He's wearing a pink Hawaiian shirt over a gray sweatshirt and yellow rainpants with a huge hole in the back.
In his hand he clutches Pabst Blue Ribbon, the beverage of choice for players in Missoula's Le Kickball League.
As if adults playing kickball weren't interesting enough, a quick scan of the diamonds at McCormick Park on the league's regular Monday night match reveals players sporting short-shorts, headbands, argyle socks pulled way up to the knees, afro hairdos ala Kid and Play, Converse high-tops - a veritable hipster wardrobe in every color imaginable.
The second season of the popular league began Monday, Aug. 25, with an irreverent, yet spirited rendition of the national anthem and the first pitch ceremonially thrown out by Missoula's Colin Hickey, of International Playboys fame.
McQuilkin, along with husband Matt McQuilkin and friend Lael Gabrian, formed Le Kickball in 2007 after another friend, Jane St. John, told them about Brooklyn Kickball, an alternative sports community in New York.
"We modeled it after other kickball leagues in cool towns across the nation," Aimee McQuilkin said.
Though the sport of kickball dates back to the 1940s as a physical education activity, the modern version became wildly popular among young adults in cities like Washington, D.C., and New York City around 2003."Everybody grew up with kickball," Conrad Wendland said. "We love it from when we were young playing it on the playground."
Wendland, who plays on a team called Merton Hanks Hydroperoxide Dance Party 2, looks the part in blue basketball shorts and athletic socks pulled up all the way with an orange headband holding up a mop of curly brown hair.
On a ferociously wet second Monday night of the season, he high steps through 3 inches of mud almost to second base before realizing he won't make it.
He turns and heads back to first carrying his Pabst Blue Ribbon out in front.
Over his shoulder, he notices the opposing pitcher taking aim, and so kicks his legs up like a runner over hurdles as the ball comes flying at him.
In kickball, many of the rules follow baseball. However, you can be tagged out if you're hit with the ball.
He lands square, but his momentum pushes him across the slippery mud and he flails, barely managing to stay up as he slides past first base sloshing beer but never losing his grip on the can.
Overcorrecting, he falls and rolls over, protecting his beer and placing his free hand on the base.
"It's required," he said of fielding and kicking with a beer in hand.
From Missoula's 10 teams last year to 15 teams this year is somewhat indicative of what kickball is doing around the country.
"It's so popular," Aimee McQuilkin said. "I think it was word-of-mouth; this year's success is based on last year's."
And last year was a pretty good year.
When Denver's all-star team decided to make a West Coast tour, they made Missoula the last stop.
"They said we gave them their best competition of the trip," McQuilkin said. "More than that, we hung out with them afterward, and they taught us about running kickball and the party we had to have at the end of the year."
Matt Firebaugh spent the second Monday of this season as a referee, a chore each team takes a bye week to perform.
"Tonight, you can't see the bases so people are running here and there claiming Mother Nature is interfering with the game," Firebaugh said. "It's hard to make those calls."
Firebaugh's Ice Monkeys are the reigning champions, and once again, they're the team to beat.
Firebaugh and Matt Pagel, two of the tallest guys in the league, don't take a lot of guff when they make a call.
"I think it's our size that deters that," Pagel said.
But that size also makes them vulnerable.
"I guess we're more of a target, more open to being pegged for an out," Firebaugh said.
"Could be a detriment if we weren't so gifted," Pagel replied.
Firebaugh said he heard about kickball from a friend who worked at Betty's Divine, a popular fashion-forward clothing store owned by Aimee McQuilkin.
"Nobody's played kickball since grade school," Firebaugh said. "At first it's like, 'Kickball, are you serious?' Then when they get out here and play, it's a good time and they like it."
Some cities, like St. Louis, have thousands of kickball players and up to 50 teams. The World Adult Kickball Association, the largest sanctioning body in the country, boasts 25,000 players nationwide.But Le Kickball is not your average, ordinary, trendy, alternative sport.
It's a fashion show, social club, happy hour, recreational activity and dating service all rolled into one.
It doesn't mean that these guys don't play hard.
"For a lot of teams, it fulfills the ironic requirement just to show up," Pagel said. "But I think for kickball to be truly ironic you have to play hard."
Matt McQuilkin, might just embody that more than anyone.
"It's competitively fun," he said before heading out for a turn at the big, red rubber ball.
He lines up where he thinks home should be but is hidden by sloppy mud.
The pitch comes fast, the ball bouncing across the mud and then stalling as it hits a huge puddle short of McQuilkin's feet.
He picks up the ball and throws it back.
"Good eye," someone hollers from the dugout as hip-hop music thumps from a boom box in the corner.
Another pitch comes, and McQuilkin kicks it hard, the tang of boot on rubber receding over the pitcher's head, beyond second and toward the outstretched arms of an outfielder.Before one has time to see if the ball can be caught, McQuilkin is headed for second, which he rounds when he realizes no one is close enough to hit him or throw him out.
One play later, McQuilkin, who is this year's kickball commissioner, is back in the dugout holding his daughter and rooting for another team member coming around the bases in the pouring rain.
"The weather makes it interesting," he said. "But it's part of the game. We're going to play kickball whether it's raining or shining."
And for a fashion-minded kickball league like Le Kickball, the weather, as it does in Milan, Paris and New York, dictates the fashions.
"It just makes your outfits evolve," Aimee McQuilkin said. "Earlier in the season, it's swimsuits and such. When it gets cooler, we'll see more ski suits and goggles, things like that."
Reach reporter Tim Akimoff at (406) 523-5246 or by e-mail at tim.akimoff@lee.net. Reach photographer Linda Thompson at (406) 523-5270 or at lthompson@missoulian.com.
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Brandy Casey wrote on Nov 11, 2008 7:17 PM:
Sounds like a blast.
Thanks for the help.
Brandy Casey
Polson, MT "