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Game day

Tailgaters bring backyard competition to the blacktop

By VIKKI ORTIZ
vortiz@journalsentinel.com

Last Updated: Aug. 21, 2005

If someone ever decides to write a book on the history of Midwestern tailgating, there surely will be a chapter on the era when people got sick of playing Frisbee in between burgers and hot dogs.

Game Day

Photo/Benny Sieu Before the Brewers play, Howard Doremus of Westfield (left) and Scott Rozwalka of Warrenville, Ill., go head to head in a cliffhanger game of bean bag toss.

Photo/Benny Sieu John Power, 11, of Vernon, Ill., and Aarika Cancelli, 12, of Mundelein, Ill., stick to an old standby — football in a Miller Park parking lot.

Photo/Benny Sieu While some try new games during their tailgating, Tom Kirkeeng and his son Matt, 15, of Iowa are happy tossing a football before a Brewers game.

That chapter will describe what's happening now.

In recent years, backyard games - from bean bag toss to golf-ball string toss - have become almost as much of a tailgating staple as sauerkraut for the brats.

The games themselves may be nothing new, and families have played homemade versions of them for decades. But manufacturers of such games say they have been amazed by the number of people from Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana fueling the games' commercial popularity.

"We ship more games to Wisconsin than we ship to our neighbors here in California," said Brent Doud, partner of Ladder Golf LLC in San Diego. Ladder Golf, which sells for $69.95, involves players tossing a string attached to two golf balls onto a ladder-type fixture. Since Ladder Golf acquired its patent in 2001, the company has seen a 400% increase in business each year, Doud said.

He attributes the Midwestern appeal to the amount of open space people have to play in this region. Having fewer months of warm weather might also inspire people to be more creative with their activities, he said.

"I just took a call this morning from a Green Bay Packers fan, and he wanted to request green and yellow balls with his set," Doud said.

Having a ball

In Ohio, Joe Sweet, founder of the Cleveland Bean Bag Game Co., began hand-crafting bean bag games about five years ago, designing them after the ones his family used to make as a child. But in recent months, Sweet has been so swamped with orders for his $99.99 handmade wooden "SuperToss" game that he had to partner up with an Amish carpenter who helps him build the many sets needed.

Sweet said that while the Midwest seems to bring forth the most clients, his company also has been asked to build SuperToss games for tournaments being organized across the country.

"It's something to get outside, get away from the PlayStation, all the TV games and have a good time with the family," he said.

And in Hot Springs, Ark., the makers of Baggo, a bean bag toss game, consider Cincinnati and Chicago the two hotbeds for business. Those cities seem to be inspiring interest in other nearby cities, including Milwaukee, said Kirk Conville, president of Baggo Inc.

"I don't know what the resurgence is. . . . Maybe kids are spending too much time on the computers and families are wanting to get back to this," he said.

Pre-game festivities

Joe Krebs, a 23-year-old Milwaukeean, brought his bean bag toss game to a recent Brewers game. The lively bean bag competition seemed to go well with the plastic tumblers of brandy and Coke. Krebs and his friends tossed the colorful beanbags several feet in attempts to sink them into a hole on a platform. When the group finished, the game was folded up into a briefcase and stored in the trunk of his car.

"You don't have to run around the parking lot, and you don't hit all the cars," he said, explaining why the bean bag game was better than tossing around a football.

Bean bags rule

Paul Bennett of Lake Zurich, Ill., had so much fun playing bean bag toss at his 40th birthday party that he asked his neighbor if he could borrow the handmade game for one more day so he could take it to the Brewers game. Within 24 hours it was nestled in Bennett's car, along with brownies, bratwurst, hamburgers and other traditional tailgating items.

"Backyard games are back in fashion," Bennett said. "Once somebody brings it out, it starts a trend."

The game company representatives all said they had begun seeing interest in their tailgating games within the last few years, with their biggest sales numbers coming in now.

Spreading the word

Officials at Baggo have teamed up with corporate sponsors including Budweiser, which arranges for its logo to be displayed on the games. The Baggo games start at $69.95.

One of the best aspects of these newer backyard games, Doud said, is that advertising is almost unnecessary. Customers usually are referred by word of mouth after playing the games.

"The majority of our sales come from people who know somebody who has the game, or after they played it at a party over the weekend," he said.