Kickball, dodgeball and other children's games are popular with some adults

ST. LOUIS -- Several weeks ago, Ron Cresong's son asked him to play on his dodgeball team, the Mean DB Machines, at First Baptist Church of Lake St. Louis. Now, he's hooked.

"It's a blast," Cresong, 45, of Lake St. Louis, said between matches. "I used to play baseball a lot, and this is fun because you can be old and effective if you have a strong [throwing] arm and the ability to catch."

Michelle and Ken Alldredge were in Albers eight years ago when they saw something they hadn't seen in years: kickball. It, too, was being played by adults and looked every bit as fun as when they played it as children.

So they started the St. Louis Kickball Association on the Missouri side of the river.

Today, it has 48 teams and close to 1,000 members, mostly age 25 to 35.

Members of the dodgeball team Raunchy Burritos, Chris Earp, 17, of O'Fallon, Mo., left, and Ethan Killian, 18, of Wentzville, Mo., right, grabbed the balls during the rush that starts the game May 10 at First Baptist Church of Lake St. Louis, Mo. (SARAH CONARD ~ St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Over in New Baden, Ill., Nick Parrish organizes the local Fast Plastic Wiffle Ball League. Parrish, 28, of Breese, Ill., says, "It's something to help us old guys stay in shape during the summer."

Carefree spirit

More and more, it seems, adults are complementing -- and sometimes replacing -- traditional adult sports such as softball and volleyball with games once found in schoolyards. Most of them point to the carefree spirit of these simple games and how even the most awkward and uncoordinated person can play.

"We try to make it laid-back," Michelle Alldredge, 34, of St. Louis, says of kickball. "A lot of people like it because it's coed and anyone can play. ... It's just a nice Sunday afternoon."

Scott Halter, 34, of Mehl­ville, Mo., has been playing with the SKA for seven years and jokes that it gives people an opportunity to make fun of friends for not catching a big red ball.

"Actually, though, some of our players' families have come out and ridiculed their family member for not catching a ball, and then they try it and think, 'Hey this is harder than it looks,"' he says.

That doesn't mean, however, these leagues don't have a competitive spirit. The speeds at which balls can travel --up to 70 mph in dodgeball, 80 mph in Wiffle ball -- suggest an element of ferocity. So do injuries such as pulled muscles, jammed fingers, twisted ankles, and rug burns or raspberries from diving and sliding.

This area is fielding some of the best teams in the nation. Last year, BallBustaz, a St. Louis team, placed fifth out of 40 teams in the Fast Plastic Wiffle Ball National Championship; the Holy Dodgers and the Loco Motives took first and second place, respectively, at the national dodgeball championships in Chicago.

Tom Papez, a high school history teacher and youth minister, started a trial league at First Baptist in Lake St. Louis two years ago to see whether there was any interest in it.

Rough-and-tumble

"We wanted to do an outreach for our church and build on the popularity of the movie, 'Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story,"' he says.

Today, that league, now called the Eastern Missouri Dodgeball Association, has 32 teams made up of students from three colleges, 10 high schools, four middle schools and a handful of middle-age adults such as Cresong.

Cresong played the rough-and-tumble game more than 30 years ago. It's since been banned in many schools because parents and educators deemed it too violent and a forum for bullies to torment the weak. But league players say that while the games are intense, they're all in good fun.

On game nights, the church gymnasium is crammed with teams competing on four regulation-size courts cordoned off by giant hanging tarpaulins. Each team plays four or five games a night for a total of 28 during the season.

Players don't have to be Baptist or even Christian, though evenings do begin with a few words from Papez about God, Jesus and so on. Then things get fierce as players lock in on their opponents and start pummeling them with balls.

Papez and his players insist that the impact of the balls doesn't hurt because they play with official dodgeballs made of a soft skin over a soft foam core.

"There are so many people who don't take themselves out of play because they don't feel the ball [hit them]," says Jared Datillo, 18, of O'Fallon, Mo. "They don't know they've been hit unless they're hit in the face."