Kick it — for fun, relationships and free beer

Last year, The Frosty Balls of Norfolk, Va. were seeded 25th. But they rolled through pool play, thrashing opponents by a combined score of 25-1. Then they vanquished the Meatballs from West Palm Beach, Fla., 2-0, in the final.

The self-described "George Steinbrenner of Adult Kickball," Blanks is a news anchor for an ABC affiliate. He deems himself a skilled recruiter and a master motivator, not that he needs to motivate much, since "I think some of teammates would be intense at Four Square, dude." He kicks but, even though he was a high school baseball player, he doesn't play the field, spending that time on the sidelines "losing lungs." Some of the members of the Frosty Balls have been playing together for four or five years.

Their secret? "One word," Blanks says. "Curfew." At least until the championship was won.

"We started playing at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and the championship out was made at 2 or 3 in the morning," Blanks says. "The worst part of the tournament was we stayed in, while everyone else who got eliminated got to drink all the free beer. So we were telling all the wives and girlfriends to get us some pitchers of beer."

Maybe that's why he did what he did after that out.

"I'm a grown man and I fell to my knees and started crying," Blanks says.

They made up for lost time.

"It was the best limo ride back from the field to the strip," Blanks says. "They stocked our limo with all the beer we could want. If anybody was asleep in Vegas, they woke up and heard us coming."

If they didn't smell them first.

"We were sweaty, stinky, nasty and happy," Blanks says. "Somehow, I ended up with the smallest room in the Platinum. The post-party ended up in my room. Nobody slept. We were all one big happy family."

Matt Winer / WAKA A WAKA player bunts a kick during a play-off game in South Florida.

Actually, you could take that last part literally. Yes, you can let loose, goof off and pop up while playing Adult Kickball. But you can also meet your potential spouse.

Talk to any team captain, and you'll hear a story about some romantic couple that met on the field in their league, if not while playing on their team. That's how Noxon, the author of Rejuvenile, met his wife, before proposing to her on the same field. Josh Martin, a lawyer who serves as co-captain of Balls Deeper from Fort Lauderdale, met his girlfriend through kickball. And now even Blanks's Frosty Balls have been pegged by Cupid. (Below the neck, of course. Otherwise, it wouldn't have counted.)

Blake Kalaikai, who didn't play on the championship team last year but will try to help it defend its title, was playing for a team called ThunderFeet when a teammate named Julie caught his eye. She's still a member of ThunderFeet. But soon she'll have option of changing another name: her surname.

"I really doubt our paths would have crossed without kickball," says Kalaikai, who works for the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. "I wasn't going in looking for love or anything. I was new to the area somewhat, and I was looking to meet people, hang out, socialize. Now we are engaged and getting married in May."

Ah, about that engagement. Before a game, Kalaikai told her to come to the mound to take a photo together. While her back was turned to them, some teammates unfurled a poster hat read, "Julie, will you marry me?"

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"She turns around and reads it," he says. "And when she turns back, I am on one knee. At first, she said, 'Are you serious?' And then, "Of course I will.'"

The engagement started auspiciously: they won the game. Now, with his fiancée watching, Kalaikai will try to win kickball's most prestigious trophy. And if they do, and then they drink enough, they could certainly take full advantage of their location.

Plenty of chapels in Vegas, after all.

"I mentioned that to her," Kalaikai says. "I've mentioned a few times already. But our parents would kill us."

And some fellow Frosty Balls have an idea that might not even be acceptable in Sin City.

"For the wedding, we have threatened to roll a kickball down the aisle," Blanks says. "But we don't want Julie to trip."

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