Americans have been playing softball with their co-workers since the game grew out of several variants of baseball in the late 19th century. In 1895, Louis Rober, a lieutenant in the Minneapolis fire department, organized games of “kittenball” to entertain firefighters between runs. Blue-collar company teams proliferated over the next half-century. Office workers joined in later, in the 1970s and ’80s.

—Ira Boudway writing for Bloomberg Businessweek about how the High Times Bonghitters (yes, that is the team’s official name) became “the Yankees of New York media softball.”

Read the story