61st Over-the-Line Tournament is a fiesta for two weekends

As it has for the past 61 years (since 1953!), the Old Mission Bay Athletic Club (OMBAC) is staging its annual Over-the-Line Tournament on Fiesta Island. Starting last Saturday, and continuing for a second weekend this coming Saturday, July 19, the altered, alternative beach softball competition and party is a yearly unique feature of America’s Finest City.

The OTL Tournament has been celebrated for all these years for its local-seeming flavor of risque (or downright obscene) team names, crazy clothing choices by both participants and spectators (ranging form the risque to the downright obscene as well), and the extreme extent of the drinking of alcohol, again, with risque to obscene levels observed.

The way to play the game could not be more straightforward: 3 innings, 3 batters, 3 swings, 3 outs, no bases, runs scores based on where the ball is hit and not caught. The objective is in the name: hit the ball Over-the-Line (55 feet from home plate) and score.

This year, the city attempted to throw a curve ball at the organizers. A ban was considered on attendees bringing their own booze onto the island. This practice is as much of part of the game as the 55 foot line on the field.

The Tournament tossed a fastball back at the city in the form of the vocal protesting of  significant numbers of citizens, from the influential to the conventional, but all OTL fans. The outcome? Less than 7 days before the start of the games, Mayor Faulconer proclaimed that the traditional rite-of-summer festivities would again be granted its traditional all-encomposing alcohol permit for the two weekends.

Thus, the general and not-so-general public may bring their own drinks of any assorted brew or type, as long as the containers are not made of glass. In a press release, OMBAC also requested that babies, pets, bikes, anger, drama, fights and public nudity not make an appearance at the tournament.

The current contest will see more than twelve hundred teams-of-three playing in ten different divisions. Two of the better semi-appropriate team names this year are:

• Local girls at the Silver Fox
• We spend more time looking for black box than Malaysia Airlines

A sample of last year’s names, some appropriate, most inappropriate:

• Drive It Like You Stole It
• Old Farts with Young Hearts
• Two Tall Guys Playing with a Short Dick
• I’m Just Sayin’
• Got Wood?
• Eat, Pray, Screw

Organizers predict a total crowd of up to 50,000 players and spectators in 2014. OMBAC will be giving the proceeds to various charities, as it has for previous OTL tournaments.