Photo illustration: Loyd McIntosh
Ready, aim … A new dodgeball league starts play January in Birmingham.
For those of you who were tortured by dodgeball in elementary and middle school, your chance to redeem and finally rid yourself of those nightmares of angry red rubber balls is coming in 2011. A new Birmingham dodgeball league will begin playing in January.
GoKickball, an Atlanta-based organization, is behind the new group, having already formed a kickball club in town. Austin Boyd, president of GoKickball Birmingham, says the dodgeball league, like kickball, is for the awkward and dorky in everyone.
“You don’t have be that athletically inclined to play dodgeball,” he says. “You just have to want to have a good time doing something active with a group of friends on a weekday night.”
Unlike kickball, however, dodgeball will feature a faster pace and a lot more action.
“It’s essentially the same game we all played in middle school, but we’ve put our own spin on it,” Boyd says.
Each team puts six players, with at least two women, on the court to hurl six balls at each other: two small (handled by women only), two medium and two large. Get hit, take a seat. Catch a ball, and the opposing pitcher is out. The team with the last player(s) standing wins the match.
The season starts at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 13 at the downtown branch of YMCA Birmingham, 2101 Fourth Ave. N. [map]. (Note: The author is the marketing manager for YMCA Birmingham.) Depending on demand, the league may add a second playing site in Homewood or Mountain Brook.
Registration costs $52 per player and must be completed online by Jan. 4.
• More Loyd McIntosh at Loyd’s Mixed Bag.
• MCers: Who wants to play dodgeball? Unleash the comments (but not at the face, please) below.
