Alright captains, it’s time to prepare your team for yet another exciting End-O-Season (EOS) Weekend. The culmination of all the hard work your team put in over the Spring season. Seems like only yesterday that we started this season… oh yeah that’s because it was. With the crazy Spring weather behind us, we can look forward to a great weekend filled with ping pong balls, brackets, drinking, the Silver Thermos, and the almighty Golden Lunchbox trophy. Let’s get this started…

We’re looking for 32 teams, we got 28

- EOS Team List - (official)

Thursday June 13th

Festivities kick off Thursday night with the Golden Lunchbox Tournament Selection Show live from O’Briens Pub across from Wick Field on 50th and Vliet.  Join the fun as teams select their slots on the bracket for the 26th edition of the coveted Golden Lunchbox Tourney. Fill out your bracket for a shot at cold hard cash for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places and hobnob with some of the most prolific freak shows in the league.  Good times, good times.  Balls drop at 8pm!! Get there early for good seats. If no representative from your team can make it, no worries, your team’s fate will be in the hands of someone else who will pick the ping pong ball for you. After the Selection Show the brackets will be complete and you can check them out at the link below.

- Golden Lunchbox Bracket - (official)

- Printable version -

Looking for help

Per usual, MUSA is looking for those of you that like to ump and want to help out with the tourney for a few games. MUSA will pick up the tab for lunch, plus a pretty good assortment of beverages and snacks during the whole day.  If ya know the rules and love being behind the dish, let me know at dan@musasports.com.  It’s important to note that we can schedule ya around any games you might be participating in, so even if you are playing, we can accommodate your schedule.  Sorry, ya cant ump your own game! If you are not playing and still want to help out, all the better. Please contact me.

If your team isn’t playing in the tournament, but still want to play, it’s always a good idea to show up at the Selection Show. Once brackets are announced, teams tend to need players. Always a good mingling scene for free agents looking to hook-up!

Saturday June 15th

Golden Lunchbox Tournament

OK, OK, let’s get to the reason for this long winded post. 32 teams are going to compete for the coveted Golden Lunchbox trophy and have their name engraved and immortalized in MUSA lore. This season we are switching it up a bit and trying out a new location at McCarty Park (map) and bumping the start time up to 9:00am instead of having the dreaded 8:15 games. We’ll still have 4 brackets divided up among the 3 fields (#1 South, #2 North, #3 East, and the Nomads) Nomads bracket is sharing field space with others and you can see the bracket link for the schedule.

It’s a county park and all teams are encouraged to bring their own food & beverages. Win or lose we want you to hangout awhile and enjoy a day of kickball.

EOS Bash

New to the Spring EOS is the After Party… It doesn’t end with the tournament this season either, although some have been known to go home and “accidently” fall asleep, we like to keep the fun going with the EOS Bash. This party is for EVERYONE, so regardless if you played on a Recess team or not, we want to see you!

The party will be hosted at Fire on Water (518 N. Water St across from Chase Bank) The upstairs room will be reserved for us kickballers and they’re doing $10 for all you can drink Miller Lite and Coors Lite. The area includes a pool table, dart board, beer pong and multiple TV’s. Get your hand stamped for the beer but you can order anything you want to drink as well as pizzas and appetizers from the kitchen. Party gets rollin’ right after the Lunchbox Championship. Find free street parking or park across the street at the parking structure but be sure to come hang with fellow MUSAites.

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me. dan@musasports.com

Current conditions on Wick #3 … it’ll be here soon.

Enroll today!

Congratulations to the Fall 2012 Golden Lunchbox winners, Blue Balls.

Fall 2012 Golden Lunchbox Champions: Blue Balls

Blue Balls defeated Fall 2012 Silver Thermos winners Vandelay Players Club 3-0 in the championship game on Saturday after beating Quis Quoss (MN) 5-2, 50 Shades of Ray 9-0, Prestige Worldwide 6-4, and Sport & Wood 4-0. Both teams didn’t have much trouble getting players on, the struggle was to get runners across the plate. The only real threat was in the 2nd inning when Blue Balls had bases loaded and 1 out. The next 2 kickers were not able to kick anyone in and the score remained 0-0 until Blue Balls broke the scoreless tie in the bottom of the 7th. A few timely kicks to get runners on followed by a couple errors and Vandelay Players Club found themselves down 3-0 and were never able to rally in the 8th or 9th. Blue Balls who won the Silver Thermos in the Spring grabs their first Golden Lunchbox in franchise history and a very well played tournament, scoring 27 and allowing 6. Not a bad kickball year for captain Jared Amann, A Silver Thermos in the spring, a Mr. Premium title for Premium Draft kickball, and now a Golden Lunchbox. All downhill from here?

But before all that …

On Thursday, O’Brien’s hosted the 25th Golden Lunchbox Selection Show. Top seed Rec Hazard selected the Northeast Bracket (Wick #2), Mr. Roger’s Neighborhoodlums scored the Southwest (Wick #5), Blue Balls landed in the South (Wick 4), and SuperDudes snatched up the Midwest (Wick #3). The next 12 teams picked their spot on the board and the brackets started filling out nicely. After the 16 teams picked their first round bye slots, the remaining balls were dropped into the bucket including the “Golden Ball”. The team that picks this gem gets to pick their path to the Lunchbox by bouncing a team from their spot and Evil Monkees with the 38th pick struck gold. They bounced Club G’s from the 12pm game on Wick #5, pitting themselves against Friend With Benefits. Their efforts didn’t pay off though; FWB bounced Evil Monkees from the tournament with a 14-2 crushing and thwarting any run the Monkees might have had. Golden Ball wasted.

- Complete Bracket -

Happy Tourney Day

Mostly cloudy and upper-30′s set the stage for the early morning games and teams came prepared setting up their “camp” areas, preparing for what they hoped would be long day of kickball. I remember talking to one player who claimed “I look forward to this day more than Christmas.” Lots of great action and memories throughout the day including a few that I remember …

1. The 11:15 game between Prestige Worldwide vs. Pour Me Another went 11 innings and was playing 6 vs. 6 before PWW kicked in the winning run in the bottom of 11 on a sacrifice fly to left. PWW had bases loaded and no outs the inning before and failed to score.

2. The 3:00pm game between RBV and Suck My Kick. RBV was down by 2 heading into the bottom of the 7th. They were able to plate 2 and win the game in walk-off fashion.

3. The 2:15 game between Fecal Matters vs. SuperDudes. Not sure on the details but heard it was an interesting game and almost a big upset.

4. More of a lowlight than a highlight, 2 players from Prestige Worldwide earned trips to the ER in back to back games. Sprained foot and a dislocated shoulder. Heal up fellas!

5. The sun did come out eventually and made for very pleasant afternoon games.

6. The sister of Hall of Famer Al Gardner had a cake made that looked like our Screamer logo ball.

Add any notable things you saw on our Facebook page.

Remember, there can only be one Golden Lunchbox winner and if your team wasn’t fortunate enough to hoist the beloved trophy and drink from its golden glory, then I hope you found a smaller victory in something else that day.

Hall of Fame

At the Bash, hosted at Rounding Third, Da Commish got up and announced the inductees for the Hall of Fame in hos normal drunken jibberish. Anthony Rodriguez was the first inductee to the Class of 2012 followed by longtime legend Jeff Schmidt. You will be able to check out their stories at the Hall of Fame once the curator gets them up this week. I was also enshrined into the Hall of Fame and although it is an honor, it’s a bit weird putting someone that runs the league into it’s own HOF. I do appreciate the sentiment though.

Have a great off-season everyone… unless you’re playing Arena Kickball. Then I will see you in January!

Thank You

I also want to thank everyone that makes this day possible. Lots of people jumping in and helping to ump when asked, field monitors, photographers, and all other helpers. Without people like you this league wouldn’t be what it is today, so THANK YOU again!