Wiffle Ball

As I was walking through Wal-Mart today when I overheard a little boy pleading for his mom to buy him a wiffle ball and bat. To his dismay and mine the mom said "Sorry honey, maybe next time". I'm sure my groan was heard throughout the store.

Wiffle Ball is, was and shall be the easiest but most complex game that I have ever played.
You would probably think may cricket or jai alai, but no really, it's the kids game that I love.

I played wiffle ball with the classic yellow bat and white wiffle ball with the wiffle holes. The originals. Nowadays the kids think the red bat that Barney Rubble could've use and the ball made with no holes is wiffle ball. No holes!

I remember the games played in my neighborhood, the one on one battles, the two on two gems and catcher flies up til sundown. We made fields out of any yard, Steve's backyard was long & thin with trees as foul ground on the third base side and the house as foul on the first base side. We played until we wore out base lines in the grass. You think his dad would have been pissed. But he played with us kids. Using his patented "salami sinker" pitch he mowed us down like Nolan Ryan.

Amazing how you can still visualizethe batting stances of your childhood friends. Davey's classic stroke , picture perfect. Sal's looping swing- only hitting the low and away pitch, everything else was missed by a mile. Mine- a right handed dead pull hitter. I must have hit a thousand foul into the tree down the line at third. Which make my most vivid memory all the weirder. My first homerun in the yard was a left handed (yes lefty.. for christ sakes!) mammoth shot hit off Steves Dad. I saw Steves, running from second, head turn quick to look at the ball soaring and seeing his open mouth screaming excitingly, smiling like crazy kid. I heard nothing. Jogging in slow motion, watching the ball, I wished the ball would have stayed in the air forever.

Perfect.

I can still hear Mom's whistle calling me in during the middle of an intense game in front of Marios house. I'd scream back" I'm coming!" 3 more whistles and 3 more screams from me was the norm. Marios front yard was diffcult terrain to cover. We pitched from one side of the street to the other. Fielders played on the lawn, the really nicely manicured lawn. We ran through the flower beds and dove into the shrubs to catch the damn ball. Big Len got bent many times after finding his new flowers trampled. Not sure why none of us ever broke our necks. Pure love of the game spared us, I guess.

Pitching the wiffle ball was never my thing. I studied the box, you know the box, it would show you how to grip the ball to make it curve in, out, up, down, diagonal. I never got it. My favorite pitch was fast and straight. Needless to say I was lit up more than Brian Kingman, yes that Brian Kingman. Mario on the other hand could make the damn ball dance. He'd hit the strike box on the wall every time. My upper cut pull swing was no match for his submarine pitch, his over the top slider, his Fernando Screw Job pitch, his Rose Place curve. He didn't name them, I did, out of respect. Still to this day when I see someone pitch a wiffle ball, I say to myself, Mario would put them to shame.

ToLenny, Mario, Steve, Davey, Sal, Kenny, Frankie, Jayu .
Good game guys.

Whhoooossh of the bat. The "Click"of the hit
Oh yeah....the pain when your finger got stuck in the ball.

That why I'm a sports freak.