Photo by Morgen Schuler
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Grit. Passion. Desire.
Oh, and a well-trained liver.
The characteristics that helped us select 34-year-old Dana Wolff as Seattle’s best kickball player (more on that later) are obvious. With eight seasons under her belt, the cagey vet—a shortstop and captain for Team Leny’s of the Comeback Sports co-ed kickball league—isn’t shy when asked to share the keys to her game.
“I’m pretty quick, as far as running goes,” the two-time league champ says simply. “And I’m not afraid of the ball. That’s important.”
Indeed it is. This is kickball, after all, and the big red sphere plays a pretty prominent role. By all accounts, on the field and off, Wolff is downright fearless. That’s one of the reasons Comeback Sports League Manager Vanessa Eskelin pointed us in her direction when we asked whom she’d nominate as Seattle’s best player.
“Dana is really what we look for out of a loyal team captain,” explains Eskelin after a brief chuckle. “She’s very competitive, but she keeps it fun out there. She’s excited, and she rallies everyone together every single season.”
So what makes Wolff the best? Kickball, of course, is a game associated with elementary-school recesses, and for good reason. At its core it’s a kids’ endeavor, best played by those who have yet to discover the joys of full-time employment, mortgages, rent, cell-phone bills, or responsibilities. And for seven innings twice a week (unless one of her two teams has a double-header), that’s exactly the kind of abandon Wolff brings to the diamond. There are probably players with better stats (or who keep stats), and probably some who kick with more power, but Wolff embodies what kickball should be all about. At least we think she does.
Some like kickball for the thrill of competition. Some enjoy playing a game they haven’t played since grade school. Some like the camaraderie and the friendships they forge.
Some, like Wolff, play kickball for all of the above. Spend time with her, as I did on a recent sunny afternoon, and Wolff’s intense love for the niche sport becomes obvious. Wolff competes for all the right reasons.
And the booze.
“There’s a lot of drinking involved in kickball,” Wolff explains of the sport she’s dedicated her summers to for nearly a decade. (In the fall she’s in a bowling league, naturally.)
“I don’t like to play sober too much, or completely sober,” she says. “I don’t believe in adult sports that you can’t drink at anymore. There’s no point.”
In other words, “Hydration is very important,” Wolff tells us. “I don’t know if I should say we drink during the game, because technically we’re at a public park, but . . . ”
Enough said. We’d expect nothing less from the “best.” And, yes, we’ll admit that some players take kickball more seriously than Wolff does. Surely we could have chosen one of them for this prestigious honor. With no fewer than 1,100 kickball teams* throughout the city, this wasn’t about stats or winning percentages. The truth is that we’ve met “serious” kickball players, and we’re pretty sure they’re doing it wrong.
Wolff, on the other hand, is doing it right.
So what advice does Seattle’s best kickball player offer to newbies?
“Basically, I just tell them to kick it and run.”
Sounds about right.
mdriscoll@seattleweekly.com
*rough estimate
Read all of our picks for Sports & Adventure, and explore the rest of this year’s edition of Best of Seattle.
