Tower Grove Park boots kickball league

Stephen Deere

A popular kickball league has been booted from Tower Grove Park, accused of being nothing more than a "drinking club."

The city this week revoked the permit for the BigBalls Kickball league to play in the park. Park Director John Karel said the league drew frequent complaints of public urination, drinking and nudity.

Last weekend, league members cursed at a park ranger and drove an ATV-like vehicle on one of the fields, he said.

On Monday, he looked at the league website and was shocked by the pictures. One was of a man drinking from a keg upside down with his bare buttocks showing. Others showed members mooning one another and spraying beer in the park.

"It's a drinking club," Karel said. "It's not a kickball league."

The league, which has about 2,500 members, had played in the park since 2007 and was one of four kickball leagues at Tower Grove. BigBalls members paid about $40 per season to play, and teams often sported sexually suggestive names and logos. The league also organizes an end-of-the-season "Beer Olympics."

Karel sent the league a letter Monday, notifying BigBalls its permit was being revoked.

"The overall condition of very loud, raucous behavior, lewd profane language, disrespect for rangers, public nudity and public intoxication continue unabated," Karel wrote.

League President Ted McClusky admitted that the league had some isolated problems but said he and other organizers were working to address them.

"I'd like to deny that there was a pattern of trouble," he said.

McClusky also said Karel's letter caught him off guard because city officials never warned the league about the possibility of expulsion.

"Why didn't they have a meeting saying, 'You guys are on probation,'" McClusky said. "There was nothing like that."

McClusky said the real problem was that BigBalls games were moved to a different part of Tower Grove Park. In the past, the league played on the south side, along Arsenal Street. This spring, park officials moved the games to the north, near the Shaw neighborhood.

Shaw residents weren't used to the traffic and competing for parking spaces, McClusky said. "We found out last weekend that residents were on the balconies of their multifamily buildings with binoculars looking for problems," he said.

Bill Hibdon, a Shaw resident who lives on Magnolia Avenue, said some of his neighbors resented the influx of kickball players and the parking crunch they caused.

"You are kind of trapped if you leave here on a Saturday," he said, adding that he has seen a few players urinating behind trees.

But overall, he said, "I really don't have a problem with it."

Benjamin Sipprell, who has played in the league for two seasons, said he bought a house in the Tower Grove South neighborhood last year in part to be close to the games.

"Yes, there was drinking on our team," said Sipprell, who plays on the Porn Stars. "But people weren't getting intoxicated to the point where it was problematic."

McClusky said he is looking for a park in St. Louis County where BigBalls can play. He said city officials have told him they are refunding the league's permit fee of roughly $4,500.

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Source: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/A4BB9753113304E88625770D0013488D?OpenDocument

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