One Hundred Years of Solid 'tude

Many years later, as he face the firing squad, Colonel Glen Cebulash was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover wiffle-ball.  At that time, New Barbados, later to be called Hackensack, was a Dutch-reformed village of 200 red-brick homes, built on the bank of a river of dirty water that ran along a bed of grackle and stones.  The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.  Every year during the month of March a family of ragged gypsies would set up their tents near the village, and with a great uproar of pipes and kettledrums they would display new inventions.  First they brought the discourse.  A wiry gypsy with an untamed beard and sparrow hands, who introduced himself as Kurt, put on a bold public demonstration of what he himself called the eighth wonder of the learned sophists of the midwest.  He went from house to house dragging two texts and everyone was amazed to see pots, pans, tongs and braziers tumble down from their places and beams creak from the desperation of nails and screws trying to emerge, and even objects that had been lost for a long time appeared from where they had been searched for most and went dragging along in turbulent confusion behind Kurt's magical and forked tongue.
A year later the gypsies returned.  This time they brought a long yellow stick and a hollowed-out gourd the size of an orange with lozenge sized holes carved out along one of its hemispheres.  These items, they claimed, had been exhibited worldwide as the latest discovery of the Jews of Amsterdam.  They placed a gypsy woman at one point of a large diamond they had drawn in the dirt with the branch of a small ash tree, and nine gypsies arranged in symbolic order around the rest of the diamond.  For the price of a single goose egg people could gather around to watch the gypsy woman hit the hollowed-out gourd with the yellow stick.  Nobody moved when the gourd was hit.  They stood motionless.  Some sat.  "Science has eliminated the need to move", the gypsy called Kurt proclaimed.  "In a short time, men will be able to form groups, or squads, for hitting and scoring without ever getting up."

Years later, on a hot August day, many miles and a lifetime away from New Barbados, Glen Cebulash would give up 7 runs to 3 intinerant minstrels, one of whom was said to worship at the altar of a Sarah Palin and one who squatted over the pitcher's mound and gave birth to what is now called a wiffle-ball.

There were many other narratives spun out on that day, including a phenomenal catch, but as the bullets left the barrels of their guns it was the baby blue hashmarks scratched into the ground reading  9-2 that flashed into Glen's mind right before his head burst open like a ripe melon.

Mid-Season Report

Saturday, May 30 will go down as one of the most beautiful days ever at Elysium Fields and was evidence, no doubt, why the park is called that in the first place.  Our local heroes, Pete, Glen, Hans and Brent, steeled by Betty Davis' immortal words: "Wiffle Ball ain't no place for sissies",  suited up and took to the field.  In no time at all, our boys, behind a ferocious triple by Cebulash, took a 2-0 lead.  It was nothing but blue skies for two more innings when that nasty game of Russian Roulette, also known as the pitching rotation, landed on a loaded chamber called Brent.  Six RBIs later and the game was effectively over.  Republican Dave made an outstanding defensive play in deep center left to rob Commissioner Berwald of a monster home run.   Republican Dave, who's taken to signing autographs with a simple "W", remains the dominant player in the league, much to everyone's chagrin, even his teammates.  When will this madness stop?  No man can say. 

This week's Profile in Wiffle Courage has been postponed to make room for the leagues mid-season report:

Mid-Season Report

“You know a lot about cups, but you know nothing about balls and, as any decent magician will tell you, cups without balls don’t mean shit.”

                                                                                  -Albert Brooks

As the game heads into the mid-season patterns are beginning to emerge, stats are piling up and surprises abound.  Herewith then, a brief report on the state of the game:

Peter Berwald- Pete continues to be a powerhouse in all the non-standard categories: hitting, fielding and pitching.  He occupies the office of Commissioner with panache, wit and a steely determination to set the game aright for future generations.  His leadership initiatives include league cards, extra lawn chairs and a super chalky strike zone.  Missing are mini tubs of chicklet-style gum.  An all too avoidable blemish on an otherwise impressive administration.  

Brent Mackintosh- Brent continues to be a powerhouse in all the standard categories: sitting, Christian Democracy and Naomi Klein.  He occupies his lawn chair with both style and substance.   RBI statistics league wide depend on Brent’s continued generosity on the mound, so please, no practicing. 

Kurt Mosser-   Instant coffee, shoe shines and deep bowel pain.  What do all these things have in common?  They’re as reliable as the categorical imperative that is Kurt’s bat.   No single player works harder to boost team morale and l’esprit de corp than Kurt.  His uplifting words are often the only beacon for players lost in the fog of Wiff.

Tim Baker- Tim spent the first half of the season working out the kinks in his pitching.  He’s experimented with a number of different styles; all as pretty as his swing, but none that appear to actually work.  Keep at it, Boog and let’s hope that new job doesn’t get in the way of your priorities. 

Han Soo-   Hans continues to defy Wiffle Ball’s most sacred rule: never injure yourself playing the game.  Injuries imply exertion and they make the rest of the players look bad.    There’s only one way to insure that you don’t hurt yourself in the field: don’t move.  Perhaps Hans should consider studying a bit more closely at the concrete feet of Dr. Mosser.

Dave Eldridge- Dave continues to be the most Republican player in the league and it’s a quality that has served him well.  While the other guys stand around; taxing, spending  and dreaming about an ever bigger “nanny-league”, Dave quietly sets about the business of dominating in all the non-standard categories.  Is there a “sophomore of the year award”?  Let’s hope not or this guy’s head won’t fit through the door at this year’s Wiffies.

Ben Montague- Your batting may say, “no”, but Ben’s pitching says, “yes”.  With the mound officially pushed back this year Ben’s had a hard time kissing the brick, as the saying goes.  Fortunately for him, his bat is stiff and fierce and his hitting has been pretty good too!  Ben’s off to the Maine league in a few weeks and we all know what that means: lower RBI totals. 

Brian Simpson and Dave Bush- During the Vietnam War, Dick Cheney had “other priorities” and perhaps, like our erstwhile Vice President, Brian and Dave have more important things to do with their Saturday mornings!  Are there more important things?  You be the judge, Fans, but facts is facts:  Brian and Dave’s Rookie cards are trading for pocket change these days.  Looks like we’ve got some competition for the newest Wiffie category: * 

Glen Cebulash- Sports reporting longa, Wiffle Ball brevis.

Chris Anderson and Eric Zamonski-  Too early to tell much about these newbies.  Anderson looked like he’d closed the door on “Rookie of the Year”, but with his unexplained absence on the 30^th of May and Zamonski’s pyrotechnics on the mound that honor is now up for grabs.  It’s a distinction that comes only once, so sac up, boys and may the best wiffler win!

So there it is Fans.  We’ll see you next week with a new Wiffle Profile in Courage.  Keep those bats tumescent and we’ll see you on the asphalt.

Kurt Mosser: Never Say Kant

Well fans, another weekend almost gone and another game goes down in the books.  What will mark this game for posterity?  Three things: bad hitting, bad pitching, bad fielding and nearly all of it at the hands of Mssrs. Baker, Montague and Mosser.  For most of us, "W" stands for win, but for these boys it can only mean "when", as in "when will I stop hacking at pitches way outside the strike zone?", "when will I retire a side in less than 70 pitches?" and "when will I hold onto easy dribblers coming at me in slow motion?".  Final score: 9-5. 

Fans, we'd like to take a moment and give a big Wiffle Welcome to our newest player, Chris Anderson.  Chris has just come up from the scout league where, as he showed today, he's "prepared".  We expect big things from Anderson and from the looks of today's performance we'll get them.  Cheers Chris and good luck for the remainder of the season!

Finally, another chapter in "Profiles in Wiffle Courage".  Your humble narrator takes a holiday next week, but will be back soon with more exciting bios.  This week...

Kurt Mosser: Never Say Kant

Kurt Mosser (b.1957) is thought by many to be the greatest theoretician the game of Wiffle Ball has ever known.  His lengthy and complex “wiffle” system is designed to lay a firm foundation for the entire sweep of a player’s scientific, moral and aesthetic experience of the game.  It is his intention to determine, once and for all, the precise limits of a players knowledge of the game, by means of a critique of the powers of the player’s mind itself.  In this way, he could answer Giamatti’s skeptical doubts, refute the exaggerated claims of such rationalist meta-wifflers as Vincent and Kuhn, and decisively answer Landis’ great question: What can I be certain of regarding Wiffle ball?

Mosser’s “Transcendental Wiffle-osophy”, as he calls his system is outlined in his three major works: The Critique of Pure Hitting, The Critique of Practical Hitting and The Critique of Peter Berwald.  The key to Mosser’s theory is the epistemological reversal which he calls his “Greenbergian Revolution”.  Previous theoreticians had all supposed that the aim of Wiffle Ball was to make the mind (and the bat) conform to the independent world of balls.  But, on that assumption, we could never be certain that the mind had succeeded in conforming itself correctly to the balls.  As Landis argues in his First Inning, the game itself may be a dream; and, as Giamatti pointed out, even if the game we perceived was real, we could never know with complete assurance why anybody bothered playing. 

But suppose we consider the opposite hypothesis for a moment.  Instead of the mind conforming itself to the ball, what if the ball conforms itself to the mind?  Could it be that the mind carries within itself certain wiffle-forms that it imposes on any ball that appears, either in or out of the strike zone?  Could space, time, causality and even poly-vinyl chloride, be mind-imposed conditions of anything being a ball?  If the answer is yes, then we can explain how we can have absolutely certain knowledge of the game.  For we can be certain that the balls in our experience will exhibit all those features which the mind itself imposes on them. 

After much analysis and reasoning, Mosser has come to the conclusion that his revolutionary hypothesis is correct.  The mind, he argues, contains within it certain bat and ball forms of perception and thought which act as conditions of admission to our experience of the game.  We can be certain that all our experience will take place on asphalt, that it will proceed through six or nine innings and it will consist of balls, bats and movements in causal interactions with one another, precisely because all these forms are imposed on experience by the mind itself.

Thus Mosser’s philosophy is at one and the same time optimistic and pessimistic.  He reassures us that our knowledge of the game is valid, but cautions us that it is valid only for the length of the game itself.  In the end, the “Transcendental Wiffle-osophy” is a lesson in intellectual humility, for it teaches us that the wiffle mind lacks the power to penetrate the ultimate veil of appearance and grasp the inner nature of the game itself and why some players persist in swinging at the lousiest pitches.

Hagiographies "r" Us. Copyright 2009.

Pete Berwald - Le Chien Chaud

Well Fans, Saturday May 9 goes down in the books as much for its heroics as for its ignominy.  The game began with a challenge:  Republican Dave and Compleat Pete Berwald vs. Steady Glen Cebulash, Kurt "Dr. K (and it ain't for Kant)" Mosser and Hans "the nuclear option" Soo.  Early on it seemed like the Oakwood "3" would dominate and by the end of the 2nd inning (with a gorgeous 2 RBI triple by Cebulash) it looked like a done deal.  But then, at the top of the 3rd, Cebulash, usually a reliable junkball hurler, got lit up for 9 runs.  Compleat Pete took him downtown twice, first with a 3-run dinger and then with a grand slam and, it pains your humble narrator to have to say this, but that insufferable gas-bag rocked the park.   To add insult to injury, Hans, a pitching phenom with the grit and grace of a thorougbred, gave up two runs in the top of the 4th to end the longest scoreless streak in the history of the league.  It was noted by one and all that the sun, high and mighty though it was, shone a little less brightly for the remainder of the day.  That's all the news from Mudville this week fans, but here's another exciting edition of "Profiles in Wiffle Courage":

Pete Berwald -  Le Chien Chaud

It's a little known fact outside the Low Countries, but after steamed mussels and ungodly amounts of mayonnaise, the Belgians prize a good game of wiffle ball above all else.  Legend has it that as the Nazis invaded from the east, the valiant Belgians hurled homemade grenades, fashioned with trademark wiffle holes, at a stunned and ill-prepared German Army.  Nowadays, as peace and prosperity reign, from the stately homes of Charleroi to the little phlegmish village of Vosselaar, wiffle ball remains a national passion.  Why, you ask, do I mention this?  Because, in the sleepy Wallonian hamlet of Saint-Hubert (patron saint of macadam and other hard surfaces), lies the ancestral home of one of America's finest practitioners of the plastic arts: Peter Berwald.  From an early age Berwald was taught to repeat the motto of his forebears, "J'ai toujours des balles en plastique a` l'esprit".  Which, roughly translated means, "I have plastic balls on my mind all the time".  Primary school brought, along with excellent penmanship, an invitation to play on the state wiffle team.  Over the next few years, doggedly pursuing his dream of dominance on the national stage, Pete perfected wiffle-craft like none before him.  He was all set to break into the bigs with a professional squad when, alas, tragedy struck.  On the eve of his first day as a rookie pro-wiffler, his natural proclivity for showboating got the better of him and he attempted to put an entire wiffle ball into his mouth.  Emergency physicians tried desperately to remove the ball without harm, but it was necessary to graft tendons from both arms onto his jaw in an attempt to restore full movement to his mouth.  While that goal was accomplished (and then some) his pitching and hitting were never the same.  For a few years he played in the ham and egg leagues for small town squads in far off places like Vermont and Arkansas, but it was clear to him, and his many fans, that his glory years were all behind him.  Resigned, but not bitter,  Pete settled down to a quiet and peaceful life with his wife and children in the (unbeknownst to him) mecca of wiffledom, Oakwood, Ohio.  Before long he joined up with the local "nine" and soon after took over as commissioner.  Where will it all lead?  No one can say for sure, but as an older and wiser Berwald joked at last year's annual awards ceremony, The Wiffies, "I'll put this ball right up to my mouth, but I won't put it in".  We'll see fans, we'll see.

copyright: Hagiographies "r" Us, 2009

Dave Eldridge: Overlord of the plastic arts

Well, PVC fans, this past week's game was a bit of a yawn.  Not much happened and then it was over.  A game so bereft of the usual heroics hardly bares mentioning, still, for the record, one team won - the other lost.  Ergo, the bookkeepers will have their stat.

Since there's a lot of empty space left here in the Wiff 'O' Sphere I thought I'd introduce a brand new feature on T.W.I.W.:  Profiles in Wiffle Courage.  This occasional column will focus on the life story and wiffle heroics of one of our members.  This Week: Republican Dave.

Dave Eldridge: Overlord of the plastic arts

Born in a cranberry bog in northern Michigan to itinerant wifflers, Dave Eldridge grew up with a passion for two things: hurling a 2 oz. wiffle ball and supply side economics.  Under the tutelage of Milton Friedman, Dave became a kind of wunderkind of fiscal conservatism.  Early success in Republican Party circles brought him fame, fortune and eventually the attentions of a lovely young woman named Michelle, who would eventually become his wife.  After wandering the talk-show circuit for over a decade, age and a burgeoning sense of "legacy" brought Dave and Michelle to the sleepy town of Oakwood, OH, where they settled down to raise a family and spin the metals of the Dayton into gold.  In the middle of all this worldly and personal success however loomed a hole, approximately 9 inches in circumference. A hole, Dave knew, that could only be filled by a standard issue wiffle ball.  And then, as if guided by the hand of providence, Dave happened upon local legend and former wiffle champion, Glen Cebulash, who was busy trying to organize a ragtag bunch of middle-aged beer-clowns into a decent wiffle squad.  As a parade of youthful images passed before his eyes, Dave realized that his ship had indeed come in.   With fierce determination he approached the young team, offering not only his skills as a player, but the wisdom of a life spent in the trenches of trickle-down economics.  Combining these two God-given attributes Dave has transformed not only his life, but the lives of every member of the team and every fair-tax loving wiffler from Shoyer Ave. to the frontiers of Hills and Dales.  Each week, without fail, Dave scampers onto the field.  With his blazing fastball and 00.0 ERA Dave leads by example.  And, as if this weren't enough, with the spry and limber movements of a cat and the soft and sticky tentacles of an octopus, Dave dominates in the field.  Opposing teams line up in fear no matter what position Dave is playing.   When and where his dominance will end nobody knows.  For now fans we can simply tip our hats in admiration and hope, as only lesser men can, that God-willing, he'll be on our team! 

See you next week gentlemen, on the funway!