By SCOTT SAALMAN
Scaramouch
As a Wiffle ball purist, I have long believed that the real reason baseball was invented was so someone could come up with its plastic counterpart.
Wiffle ball is the plastic version of baseball.
Baseball Lite.
First manufactured and sold in 1953, the plastic ball, with its oblong holes, is so user-friendly that practically anyone can join the fun. Wiffle ball is safe, doesn’t require an irksome batting helmet or fielder’s glove and is easy on the wallet.
What’s also nice is you don’t need a large lot to hold a game. With Wiffle ball, almost anyone’s back yard can become a Wrigley Field of the mind.
In the early ‘70s, Wiffle Ball was childhood religion on Brushy Fork Road. We’d start our games early enough to feel dew on our bare feet. Double Cola cartons and fruit tree saplings were our bases, and home plate was a bald spot in the clover. Imagination transformed the roof of our ranch house into the center field stands, inspiring us to swing for the shingles. A ball hit on the roof was a home run, but the batter was called out if the ball rolled down the roof fast enough to ramp clear of the gutter and land in an outfielder’s hands.
Four foul balls and you were out (this should be the rule for real baseball, too, to alleviate the monotony of a Major League game). If someone had the forethought to holler “automatic pitcher” before the game, he or she became just that: automatic pitcher. We didn’t allow for any of that wimpy relief pitcher business. Automatic pitchers pitched the whole game – good or bad. Walks weren’t allowed. If a pop fly became trapped in the limb of the mimosa, the outfielders were allowed to shake the tree, free the ball and catch it for an out. If the teams had three or fewer players on each side, we channeled “ghost runners.”
When a ball was in play, fielders had the option to throw it at the base runner, and if contact was made before the runner reached the base, the runner was called out (this, too, would make Major League games more interesting). The plastic ball was as harmless as a sweat-bee sting.
Hours later, we’d be in the middle of some game – the 20th of the day? – our faces tilted to the stars upon hearing that glorious plastic pop of bat meeting ball, our eyes searching for a well-hit Wiffle ball sailing through the cool night like a polyurethane comet high above our field of plastic dreams.
If you listened closely enough, you could hear the breathy sound the ball made – part whistle, part wheeze – as it passed overhead.
Chasing the sound, you dove shirtless and heroically belly-surfed across the slick night grass, looking up just in time to see the white sphere descend in quirky motions and land in the bare fold of your upturned hands.
As the batter moaned in despair and the automatic pitcher cheered and the chiggers chewed your skin and your belly burned from the slide, you knew you would never experience a more memorable game-winning catch in your life – and one day when you were much older and terribly nostalgic, you would write about it.
Contact: scottsaalman@gmail.com. Scott’s column collections are available on Amazon.