Stuball: Built by friendship, powered by fun
HEATHER SACKETT, News Staff Writer
LAKE PLACID — What started six summers ago as a failed attempt at a pick-up basketball game, has grown into a popular summer sports tradition.
“One day we decided to organize a pick-up basketball game and it didn’t go well because we aren’t that athletic and we can’t play basketball,” explained Stuball founder and organizer Aaron Ditch. “So we thought, why not play home run derby?”
A baseball game played with a tennis ball (some might call it stick ball) is the simplest way to explain Stuball. From that first four-on-three game, Stuball evolved into a summer-long tournament with five teams and 38 players.
Each Sunday afternoon, a group of Lake Placid men in their 20s and 30s gather at the Fish and Game Club Field (or Fusion Field, as the players call it) for some old-fashioned summer fun.
Stuball is not a serious game. Teams sport screen-printed T-shirts and hats with names like the Sweat Bandits, the Gotham Batmen and the Ill Ninos in neon lettering. Some guys play barefoot and shirtless, and the sounds of good-natured heckling and laughter are constant.
The group is made up of men whose lives might not cross paths otherwise, even in a small town. Among the pitchers, first basemen and outfielders are cooks, marketing professionals, photographers, bartenders, waiters, personal trainers, local officials, husbands and fathers.
“We like having married people with big careers, all the way down to the local chuckle-heads,” said Stuball founder and president Jon Durney.
Each spring the group holds a draft so teams get mixed up and don’t have the same players every year. Players say part of the fun of Stuball is making friends with people outside your normal social circle.
“You meet new people that you normally wouldn’t ever meet in a typical week in Lake Placid,” Ditch said. “It’s just a bigger network of people you know.”
Turned off by other local sports leagues that seemed to focus too much on competition and tended to exclude people, Durney says Stuball is different.
“The ultimate appeal of Stuball is the fact that you would be hard pressed to find anyone who can call and ask for 36 or 37 of their friends to come and help you do something,” he said. “We can do that.”
The name Stuball is borrowed from a show called the Sunday Stew that aired on MTV every Sunday night, but was cancelled in 2006.
Either to accommodate the unpredictable bounces associated with using a tennis ball or to make up for a lack of athletic prowess, the conventional baseball rules have been tweaked for Stuball. Batters are allowed seven balls, a hit that bounces over the outfield fence is a ground-rule double, throwing the ball and hitting the runner is an alternate means of getting an out and a plastic chair behind the plate is a substitute for a catcher. If the pitcher hits the chair, it’s a strike. The maximum number of players is eight, but teams can play with as few as three by recruiting someone from the crowd to play first base.
But players say it’s much more than the game itself that keeps them coming back each year.
“When people show up and see Stuball for the first time, they realize that everyone is friends and we are all having a great time,” Ditch said. “It’s one of those summer sports everyone can play and you don’t have to be athletic.”
Stuball has grown so much recently that the league added a fifth team this year. In fact, interest in Stuball is so great that Durney said he has had to turn people away to maintain the atmosphere of a small friendly gathering.
“I don’t want to be an elitist because everything this cool and this good should grow,” he said. “But we only have a certain amount of players that can fit each year. Eventually, it’s probably going to get bigger.”
And just as the number of players has grown, so has Stuball’s following. Crowds of spectators line the fields on game day and some even bring a grill, serving up hotdogs and hamburgers. Stuball’s Facebook page boasts 143 fans. The league has a kids’ day each year where younger family members and friends are allowed to play and a powder puff day where wives, girlfriends and girl friends play the game.
Stuball also gives back to the community. Bottle drives and other fund raisers help raise money for local charities like High Peaks Hospice. They will present a check to hospice during this year’s Stuball world series in September.
“So far we have about $650 on the year,” Ditch said.
Even though the league is dedicated to community service, ultimately, Stuball comes down to summer fun and male bonding.
“There’s three Fs in Stuball,” Durney said. “Friendship, — that’s the best part — there’s fun and then there’s fun. We’re just boys being boys.”
POSTED: August 27, 2009
Photos
“One day we decided to organize a pick-up basketball game and it didn’t go well because we aren’t that athletic and we can’t play basketball,” explained Stuball founder and organizer Aaron Ditch. “So we thought, why not play home run derby?”
A baseball game played with a tennis ball (some might call it stick ball) is the simplest way to explain Stuball. From that first four-on-three game, Stuball evolved into a summer-long tournament with five teams and 38 players.
Each Sunday afternoon, a group of Lake Placid men in their 20s and 30s gather at the Fish and Game Club Field (or Fusion Field, as the players call it) for some old-fashioned summer fun.
Stuball is not a serious game. Teams sport screen-printed T-shirts and hats with names like the Sweat Bandits, the Gotham Batmen and the Ill Ninos in neon lettering. Some guys play barefoot and shirtless, and the sounds of good-natured heckling and laughter are constant.
The group is made up of men whose lives might not cross paths otherwise, even in a small town. Among the pitchers, first basemen and outfielders are cooks, marketing professionals, photographers, bartenders, waiters, personal trainers, local officials, husbands and fathers.
“We like having married people with big careers, all the way down to the local chuckle-heads,” said Stuball founder and president Jon Durney.
Each spring the group holds a draft so teams get mixed up and don’t have the same players every year. Players say part of the fun of Stuball is making friends with people outside your normal social circle.
“You meet new people that you normally wouldn’t ever meet in a typical week in Lake Placid,” Ditch said. “It’s just a bigger network of people you know.”
Turned off by other local sports leagues that seemed to focus too much on competition and tended to exclude people, Durney says Stuball is different.
“The ultimate appeal of Stuball is the fact that you would be hard pressed to find anyone who can call and ask for 36 or 37 of their friends to come and help you do something,” he said. “We can do that.”
The name Stuball is borrowed from a show called the Sunday Stew that aired on MTV every Sunday night, but was cancelled in 2006.
Either to accommodate the unpredictable bounces associated with using a tennis ball or to make up for a lack of athletic prowess, the conventional baseball rules have been tweaked for Stuball. Batters are allowed seven balls, a hit that bounces over the outfield fence is a ground-rule double, throwing the ball and hitting the runner is an alternate means of getting an out and a plastic chair behind the plate is a substitute for a catcher. If the pitcher hits the chair, it’s a strike. The maximum number of players is eight, but teams can play with as few as three by recruiting someone from the crowd to play first base.
But players say it’s much more than the game itself that keeps them coming back each year.
“When people show up and see Stuball for the first time, they realize that everyone is friends and we are all having a great time,” Ditch said. “It’s one of those summer sports everyone can play and you don’t have to be athletic.”
Stuball has grown so much recently that the league added a fifth team this year. In fact, interest in Stuball is so great that Durney said he has had to turn people away to maintain the atmosphere of a small friendly gathering.
“I don’t want to be an elitist because everything this cool and this good should grow,” he said. “But we only have a certain amount of players that can fit each year. Eventually, it’s probably going to get bigger.”
And just as the number of players has grown, so has Stuball’s following. Crowds of spectators line the fields on game day and some even bring a grill, serving up hotdogs and hamburgers. Stuball’s Facebook page boasts 143 fans. The league has a kids’ day each year where younger family members and friends are allowed to play and a powder puff day where wives, girlfriends and girl friends play the game.
Stuball also gives back to the community. Bottle drives and other fund raisers help raise money for local charities like High Peaks Hospice. They will present a check to hospice during this year’s Stuball world series in September.
“So far we have about $650 on the year,” Ditch said.
Even though the league is dedicated to community service, ultimately, Stuball comes down to summer fun and male bonding.
“There’s three Fs in Stuball,” Durney said. “Friendship, — that’s the best part — there’s fun and then there’s fun. We’re just boys being boys.”
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08-29-09 7:03 PM
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What a great story. I have been a fan of stuball for years and I can say one thing its a riot to watch. Again its a bunch of people just coming together to have fun and find great friends. Its awesome to see this sport acknowledge.
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