National Kickball Day is a holiday celebrated on April 17th that pays homage to a league game and team sport played similarly to baseball. Also known as Football Rounders in the UK and Soccer Baseball in parts of Canada, this sport has been around for over a hundred years.

It’s a game that most people become familiar with while they’re in elementary school, but some continue to play it well into adulthood. Because this game doesn’t require a lot of additional equipment like other playground sports, it is very accessible to just about anyone. After all, you really just need a ball and some players, and you have a game.

The History of National Kickball Day

Kickball began its life as Kicking Baseball and is said to have been invented by Dr. Emmett Dunn Angell in 1910. Of course, he wasn’t the only person to have claimed to have invented this game.

Nicholas C. Seuss, supervisor of Cincinnati Park Playgrounds in Ohio, also claimed to have invented this game. We’re not sure who exactly invented it, so we’ll just let people decide for themselves.

Regardless of who invented it, the game had been renamed Kick Ball during the 1920s and began to be used by physical education teachers in public schools around the United States. This is when its popularity really began to soar.

The first time National Kickball Day was observed was in 2015. Although we’re unsure who invented this holiday or why it was invented, we are pretty confident about the date of its creation.

As is the case with most holidays with obscure origins, we’ll continue to try to do additional research on the subject. If we find out anything new, we’ll update this section. If we don’t, then we won’t.

Observing National Kickball Day

This holiday can be observed simply by enjoying this game. And all that requires are some friends, a ball, and some bases to run on. They can even join a kickball league if the desire strikes them.

Of course, people who don’t want to actually play this game can observe it in other ways. They can watch a kickball game or even learn more about the history of this game.

Everyone taking the time to observe this holiday in their own way can also spread the word about this holiday online using the hashtag #NationalKickballDay on social media. Let’s all have a little bit of fun with this sport by taking the time to celebrate this holiday.