Kickball Is Worse Than Drugs and Gangs, Claims New York Woman Who Wants League Banned

Karen Gehres has started a petition to put an end to the insanity of adult kickball games

By John Boone Jun 05, 2013 11:30 PMTags
Happy Endings, Adam PallyAdam Larkey/ABC

Kickball is a menace to society and won't anyone please think of the adults?!

Karen Gehres, a New York resident who resides on the Lower East Side, started a petition to get a local kickball league banned. "I have lived in the neighborhood when there were gangs running around, heroin," Gehres complained to DNAInfo. "But this is one of the most annoying, obnoxious things."

Tonight, we take you inside the sinister world of adult kickball. [Editor's note: In the pursuit of fair and balanced journalism, we must disclose the fact that the writer of this article is a member of an adult kickball league and kickball rules and this lady drools!]

The leagues in question, the Notwork Network Society and NYC Social Sports Club, play their games at an elementary school near Gehres apartment complex on Saturdays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights until approximately 9:15 p.m. (according to Gehre's husband "Sometimes they play until 10 or 11 at night[!!!]")

For the record, the kickball league has released a statement, explaining, "Notwork Network takes efforts to keep things at a reasonable noise level during our events."

Gehres now wants the "frat-house behavior" ("I don't want to insult children and say it is childish," oh snap) removed from her neighborhood and has collected signatures from "about 40" people. She will present the issue at a community board meeting this week.

This is not the first time that kickballers have posed a threat—worse than gangs, heroin—to civiliation. Earlier this year, the cruising world was rocked when kickball took to the seas.

JD4Nati, classified as a "Cool Cruiser," took to Cruise Critic to recount her haunting run in with "the most obnoxious group of people in my life – the kickballers." Yes, along with her husband and daughters, JD4Nati unwittingly found herself trapped on the Kickball Cruise From Hell (slashing its way in to a theater near you this summer).

JD4Nati blasts the WAKA kickballers (Shout-out, WAKA!) for being drunk and loud and reveals, "We smelled marijuana on more than one occasion on lido deck." (Is the Lido Deck sacred to no one anymore?!) "This cruise gave a whole new meaning to the phrase booze cruise," JD4Nati quips (good one, JD4Nati!).

The kickballers once again put out a statement: "THE NUMBERS SO FAR: 517 - the total # of people who successfully snuck alcohol on board, 5 - the number of hours it took for the first guy to be banned from drinking the rest of the weekend, 2 - the number of people arrested on the ship for narcotics, 4 - the number of failed attempts at the cruise group photo, 16 - the number of people total banned from drinking by Carnival, 26 - the number of times the "roaming flip cup crew" got forced to stop playing, and most importantly: 0 - the number of players left behind in Mexico."

JD4Nati likewise hopes to have kickballers banned (from all future cruises).

First of all, hashtag discrimination is real. Secondly, kickballers: You do you.