On a cold October night the outfield grass of the softball fields at Pioneer Park are transformed into a battleground where four teams try to recapture the fun of a game they last played at recess at elementary school.

The Aberdeen Parks and Recreation Department created a kickball league that kicked off play earlier this fall and plans to offer kickball again next year. The season may start earlier to avoid some of the colder temperatures of the autumn but signs ups will open again in the early fall of next year.

The league only has four teams in its inaugural year but Recreation Supervisor Austin Weber is hoping to see the number of players increase when kickball season starts up again next fall.

The Parks and Recreation department already offers softball, volleyball and basketball.

“I went to school in North Carolina and kickball is pretty huge,” he said. “I’m not even two years into this job yet, so I came over here and saw that something else needs to happen other than these main sports. I knew that kickball would interest some people and there was a ton of commotion with it.”

Kickball is played in the outfield of the softball field with coed teams. In spite of — or maybe because of — the few number of teams participating in kickball’s first season in Aberdeen, games have been competitive as teams try to figure out which strategies from baseball and softball translate to the kickball field.

Kickball players are playing on a field with bases that are only 60 feet apart and 11 players on the field, as opposed to the 10 players allowed on the field during the city’s softball season, which allows for an extra defender that is often placed on the infield.

Infielders can try to throw the ball to the base to beat the runner and record the out, or they can simply throw the ball at a baserunner to get the out.

Infield play has become a big part of deciding winners and losers as teams are slowly discovering the benefit of bunting.

Avoiding the allure of the home runs has its upside but Weber said players have a tendency to try to turn the game into a home run derby when they see how close the chain link fence is.

“People don’t know how to play it right now. The games went by pretty fast in the first week and there wasn’t a lot of scoring. People were just trying to boot the ball as far as they could and it was getting caught every time,” he said. “There are some different strategies for kickball but I think they’ll figure it out.”

Buzz Scott, like every player in the new league, is still trying to figure out the best way to score runs. He said his team has not yet figured out the secret to lighting up the scoreboard.

“We’re a hot mess right now and we’re still trying to figure it out,” he said. “We’ve only played two games so we’re trying to figure it out but it’s a game of bunt, bunt, power. It’s a sacrifice fly type of thing but we’re still fine tuning it as we go.”

One of the players looking to fine-tune his own strategy is Jason Atwood. Atwood has played other recreational sports and, coincidentally, had been hoping for a kickball league to start when he first noticed it advertised on Facebook.

Atwood has not played the game since he was a child but said he is slowly remastering his technique. But with the season getting a late start and competitors forced to take the field in cold and damp weather, Atwood said stretching may need to be more of a priority before future games.

“It’s coming back to me, except for I pulled something and I can’t move too well right now,” he said. “That’s the difference. In recess. you don’t pull things and now you do.”

The cold weather conditions may be causing players’ hamstrings to tighten up but the combination of wind and rain was too much for the league to overcome one recent week and it had to cancel games.

At least some players on Scott’s team wanted to play, despite mother nature’s protest.

“Once we get out in the rain it’s going to be a muddy disaster so that’s going to be fun,” he said. “We were supposed to play last night and we were all looking forward to playing in 50 mile per hour gusts and sideways rain.”

Scott went on to say that if they do get the chance to play in high winds, he plans to kick the ball as high as he can and hope assistance from the jet stream can help him boot his first career rec league kickball homerun.

There should be no shortage of rain in the forecast for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs and defenses will have to adjust again if they want to chase glory and be crowned kickball champions in late November.

Kickball player Tim McLaughlin said he expects run totals to go up once defenders have to throw a wet ball around the infield.

“I think its going to result in a lot more hits,” he said. “All the games are pretty low-scoring so I think that’s going to help out. That thing is hard enough to throw when it’s dry out and it’s going to be really bad when it’s raining.”

While all four teams look for the best way to win games and try to remember what used to work when they played at recess, Scott said he is enjoying the nostalgia the game is bringing him.

“It brings you back to your childhood,” he said. “When was the last time as a grown adult you could go out there and run around and kick stuff in the mud and peg people with a ball?”