La Bocce Vita, La Dolce Vita

Atlanta Bocce League is taking names for the spring season and riding high on bocce's recent transformation from old man sport to happy hour trend.

It may even be "the next kickball," said Brian McElroy, 26, a league player on the team 99 Problems But Bocce Ain't One.

His teammate Kyle Coghlan, also 26, agrees. Bocce is "gaining momentum in Atlanta."

Hipness and popularity aside, bocce has changed Chris Walbert's life for the better. He's the founder and organizer of the Atlanta league, which starts its third season March 14 at and March 15 at .

Last year at this time, Walbert was at a desk "grinding away" on Excel spreadsheets for a finance company. He quit his job in May and traveled around Europe to clear his mind. It was there, watching bocce games in parks, that he got the idea to start a league in Atlanta. He'd played bocce with his brothers growing up in the Ansley Park neighborhood, but it never occurred to him until last year that it could be "the perfect sport."

Walbert is now gainfully employed at a tech firm in Midtown. Outside work, he devotes his energy to bocce. At first, it was just "something that could be fun." Now, it's almost a calling.

"It's been more rewarding than I could have imagined. Bocce's my passion," he said.

Bocce originated in Italy and still has strong Italian-American roots. (Walbert jokes that his last name should be "De Luca.") It can be played on almost any surface -- gravel, sand, grass, asphalt -- and involves tossing or rolling grapefruit-sized balls across a court to get closer than your opponent to a clementine-sized white ball, called the jack or pallino. (Here's a bocce how-to video on YouTube.)

"We've got some official rules that we loosely follow. Nothing too crazy," Walbert said. "The nice thing about bocce is that it doesn't really require a lot of athleticism."

More bluntly?

"Everything you can do, you can do while holding a beer," said Aaron Burkes, Ormsby's service manager. He's helping Walbert schedule and organize a league night at the bar and restaurant, located in White Provisions, 1170 Howell Mill Rd.

In Midtown, bocce is also available at Empire State South, 999 Peachtree St., and just outside Midtown at Two Urban Licks, 820 Ralph McGill Blvd., and Young Augustine's, 327 Memorial Dr. Piedmont Park also rents its bocce courts by the hour.

Ormby's gives bocce the full treatment. There are two courts in the cavernous basement, a former slaughterhouse, as well as other games. Bocce and shuffleboard are free. Skee-ball, pinball and pool require quarters.

"The layout was just screaming for some games," Burkes said.

Atlanta Bocce League is registering four- and five-member teams for the spring season until March 2, but Walbert said he'd take after-deadline stragglers. The fee is $45 per person and includes a T-shirt and specials on food and drink. League games are Mondays at Ormby's and Tuesdays at Piedmont Park. He may add more days if there's demand for it.

New teams will be competing with some pretty clever names from past or returning teams -- The Big LaBocce, Bocce Ball Busters, Deboccery and Don't Make Me Go Bocce on Yo A$$.

Athletic competition in the league, on the other hand, is mellow. Walbert, as "commissioner," is called on "in times of dispute," Coghlan said. But overall the league is social and congenial.

And maybe fertile for romance. When a bocce player's ball gets too close to the little pallino, it's called a "baci," which is Italian for "kiss."

Walbert said it's only a matter of time before the league is celebrating a bocce wedding.

"The first people to get married, we'll have to do something special."