Wanna Play Softball After Work?

[G-Fafif]

Company softball teams are fading, says WSJ.

Softball gives Patricia Thornton the rare excuse to get out of her Midtown Manhattan office early, where she works into the evening most days "power-lawyering," she says. As she and her colleagues took batting practice and waited for the opposing team to show last Thursday, a tougher opponent loomed one field over: 20-somethings playing kickball. The New York Corporate Athletic League in which Ms. Thornton plays had about 30 teams in 2008. Now it has eight. Summer has long been prime time for company softball leagues. They give workers a chance to relax outside the office, compete together for industry bragging rights and mingle with everyone from top executives to file clerks. But nationwide, fewer companies are choosing this traditional antidote to office drudgery. Despite its perks of fresh air, good times and an early exit from the office, company softball is an increasingly difficult sell, according to league commissioners and former players. From kickball to distance running, options have exploded as free time has shrunk, they say. Just 12% of U.S. organizations sponsor a company athletic team, down from 29% seven years ago, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. The Amateur Softball Association doesn't track corporate leagues, but says its adult-team registrations in 2013 had dropped 56% in 20 years. Jon Deutsch's @companysoftball Twitter feed is frozen on July 14, 2010. The coed team of employees from Richmond, Va., marketing firm Royall & Company disbanded after repeated struggles to coax players away from family commitments and other interests, Mr. Deutsch says. A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment. Graham Maloney is a partner at Greene Radovsky Maloney Share & Hennigh and the longtime commissioner of the San Francisco Lawyers Softball League. Over four decades, the league has helped melt tensions between teams of public defenders and district attorneys, as well as lawyers from competing firms, he says. But after peaking in the mid-1980s with 82 teams, the league is down to 21, despite the city's population of lawyers surging 65% in the same span. "We all think the current generation of younger lawyers who would have played softball grew up playing soccer and playing less baseball," says Mr. Maloney, who is 65. He says his profession's rising requirements for working hours also make lawyers less inclined to knock off early. Peter Eisenman of Eisenman Architects says the firm's standing in a softball league featuring prominent New York firms was so important in the 1980s and '90s that the sport "was part of our hiring process. We wanted the best architects and the best players." He recalled one employee who had played in the Boston Red Sox's minor-league system. Eisenman hasn't had a team for years. Most of its work is in Europe and the Middle East and its architects are more interested in the World Cup than in softball, Mr. Eisenman says. "I miss it," he says. Ancillary businesses are feeling the pinch. Alex Cosgrave, general manager of the Mad River Bar & Grille near New York's Central Park, says he's seeing fewer company teams coming in after games, and that team captains no longer toss their corporate cards on the bar and spring for the whole tab. As a result, per-player expenditures are about half what they were before the financial crisis, Mr. Cosgrave says. In recent years, competition has come from so-called sport and social clubs that appeared in the last 10 years in nearly every major and midsize city, offering a range of playground sports like Wiffle ball. At Richmond's River City Sports & Social Club, the club's mascot is Sudsy, a smiling-faced mug of beer hoisting another mug of beer. Its sales pitch is "a tall order of socializing with a splash of sports," owner Sean Small says. More than 6,000 people register for a River City team each year, mostly as individuals. Most sport and social clubs offer softball, but without the interpersonal risks of playing on a company team, says Galen Beers, executive director of the Sport and Social Industry Association. "I think if you're smart, you might think twice about getting too social with your co-workers," Mr. Beers says. "You want to not have to worry about what someone's going to say you did or said at your next company meeting." Some companies are even outsourcing their softball teams to sport and social clubs, or hiring them to organize activities such as volleyball tournaments, says Steve Stoloff, CEO of a San Diego sport and social club called VAVi. At some companies, softball teams have been replaced by broader health and wellness programs that emphasize inclusion, says Jeff Galloway, a 1972 Olympic runner who designed an eight-week fitness program for companies to prepare employees for 5-kilometer races. "There's no limit on this, and there's a limit to how many people can get involved on one of these [softball] teams," Mr. Galloway says. "There's also a skill threshold that's needed. There's no skill threshold in running and walking." Industrial softball leagues thrived in the early and mid-20th century as companies sponsored teams that generated publicity and boosted employee morale. As manufacturing jobs ebbed in the 1970s and '80s, leagues in white-collar fields like architecture and accounting grew. Now they're dwindling, too. The coed team at Verdasys, a Waltham, Mass., software firm, was a big part of the company's culture, employees said. The squad made photo cameos during the CEO's quarterly speeches and even steered Internet traffic: Late last year, Google first suggested "Verdasys softball" when people searched for the company. But after the 2013 season, the league Verdasys played in folded. The closest comparable league was about an hour away. Waltham city recreation supervisor Anna Connelly says the longtime corporate league was done in by an increase in work-at-home and flextime employees, younger people's interest in other activities and companies declining sponsorships over worries about worker liability. Verdasys team manager and team webmaster Andrew Wolan laments the lost camaraderie fostered by softball. "We don't have that connection anymore, that little silly thing you talk about on the side," he says. The website Mr. Wolan created and stuffed with statistical minutiae ("Rainbows observed: 2") remains a recruiting tool for the expanding company, which has about 150 employees. "I would say 50% of candidates who walk in the door have seen that website and comment on it," Verdasys chief marketing officer Connie Stack says. Its softball numbers may be down, but the New York Corporate Athletic League, where Ms. Thornton's team plays, isn't going quietly. Its basketball league is thriving. Last year it added Skee-ball, kickball, bocce and dodgeball. It promotes them on a separate "Play Big Apple" website with photos of grinning teammates and promises of free beer parties. "We're diversifying," league commissioner Steve Frenchman says. "It's what the people want."

[Ceetar]

I've wanted to join a baseball league for a while, just haven't.

[Guest d'Kong76]

I played for about eighteen years and really f'd up my
ankle sliding into second. Can you say snap? I have a
picture of the pretty colors it turned somewhere, maybe
that can be my TBT pic tomorrow.

I was a pretty decent right handed first baseman. Went
from power hitter slowly to just a singles and doubles guy.
I miss it, but my back definitely doesn't.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Ceetar wrote: I've wanted to join a baseball league for a while, just haven't.

I found that even in my early twenties, kids would
come home from college and wield that aluminum weapon
and the ball would be just too fast off the bat to stand there
in the infield. That's when I switched to softball.

[Ceetar]

d'Kong76 wrote: Ceetar wrote: I've wanted to join a baseball league for a while, just haven't. I found that even in my early twenties, kids would come home from college and wield that aluminum weapon and the ball would be just too fast off the bat to stand there in the infield. That's when I switched to softball.

Bah, abolish softball.

and switch to wood bats, I dunno.

One of these days.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

My company re-joined a league this summer for the first time 6+ years. I've only played one game so far due to travel (I pitched; went 1-2 with a sac fly; we lost on a bullshit call 9-8).

One thing that was difficult not to notice is that in the game I played, our opponent wasn't a "work" team so much as a group of wild Dominicans from uptown slumming in the corporates. Or maybe they were bodega employees or something. They were far too comfortable with one another to be workplace acquaintances while we (a diversified, 150+ person office) are largely strangers to one another other than encounters in the men's room, break room and elevator. Our "coach" was far too polite to put the guy who could catch the ball at shortstop etc etc etc.

[metsmarathon]

we have an intramural softball league at work. it's been going on for over 20 years or so, i've played for maybe 10 years, i think.

we typically have between 16 and 20 teams in the league, all are either employees or spouses, and residents of hte adjoining towns are eligible as well, but there aren't too many of those guys...

despite an alarming lack of experience playing baseball related sports i've developed into a pretty solid righty 1bman, with a line drive, opposite field swing. i'm also a thoroughly unreliable outfield glove with a lot of range.

[Edgy MD]

I dunno. Maybe it's because I've worked at non-profits, and there's something wrong with NPs being competitive, but I never work for anybody who fields teams. I hate that. I wanna ball.

[seawolf17]

Our summer league has tapered off as well. Our Student Affairs division fielded a team for several years in the on-campus summer league, but not in the last few summers. I tried, but there wasn't enough interest. Maybe next summer.

[Zvon]

I played softball over 25 yrs. I considered myself a third baseman (from hardball dayz) but I found myself at short, left & center a lot more in softball. Like Kong, I hit for power & average in hardball and my early years in softball, ended up a line single and split the gap kinda guy.
Broke my finger in hardball: head first slide on a triple. Broke my ankle in softball: climbing a high chain-link fence to rob a homer. Came down off the fence off kilter-CRACK!

I got softball stories coming out the waazoo. Did I ever tell you guys about "The Willie Glass Catch"?

[TransMonk]

I've played the past five years...but through the city and not through any company.

If got the right-handed first base similarity with KC. Though, I've never hit a home run. Singles and defense is what I bring to the team. And post-game bar attendance.

[ashie62]

When the young'ns grow up there will be no softball..

[Lefty Specialist]

Played in the Publisher's League on the Great Lawn for 10 years (before it was rebuilt). Awesome fun. The very last at bat of my career, I hit a three-run homer to win a game. I was mostly a singles and doubles guy, so I was as surprised as anybody. One of my best memories. I hit my dinger and I hung 'em up.

[Zvon]

Lefty Specialist wrote: Played in the Publisher's League on the Great Lawn for 10 years (before it was rebuilt). Awesome fun. The very last at bat of my career, I hit a three-run homer to win a game. I was mostly a singles and doubles guy, so I was as surprised as anybody. One of my best memories. I hit my dinger and I hung 'em up.

The boards Ted Williams

I played in the Atlantic City mens league for years.
Did do some work teams. I put together teams, or tried to, a bunch of times (if there was any interest wherever I was working at the time). Had some decent teams (at work, usually coed).

[Lefty Specialist]

Zvon wrote: The boards Ted Williams

I tipped my cap, then bought multiple pitchers for the entire team. Hoo boy, what a night that was.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Ashie62 wrote: When the young'ns grow up there will be no softball..

I dunno, my neighbor's kid is a Division l player in the
making and she's only in middle school.

[Ceetar]

Maybe next summer I'll look into a league. supposedly they're around North Jersey.

I was a 1B/2B/P/OF in little league, but who wasn't? I think I'd be a "three true outcomes" type guy these days.

[Frayed Knot]

I played softball for the better part of 30 years (although only occasionally on company teams) stopping only because life circumstances changed not because I no longer wanted to or felt I couldn't.
I played in leagues that started as early in the year as March and in others than ran over the end of the year into January. Sometimes the teams/leagues were fairly serious, sometimes less-so; usually mens teams though occasionally co-ed as well.
I miss it.

[Fman99]

Would love to do it but my wife works late and I do all of the cooking -- so it's not really feasible, schedule wise. Perhaps when the kids are older and better able to fend for themselves. I tend to stick to gym activities I can do solo, on my schedule, and still get home in time to get the grill going.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Thinking back, the three best years (most fun) playing softball
was a fall Sunday league. Most everyone showed up hungover
and we often played double-headers. Late in the season it got
cold, often in the 40's.. but a warm cold if the sun was out.

[Frayed Knot]

I LOVED fall 'Snowflake League' softball. Played in a league for 15 years or so that started just after Labor Day and went thru November ... and sometimes rainouts and makeups would take us into December and, at least once or twice, into January (OK the conditions for some of those games weren't too fun).

But normally it was 9 AM DH's, over usually before noon, cookout and beers in the parking lot afterward, fall asleep in front of football games on TV the rest of the afternoon.



My feeling was that as long as it was at least 40 degrees with some sun and at least a reasonably calm wind that the weather wasn't even a factor.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Lotta fun, never made it past maybe Dec 15th.
January?? lol

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Y'know what's dirtbag-cool?

Raking doubles and making diving catches in the outfield with a cigarette danglin' from your lip, rocking high stirrups all the while.

Y'know what else was dirtbag-cool, for a while?

[Winks]
[Points and shoots finger-guns at you]
[breaks, starting new game of nine-ball]

[Guest d'Kong76]

I like pool, especially nine ball

[Frayed Knot]

Decent hitter, not a lot of power, good runner, not great at an one position but good enough all around so I could fill in anywhere and not hurt the team.
But mostly, until I fried my shoulder sometime in the late '90s, I had a freakin' gun.
With FK in the OF you ran at your peril.

[seawolf17]

My problem -- even when I was thin -- has always been that I can't run and I have a noodle arm. I can hit, and I can catch the ball. I'm a right-side-of-the-infield guy.

Once at my dad's company picnic at Eisenhower Park a million years ago (I was probably about ten or twelve) my dad and I hit back-to-back home runs. That was cool.

[seawolf17]

seawolf17 wrote: Our summer league has tapered off as well. Our Student Affairs division fielded a team for several years in the on-campus summer league, but not in the last few summers. I tried, but there wasn't enough interest. Maybe next summer.

Summer 2010 was our championship season.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Note the body language difference between a championship season photo and a this-is-our-first-game-and-I-don't-even-know-you-guys photo.

[Lefty Specialist]

We had a guy who wouldn't drink a beer until we had a comfortable lead. He'd wait, and wait, and when the moment was right, he'd crack one open. It was like Red Auerbach's victory cigar. We never lost a game once he'd cracked open that beer.

[Ceetar]

d'Kong76 wrote: I like pool, especially nine ball

at the risk of completely derailing this..

POOL.

I've got a table in my basement that I got second half, but it's sorta warped a little and only and 8-footer.

Still fun though. Ultimately I'll figure out how to make (how to have more money basically..) sure my basement stays dry enough to finish off that corner, hang the dart board somewhere nice, put in a bathroom and a climate controlled fridge under a bar with homebrew kegs leading to custom-carved tap handles.