I volunteered to captain our rec team, and now I spend more time chasing adults than playing

When our adult kickball captain moved away, nobody wanted the job. I volunteered because the alternative was letting a team I liked disappear. I thought captain meant making a lineup, bringing the balls, and settling the occasional argument about whether a runner was safe.

It mostly means sending reminders to grown adults.

Every Tuesday begins with the same group-chat question: who can make Thursday’s game? Three people answer immediately. Two read the message and say nothing. One says “probably,” which has come to mean anything from arriving early to being three states away. By Thursday afternoon, I am texting people individually, asking a former teammate to sub, and doing math about whether we will forfeit if someone gets stuck at work.

The money is worse. Our registration fee was due before the season, so I paid the league and asked everyone to reimburse me. Most did. Two teammates still owe me after six weeks. One keeps saying he will send it on payday, then arrives with takeout and a new team shirt. I hate that I have started noticing what he buys. I do not want to turn a recreational team into a credit investigation, but I also do not want to quietly cover his share.

On game nights I arrive carrying equipment, a printed roster, and the mild resentment of a person who has already played an invisible game before the first pitch. If somebody is late, I change the order. If somebody dislikes the position I give them, I hear about fairness. When we win, everyone says the team is fun this year. When we lose short-handed, someone asks why I did not find more substitutes.

Last week I finally snapped. A teammate asked at 5:40 whether the 6:30 game was “still happening.” I replied, “It will if people answer messages.” The chat went silent. He showed up, but the evening felt stiff, and I spent most of it wondering whether I had become the kind of captain who makes a casual league feel like work.

I know some of this can be fixed with structure. We could set a response deadline, require payment before someone plays, rotate equipment duty, and make the team accept a forfeit when too few people commit. The harder part is enforcing any of that without becoming a hall monitor. These are friends and coworkers, not employees. I volunteered to coordinate a game, not to supervise their calendars.

I am considering telling the team that I will finish this season only if three jobs are shared: attendance, money, and equipment. If nobody takes them, I will step down after the last game. That feels reasonable when I write it. In the group chat, it will sound like an ultimatum from the person who once said, “Sure, I can handle it.”

How much responsibility should come with captaining an adult rec team? Is it fair to stop rescuing the group and let a forfeit expose the problem, or does the captain owe everyone one organized season after volunteering? I want to keep playing with these people. I just do not want their fun to depend on one person doing a second unpaid job.