due to the restaurant’s popular brunch menu.

Why kickball?

Gonzalez was inspired to start WooPride Kickball from his experience playing flag football as part of the Providence Gay Football League, seeing the community-building potential of sports. He chose kickball for ease of entry.

“In kickball all you gotta do is roll the ball, kick the ball and throw the ball,” he said. “You don’t need to be an all-star to go out there and shine.”

Without professional leagues and the attached cultural baggage, kickball is innately less competitive than baseball and football, said Jai Santora, captain of the Pride Panthers and owner of Santora Automotives, one of the league’s sponsors.

“Those big sports can be kind of intimidating if you never played before," Santora said. Most people have played (kickball) at least once in a schoolyard somewhere during recess ‒ everyone can remember that from their childhood."

Earley agreed that not having played since grade school was “kind of a common sentiment among my team and most of the others, meant that everyone would be entering it at a level playing field.”

Being a relatively simple and accessible game doesn’t diminish the high that can come from having a good game, Gonzalez believes ‒ it just allows more people to have those experiences.

“Even those who have never caught a ball before have caught a ball in our league. Once they see they can do it, once they kick a home run, there’s such joy on their face and they talk about it for the next week, I swear,” he said with a laugh.

Unexpected traction

Gonzalez could not have imagined the results when he first began passing out sign-up sheets. “I didn’t expect the turnout that I had,” he said. Where he had estimated about 30 players, he got 54, with more than 30 on the waitlist.

Players agree that one of the league’s major draws is providing additional social outlets for the community.

“Not everyone is going to be down for the bar scene ‒ I wasn’t for the longest time ‒ and some people are triggered by alcohol,” said Earley.

Games are held on the weekends during the day, making scheduling that much easier, she added. “We all like to think we can get out there every night, but we all have jobs.”

“It’s an activity that is team-oriented and not revolving around alcohol and offers something in the city for people to do who may not want to spend time in a bar or may have difficulty interacting with people” in that setting, said Santora.

"There are people in our league that I have never even seen before," said Gonzalez, which to him means it's functioning as intended. "My goal was to get to those individuals that may have felt like they couldn’t meet people."

“In the social scene at the bar it’s a totally different atmosphere,” said Dominic Gentile, captain of the Blue Ballerz. “(Kickball) adds a whole other layer, 80% fun and 20% competitive. I never played sports growing up. Now just through our few short weeks of playing, I’ve seen growth in my team and people get better. It was a very inaugural season with a decent learning curve for a lot of us.”

Born and raised in Worcester, Gentile returned to the city from Boston two years ago and noticed a pleasant change.

“Now there’s more events for the community, more than just the bar scene,” he said. “People are more comfortable being themselves and more inclusive. Worcester has been through such an amazing change ... this is just part of it.”

High school all over again

One of the most important things planned for next season is more referees, which will mean more games.

This spring Gonzalez was reffing every Sunday, in the games he wasn't playing.

"Going from player to referee really tested my patience. I never realized how much players yell at the referee because I never do. I did not know that putting on a referee shirt would make me a target," he said with a laugh.

That being said, he takes the pushback in stride.

"Everyone’s inner teenager came out but I love it, even when they fight me on the field about rules; it shows that they care," he said. "I know my teams that I have to do extra meditation on and I’m fine with that."

Going forward

"I learned so much from this," Gonzalez said. "Most importantly, that I can’t do it all by myself."

After this season he will be starting sign-ups for board members ‒ president, vice president, treasurer, secretary and fundraiser ‒ with a social media and field position added down the line.

The fall season will begin with the first game Sept. 17, and with the high level of player interest, there are plans to add two additional teams for a total of seven (each team has 14 to 15 players). The season will increase to eight weeks.

Currently the league uses The School Yahd, but Gonzalez is working with his alma mater Worcester State University to use a field on campus.

Player fees will be $65, which will help cover jersey and field costs.

In order to keep costs down, Gonzalez hopes to attract more sponsors, along with current sponsors like Santora Automotives, The School Yahd, JJ Electric, MB Lounge, The Woo Bar & Grill and Queer the Scene LLC. Merchandise featuring the league's logo on shirts and hats will be available at Worcester Pride in September.

"The Worcester queer community is in a renaissance," Gonzalez said. "So many things are happening and developing in our community with different organizations, events like Love your Labels, Queer the Scene and Creative Hub. All we were missing was a sports community because not everyone fits into those other (groups).

"My biggest thing about the community is always wanting to help any way I can and for me, it’s sports."

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: WooPride Kickball League has successful first season