The championship game of the 32-team Kaw Valley Kickball League is set for 9 p.m. today in oh-so-charming Municipal Stadium Hobbs Park, 10th and Delaware.

KVKL has been known to draw crowds of 800 spectators for its biggest game.

So, Tyler Drussell, shortstop and captain of undefeated Happy Shirt, are you expecting a big crowd for the big game?

“No,” answered Drussell, a Coca-Cola sales rep who lives in Olathe.

Why not?

“Because everyone hates us,” he answered, matter-of-factly. “Everyone’s probably tired of seeing us in the championship game. You never know though. We’ll see. There will be people there who will want to see us lose.”

Happy Shirt has sent 29 consecutive opponents home sad. Well, maybe not sad. Many of the players from the losing teams look plenty happy doing elbow curls before, after and even during games.

Happy Shirt tries to stretch its winning streak to 30 games over two seasons vs. Red Lyon. It won’t be a record for the team in its 12th year of existence and its fourth name (founded as Papa Keno’s Pizza, the squad then was sponsored by Pita Pit, then Jayhawk Guttering.) The ultra-prepared kickballers seek their fourth KVKL championship in their eighth title game. They once had a 34-game winning streak.

“We’ve gone through a lot,” Drussell said. “From the very beginning of the league they’ve wanted us out of the league.”

Originally formed in 2002 as an eight-team league for Lawrence bars and restaurants, what is now Happy Shirt joined the following year. The core, explained Drussell, was a group of guys who had grown up together in Overland Park, attended Shawnee Mission West High and worked together at Papa Keno’s in Overland Park.

“Nobody in the stands will be rooting for Happy Shirt,” said Mike Anderson, who is an announcer on Channel 6’s Game of the Week coverage. “Red Lyon shot-guns a beer before and after every game. Happy Shirt shows up two hours before games to practice. This is Yankees vs. the Red Sox with long hair and beards. Red Lyon doesn’t physically have beards and long hair like the Boston Red Sox, but (like the Red Sox) they’re not athletic specimens.”

Plus, Red Lyon does not keep detailed statistics of how its players perform with one out, two outs, with runners on base, etc. and then form the batting order based on the mathematical probability of that spot in the order coming up in that situation. Many teams use a 10-person batting order. Happy Shirt hits 11 players.

“We don’t base our lineup on putting the best third and the one with the best on-base percentage at leadoff,” Drussell explained. “We base it on outs. When the 6 spot gets up to bat what percentage of the time is there one outs or two outs.”

Then he’ll match the player who hits better with one or two outs, based on the percentage of time that spot in the order comes up with that many outs. Will Hunting meets Ned Yost in Tyler Drussell’s brain.

Drussell said he watches every team in the league, the weak just as closely as the strong, and can remember, without writing anything down, each hitter’s tendency. He shifts the defense, accordingly.

Red Lyon captain Chris Neverve is general manager of Red Lyon, a Mass Street pub that can range from a nice, quiet place for a relaxed conversation to a an absolute madhouse during big televised soccer games. He said that Happy Shirt’s businesslike approach doesn’t make them as different as it once did.

“These days, half the teams in the league take it just as seriously, if not more seriously,” Neverve said. “(Happy Shirt) is pretty intense. You can tell they grew up playing sports, but I’ve never had any problem with them being bad sports or trying to start fights or anything like that. The past three, four, five seasons, intensity has been picking up in the league and there have been better teams.”

Anderson, not only an announcer in the league but a player for Channel 6, assembled this season one of the better teams, one flush with former Div. I athletes.

Anderson believes his team would have been playing tonight for the title in a rematch of what he said was “the greatest game of the week ever, a 12-inning classic,” between Happy Shirt and Channel 6.

Instead, Channel 6 was disqualified from the playoffs after winning its first two games by a landslide on a rules-violation discovered before the third round of the playoffs. Rules state that a team must use three females and if only two show up for a game that team must play one player short in the field and have an automatic out in the lineup.

Anderson inquired of the board of directors what would happen if it happened a third week in a row and after the board looked at the lineup from the first two games, found that the rules state a team must use a 10-person batting order, including the automatic out, with both females in it. Channel 6 always uses an 11-person lineup and played with 10 hitters plus the automatic out.

“I didn’t know that rule,” Anderson said. “Nobody from the other team knew the rule and the umpires didn’t know the rule. The punishment did not fit the ideology of the league. It didn’t fit the crime and it didn’t fit the spirit of the league. This is the KVKL, not the NCAA.”

Anderson said he learned of the disqualification in an email from the league that he said had no individual’s name attached to it.

If, Anderson said, he goes overboard on criticizing the way that was handled, he said he’ll edit his comments before the title game, a rematch of last year’s final, when it is aired on Channel 6.

“I was 0 for 4 and had the bases loaded twice for me last year,” Neverve said of the 2014 championship game.

Neverve understands why Happy Shirt is favored, but also has supreme confidence in Nick Lerner, Jarrod Lyons, Brandon Massey, Todd Foster and the rest of his teammates.

“We’re going to pretty much have to play a flawless game offensively and defensively,” Neverve said. “But the last week of the regular season and the last month in the playoffs we’ve played really well.”

Anderson predicted a rout in favor of Happy Shirt.

Unlike Drussell, I’m predicting a big turnout. If you’ve never seen kickball at Hobbs Park, rank it high on your bucket list with the intention of crossing it off before turning out the lights tonight.

Here’s why: When the game ends tonight this party is over for another year and this party also is on the brink of becoming too intense, too political to sustain its appeal.