The (Slightly Fading) Allure of Beer League Sports

And what about beer league sports? How long will they exist? The signs aren’t actually that great for it, either.

Participation in rec leagues in the area is “way down” in the past decade, says Jesse DeGraw, Louisville sports supervisor. “The more extreme CrossFit junkies and the extreme climbers might be moving on from the beer leagues,” says DeGraw.

National stats say the same. Participation is beer-friendly sports is steadily dropping, year after year, according to a 2012 report by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. Slow-pitch softball participation dropped 15% between 2007 and 2011. The same goes for other beer-friendly sports such as playing volleyball in the park (down 15%, too), throwing darts (down 21%) and bowling (down 7%). Meanwhile, solo, body-sculpting, serious-face sports are skyrocketing in popularity, such as triathlon (up 47%), running/jogging (up 18%) and yoga (up 17%).

“But,” DeGraw says, “it’s never going to go away.”

There will always be a place for the pace and rhythm of slower sports like softball and kickball, accompanied by a Coors Light.

Among the many great things about alcohol, one is that, while drinking it may—in reality—make you worse at things, in your head it makes you believe that you are better at them, and that your friends are better. Or, anyway, it makes you not care, or it makes you think it is funny.

This benevolent illusion can be a problem for drunken brain surgeons or forklift operators, but in the world of karaoke and casual sports it is an absolute blessing, especially after you trip over second base in the manner of Jerry Lewis on Quaaludes.

Rec league sports are about more than “blowing off steam after work,” as a kickball player named Justin Crowe tells me, sipping an Upslope Brown. They are about civic engagement.

The famous economist Steven Levitt, among many others, believes that the societal benefits of alcohol far outweigh the costs. And at the Boulder games, you can see why: Jurasskick Park, for example, all are all coworkers from the company SurveyGizmo, and they hang around long after the game, bonding. This has to be good for productivity, doesn’t it?

In softball and kickball and other beer league sports, the pace is slow enough, and the time in the dugout long enough, that you feel inclined to talk—to compliment your teammate’s dog, to kiss somebody’s new baby, to encourage each other in subtle ways—a hundred little gestures that build relationships and companies and towns. You can hear dugout chatter as little motivational speeches, the kind that are usually best given after a couple brews.

“I believe every woman has an authentic woman inside her!” yells a female dugout dweller at the East Mapleton ball fields.

There is a laugh.

“Hit from your heart!” a guy yells.

Another laugh.

What they are really saying isn’t cheesy encouragement about how to hit a ball. What they are really saying is something that playing sports with others, in any state, often makes you believe: “Hey, let’s remember that we’re all in this together, and that everyone here is alright.”