Wiffle Ball Party

The grand opening of Jacuzzi Park was a home run. We had a good turn out, 30-35 people at one time or another, which made for lots of good games of wiff.

People started filtering in around quarter of 2, Jesse Rowe being the first arrival, and the games probably started around 2:30. We drew cards to pick the teams of four and I rolled a 20-sided dice to determine which teams would play first. The games were exciting but lasted a little longer than I'd hoped, even though I cut them down to 3 inning matches. I think it's because the teams weren't big enough. I'm thinking of making it 7 on 7 next time, which would give each team 3 outfielders, a pitcher, and 3 infielders. 2nd base is close enough to the pitching mound that an active pitcher can act as a second baseman. There are no catchers.

Ethan's team was probably the best. It was him, Jake, Erin V., and Anna. No real weakness on that team. My team was OK, but my pitching was a little wild in the first few innings. Ethan hit the first home run in Jacuzzi Park history. It was a bomb to left field, clearing the pine trees, and I was the pitcher. So now I'm another footnote in sports history. Ethan also had two or three home runs to right field when he switched sides and batted lefty, his natural side. One of Tim's friends Justin hit the first grand slam in park history, and I hit another one later that game. At one point I hit back-2-back-2-back home runs and no one even noticed. That is also a record at Jacuzzi park.

We also had some good pitching. Manda struck me out once looking, Ethan and I both collected a lot of strike outs, and JMR (Jesse Reardon) got in a pitching groove at one point. A few people complained about the size of the strike zone, which is 21"x 25". I admit that it's difficult to throw strikes as the ball is carried by the slightest breeze and the target is small. However, 21x25 is the official wiffle ball strike zone target size, and it wouldn't improve anyones pitching skills if I simply enlarged the target. The field measurements are official, and that's what makes it so hard. I'm sure we'd struggle just as much if we were throwing on an official baseball diamond. Pracitce- that's the solution.

There were several reasonable complaints about the field though. As I'd never had any games here, I didn't really know what types of problems would come up. The major discrepancy was plays at the plate. The way I designed it, you had to throw the ball and hit the target behind home plate to get a runner out at home. The target acts as a catcher, and you must throw a strike to nab the runner, just as it takes a good accurate throw to get a base runner in real baseball. Problem is, a player can be going for home, see that the ball hits the target, and then retreat to third. That's obviously not fair. So Ethan came up with the idea of a point of no return line, or I prefer line of no return, which gives us the cool little acronym, LONR or loner, so I'm calling it "The Loner line." We'll try that next time.

Other notes of interest, Jesse Rowe acted as a drunk and occasionally distracted, but definitely amusing, umpire for several of the games. There was a collision in center field between my sister and Sally. The impact shot Manda's sneaker 10 ft up in the air but she held on to the ball. Though I didn't tell anyone at the time, I injured my shoulder trying to make three plays at once. I landed on it funny and failed to throw my sister out at home and now I can't lift my arm so well. JMR hit what I believe was the first and only triple in Jacuzzi Park history. Nick Vitti made all three outs in one inning (two pop ups and a tag out) and one was an unassisted double play. Ethan remains the only person to hit a home run over the trash bag fence in right field. Tim's girlfriend Erin did two or three splits while sliding into first and second base. Ethan threw out the first and only runner at home plate. And if you couldn't tell, he was the MVP of the day. Pretty hard to argue otherwise. Though next time, we'll be keeping stats and scores and be able to pick one more accurately.

The night ended on a good note too. We all went inside and Kelly, one of Breanne's friends from work, had brought a karaoke machine. Naturally, we picked three judges to act as Simon, Paula and the black guy and had an American Idol contest. It was a lot of fun. Ethan gave some good critiques as Simon, and Greg had a lot of feedback that didn't have much to do with music. Manda butchered some songs, Jake picked some strange ones and even though he clearly out sang Manda, he failed to make the final four. Chrismike screamed through a couple tunes including the crowd pleasing Ballroom Blitz, and Jesse Rowe nailed Taking Care of Business. Manda and I made the final two but she beat me in a sing off of Sonny and Cher's I Got You, Babe.

I had an excellent time and I'd do it again next weekend if it was possible, but against my wishes, I'm going to hold off on scheduling the next wiffle party. I'm thinking of making it 6 weeks from now, one of the first weekend of July. That will give people some time to miss it and for me to improve the field and rulebook.