Monday, November 15, 2010

The One Where They Decided A Championship With An "Accuracy Challenge"

Happy Monday Ladies and Gents,

I think I may have a bit of a treat for you this morning. Lots of interesting things came out of the WAKA Breaker Fall 2010 Tournament on Saturday. None of these were more interesting than a very candid chat I had with Jonathan Korb from WAKA's Corporate Office.

Where shall I begin??? Well, my team "Multiple Scorgasms" was the number 8 seed going into the tournament. As you may know, Breaker only has 10 teams in the league. We had a "play in" game vs. the number nine seed to determine who would play the much hated Seminoles. After a 6th inning rally, my team came back to tie "Booze on First". Clearly ignoring directives sent down from God, we chose to play Kansas City rules. After the 8th inning, we were still tied. This is when the first round of excitement began. Ty & Erik informed us we would have to have an accuracy kick-off to decide a winner at this point. After the other captain and I discussed several options, including a fight to the death, a 5K, a team chug off, a game of Dungeons and Dragons and a tricycle race, we decided to play flip cup for the right to move on. I assembled a squad that would rival any team from the Ligers, Ballics, TBN, etc. (insert booing and animosity here) and then went to have a chat with Mr. Korb. While my team was quickly disposing of the amateur squad, I expressed my displeasure with this type of a format and that this would never fly in the Founders Cup. Mr. Korb assured me that this would only happen in the first and second rounds, and that much like the Founders Cup, our championship would be decided on the kickball field.

As we moved on to face the Seminoles, it was brought to our attention that they were using a roster filled with impostors due to the fact that almost all of their registered girls were in Tally for the FSU game. My team, much to my dismay, wanted to go "douche move" and challenge their roster. We did...Korb and MLoop ran the roster checks...told us everyone checked out...although they didn't and I have proof of that...and we played. My team fell apart in one inning, we looked a bit like Team Fab, and we lost 5-2.

So after we lost to the Seminoles, there was some downtime before the semifinals began. In fact, about 30 minutes went by between the conclusion of the quarterfinals and the beginning of the semifinals. Now, if only that time had been preserved, perhaps we would have gotten a real winner in the end of the tourney, instead of an accuracy champion. However, Miss Nevada used this time to discuss the shenanigans of late with Korb. I should have tape recorded it, but I failed in this department. Highlights are as follows:

1)Mr. Korb insists that he has only looked at the blog twice, ever. The first time was after the hit-and-run incident with a former league rep (I apologize, I don’t have her name) and the second time was when Kegger told him to check out the cooler game video this season. He admitted that he and MLoop both laughed at this video.

2)Mr. Korb admits that WAKA could have handled all of these things better, but both he and MLoop insist that the blog is not the reason for anyone’s dismissal. For the record, Korb doesn’t like the word “banned”.

3)When asked what the reasons for dismissal were since they weren’t stemming from the blog, I got the standard “well, we can only discuss that with the individuals in question.” However MLoop’s take on the situation was “if you’re going to bitch and complain about things in our policies that we aren’t willing to fix, than you just shouldn’t play here anymore.”

4)When I brought up the issue of the parking and the budget, I was assured that our parking was not paid for out of the party budget. Instead, the reason our party budget was so much lower this season is because in all previous seasons we had a lot of money rolled over from season to season, so we had a bigger opening balance and this accounts for the money at our parties. Also, Korb said that they were tired of walking into places and throwing their wallet on the table and saying “here, take this, what do we get” and instead WAKA would rather negotiate before hand without releasing total budget amounts to get a better deal. I would tend to agree with part of this logic, but I don’t agree with the disappearing money aspect.

5)Korb insists that not a single banned member has emailed him. He would have responded and would certainly remember them. Korb welcomes any and all player emails, especially from those players who have concerns about the validity of their ban.

6)Korb has had a conversation with one banned member though. Per Korb, he, MLoop and Jenn V. had a conversation about the issues and she has been reinstated. When asked if it had anything to do with the fact that she was the only who had retained counsel, Korb assured me he had never heard from a lawyer or knew of her representation.

7)I then began to discuss my lack of understanding of how someone such as Alison who helped to plan fundraising events, went to Vegas to support this organization and had never said anything directly negative about WAKA (at least not on the blog) had caught the wrath of the ban hammer. Was it because she was dating Chan Chan? Were the DC hipsters upset about her choice of representation in Vegas? Did they feel left out because they’d never had the pleasure of her jello shots? No answers…

8)We discussed that the very people they banned were the heart and soul of WAKA Bayshore and that the reason they spoke up is because they actually cared. He didn’t disagree.

9)He admitted that they should have handled this entire process differently and that MLoop had certainly made some mistakes during this process. “But we all make mistakes and we can only improve in the future”…so to you banned people, they messed up but don’t expect an apology.

10)I mentioned that a league wide email from someone with a brain at the corporate office might go a long way towards clarifying concerns and easing tensions. Korb indicated he had contemplated such a venture, but had not done so to date.

11)When I asked him if he was concerned about the impending revenue loss, he responded that he was of course concerned by a loss of revenue, but that he didn’t think the hit would be as significant as the blog has made it out to be. (wait, wasn’t the ban/boycott list and revenue calculations started after the cooler video was put up?)

12)There were some other rumblings, mostly from my stomach because I forgot to bring a sammich…Korb disappeared before the quarterfinals started, and MLoop left shortly thereafter. Chandler, if I left anything out from this synopsis that I told you on Saturday, feel free to fill it in…I blame the Andre.

So now that the Korb/MLoop Chronicles were finished for the day, let’s get down to that historic championship game, shall we?

After 6 offensively charged innings (0-0 tie) we were forced into extra innings. Kansas City rules came into effect and let me tell you, the offensive futility continued. I was busy eating spiked Watermelon put together by Jaime’s own Masterbatters team…her team is actually pretty cool and she seemed far more laid back. Despite providing a scouting report to the green team as I had umpired the semifinal game for the pink team, they still managed to not do anything to push a winning run across. So after 8 innings of fun and excitement, Ty broke the news that this game was going to a kickoff. Allegedly, the captains met before the 8th inning began to discuss what would happen if the game was still tied. Queue the video…

This video was taken from my phone, so the quality isn't great and I was a bit intoxicated by this point




bumped by bull...way too much great info to be buried below two silly posts

16 comments:

Chandler said...

So let me get this straight...

You have proof that one (or some) of the Seminoles members weren't registered, and MLoop and Korb couldn't even figure it out with a roster check?

Those two couldn't sound more incompetent.

Kyle drunkenly called me this weekend when I was on top of the Space Needle to tell me the gist of the rest of this story. It's worth the wait and will re-enforce why we're boycotting WAKA.

Chandler said...

I just watched the video. I can not believe that shit. Excellent reporting, Kyle. WAKA is a complete joke.

J.W. said...

Can't watch the video right now, but I'm excited for part 2 anyway.

Can you compare/contrast the two divisions? Is Breaker division what Bayshore division should expect to be next season? Where would this "seminoles" team rank in Bayshore? There are a couple folks from that team on my Wednesday night softball team, and they're terrible at describing their league.

Geoff said...

Since when do you get to vote how to finish a game? If you don't want to play another inning, go the fuck home... you lose! Wasn't that the championship game? Wow... Tell Ty to sack up and make them play another inning. What I don't get is WHY we need an alternate way to end a kickball game. It ends when one team has more runs than the other at the end of the last inning, however many innings it takes. How hard is that? So what worst case scenario the game goes on for two hours? If players have somewhere to be let them leave they're not hostages. This has to be the saddest kickball video I've ever seen and I've seen a bunch! I want to hear more about what J. Korb had to say. And how come he didn't tell me he was in town, he seemed genuinely interested in listening to my suggestions in his email!

And nice roster check ROB.

Chandler said...

Yes... after Korb told Kyle the championship game wouldn't end like that... the championship game actually ended like that.

Silky Johnson said...

WAKA = "World Accuracy Kick Association"

Geoff said...

Nice Silky!

Looking forward to part 2 Karl!

Ryan said...

What is on Ty's face?

Kyle said...

Jack -

Bayshore pre MLoop, Kegger, Korb and Ban Hammer would win in a landslide over Breaker. Instead of individual theme games, they do league wide theme nights and they almost always end terribly. I think I posted an email this season about one of them...it's terrible, terrible stuff. Participation sucks, they only had 10 teams this season.

Breaker is as close to douche kickball as you can get without the munting. And the reffing is even worse because no one knows the rules.

The Seminoles would be an average team in Bayshore. They would quickly rival Balls and Dolls for the asshole team award. The fact that some of those kids are on your softball team frightens me...I bet they take walks, cry when they foul out, give each other bro-fives for infield flys and then attempt to fight the other team when they lose.

Maria said...

I had one e-mail swap with Korb and directly asked him why the individuals were banned. He said he can't discuss the information.

This is the response I got o my e-mail - "There are reasons outside the blog you mention as to why the decision was made."
That was a copy, paste. Interesting they are still denying it.

Chris said...

Wow, that was stupid. World Adult Lawn Darts Association. What a joke.

Rob said...

Terrible way to decide the title game.

Love the roster check shout out Geoff

J.W. said...

I guess we got two of the good ones from their team. They've been cool people and good players.

Any surprise that a team called the "Seminoles" would rival for the biggest asshole team award? Not here. I'd love to pit the OC against them and run up the score like Tim Tebow did to the real noles the last three years. If only he was still eligible...

MJ said...

I was waiting for Tony to pop in the video and throw a chair...almost as disappointing as a Sarah B post.

Nate Dawg said...

Can someone give me Korb's email address? I dont have it and only emailed MLoop to which I got no response. Surprise...

Chandler said...

I sent it to you just now