JUST IN - GOLIATH BEATS DAVID!!!

Well fans, it was a gray day that found seven eager wifflers bounding onto the field of dreams at Nancy Bradds Park.  Four of the league's weakest pitchers (combined ERA: 28.85) decided to take on three of its best (combined ERA 6.60) in a classic David vs. Goliath contest.  There was little hope that our boys (Brent, Glen, Ben and Tim) could best these giants of the asphalt (Peter, Dave and Kurt).  Indeed, most predicted a slaughter of, shall we say, biblical proportions and, given the lineups, the general consensus was that anything less than total decimation was essentially a loss.

So, what happened you ask?  Well, Goliath won 7-3.  No news there.

But hey, wait a minute.  What's that?  You want to see that score one more time?   What was it again?  7-3.

That's right.  Your eyes aren't deceiving you.  7-3.  Puny little David scored three runs off the titans of the Funway and kept them to seven.  Sure, they won.  There's no denying that.  But, if you measure a game by more than just runs scored.  If you also measure it by something called heart and determination and the will to compete, then the real winners were our boys.  Your boys, actually, fans.  The ones who work a little harder, run a little faster, sit a little less (at the edges of their lawn chairs, I might add) and strive a little more.   So, they lost.  But they can hold their heads high, as can all who rooted for them.  Secure in the knowledge that deep down, where it counts most, our boys won and they won big.

Profiles in W(h)iffle Courage – Brent Mackintosh

Many fans assume, quite understandably, that Brent Mackintosh hails from Europe.  A certain “charisme” and “machismo”, that are his stock in trade, to say nothing of his tireless efforts on behalf of Christian Democrats worldwide, make such a conclusion almost unavoidable.  Sadly, these fans would be wrong.  Not because they have misapprehended his virility, for it is real and it is tremendous, but because he’s a homegrown hero and Chicago, the “w(h)iffy city”, is his ancestral stomping ground.

TO SEE THE SMELL OF FEAR

Lead Butcher for the               league,

Run Maker, Stacker of Errors,

Player with Bats and the game’s Schedulizer;

Stormy, husky,brawling,

Man of Weary Shoulders

They tell me you are reckless and I believe them, for I have seen you give up fourteen runs in one inning, luring the laziest hitters into higher batting averages.

And they tell me you are cockeyed and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen your pitches repeatedly hit the ground many feet before the wall.

And they tell me you are intoxicating and my reply is: On the faces of batters I have seen their lust as you approach the mound.

And, having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at you, my teammate, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

Come and show me another player with lifted bat swinging so proud to be alive and on the field and momentarily mistaken for Dave Matthews.

Flinging majestic change-ups amid the toil of piling hit on hit, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft benchwarmers.

Fierce as a Kettering demographer lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

Leg-thrusting

Swatting

Tripping

Panting

Erring, scoring, re-erring,

Under the dome, asphalt dust all over your mouth, laughing with your mitt aloft,

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a rookie laughs,

Laughing even as an ignorant player laughs who has never lost a game,

Bragging and laughing that under your hat is the hairline of the people,

Laughing!

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of middle age, half awake, proud to be lead butcher, run maker, stacker of errors, playing with bats and the game’s schedulizer

Remedial Whiffle Scoring

I need to let the various and sundry members of the Whiffle and Ale Club know that I do intend to take a vacation this Summer. I will not be in attendance for every game. On those occasions, someone will need to take ownership of the scoring. By that I mean the scoring during the game; I will be always happy to maintain the season's stats and update the current stats link on the blog page. No problem.

No, what I mean is, the scoresheet that comes to me AFTER the game needs to make at least a little sense. So here's what I can glean from the cuneiform I received today: The final score was 5 to 0, with The Commish, The Artist and The Bandit constituting the winning side. That I know. The losing team appears to have started out: Hans, Kim and Laura. It appears that Laura left early and that Brent took her place, but there were two innings when both were in the batting order.

I will need an eye witness to explain the rest of these anomalies:
- Why in the top of the third did Glen pitch FOUR outs? K, K, K, Single, Ground out?
- How did Peter give up the following sequence: Single, K, Double, Double, K, K - but surrender no runs in the fifth?
- Why is there a doodle of a flower along with Glen's third inning Double off Laura?

All that aside, the two most important things about Whiffle Scoring that I must convey are these:
1. Whiffle players DO NOT score; ghost runners score.
2. Ghosts do not have stats.

Thus, when one hits a Triple with a runner aboard, Eric, it is not important to figure out who scored, Peter. It is important to note that the Triple also resulted in 1 RBI, Glen. Your collective obsession with figuring out who scored made your third inning, ten batter, four run outburst off Laura nearly indecipherable.

But "good games" all around for those who came out on a blustery, cold morning. The stats are up to date.

The History of W(h)iffle Ball

While the exact origins of W(h)iffle ball are unknown, most historians agree that it is based on the Aztec pastime qixtaxijhal, a game which came north with itinerant fruit pickers in the early 19^th century.   Originally played with the hollowed out head of a sacrificial child and the femur of a mountain goat, by the time the game reached the U.S. a dried orange and balsa wood bat had been substituted.  Throughout the early decades of the 19^th century, small towns formed teams, and what came to be known as W(h)iffle Ball clubs sprang up in the larger cities.  In 1845, Linus Steptoe, a rakish mountebank and sometime-salesman of unguents and gluten-based analgesics, wanted to formalize a list of rules by which all the teams could play.  Much of the original code is still in place today, though certain modifications have since occurred.

The first recorded W(h)iffle Ball contest took place a year later in 1846.  Steptoe and his Swat-King club of New York City lost to The Hackensack Highlanders in a game at the Eden Fairgrounds in Bayonne, New Jersey.  In 1857, a convention of W(h)ifflers, as they were now known, met to discuss rules  and the formation of a league.  Twenty-Five teams from the Northeast and Midwest sent delegates.  The following year they formed the Midwestlantic  Association of W(h)iffle Ball Clubs.  In its first year of operation, the league supported itself by charging either two cents, or an egg, for admission to games.  The future looked bright. 

Although the league was supposed to be comprised of amateurs, many players were secretly paid, in either eggs, or a sorghum flavored chew, which was said to promote gastro-intestinal health.  In 1869, the Dayton Recliners (so-called for their tendency to sit on stools or large stones set next to the batters box) became the first professional team.  The idea of paid players quickly caught on and before long professional teams dotted the map.   The country, prosperous and peaceful throughout the remainder of the century, quickly embraced the league and a deep and abiding love affair thus began.   By 1899, there were literally thousands of teams, some seeming to spring up overnight, like mushrooms or mold. 

Professional W(h)iffle Ball was built on the foundation of the amateur leagues that preceded it.  Interest in the game as a spectator sport had been nourished for more than a quarter of a century.  It’s great attraction to the public was two-fold.  It required no discernable skill or thought and it promoted the sedentary lifestyle popular with the working classes of the day.   

Throughout the first decade of the 20^th Century, W(h)iffle Ball remained a game of strategy.  The so-called “dead-orange” provided few homeruns.  The game relied on contact pitching and horrible fielding for its offense.  The adoption of Edison’s celluloid ball and bat in 1911 changed the game dramatically.   The popularity of W(h)iffle Ball exploded, but tensions did as well.  Rival leagues formed and folded and the practice of luring players from one league to another with increased egg and sorghum allocations reached crisis proportions.  Eventually, the supreme court stepped in to rule that the game was exempt from anti-trust legislation and the age of the W(h)iffle Barons commenced. 

The Roaring Twenties were the best and worst of times for the game.  Scandals rocked the league and gambling was ubiquitous, but the stands remained largely filled and the coffers overflowed.  In 1921, the young W(h)iffle phenom, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, left the league to play a new game called “Baseball”.  Ruth had astounded the fans with his eight foot curve-balls and his rabbit like defense.  His called shot of 1918 sated a nation, war-weary and starved for leisure.  His departure was an ill omen for the national pastime. 

More and more players left the league in the 30’s and 40’s for the relatively safe pleasures of “baseball”,  “shuffle-board” or “jacks”.  By the 1960s the game was largely forgotten and throughout the remainder of the century was played mostly behind old warehouses by meth addicts and hoboes. 

In 2006, behind the leadership of three wily tribesmen: Ben “Feh” Montague, Brian “Zaydie” Simpson and Glen “The Macabee” Cebulash,  a small upstart was league was formed on the hallowed asphalt of Smith School Playgrounds. Unbeknownst to the  three intrepid “menschen”, the elementary school had been built upon the very ground where once the mighty Recliners had sat.   In 2008, the philosopher barrier was broken when the Kantian Kurt Mosser categorically joined the league and the Republican barrier was dismantled the following year with the inclusion of Dave Eldridge.   

2010 finds the game enjoying a renaissance of sorts.  Dozens of people pass by the field on any given Saturday, bewildered and amused at the sight of grown men playing this enigmatic game that exists only in the mist of their memory.  At parties, the faces of middle-aged men light up when they hear that a league has formed and inquire incessantly about forming their own.  Is the storied game once again about to take hold of the public imagination?  Who can say.  Only time will tell, but for now we are all buoyed by the immortal words of current commissioner, Peter Berwald:  “This W(h)iffle Ball game is the finest W(h)iffle Ball game there is, at this time, today”.

W(h)iffle Ball Minus One

Many of you fans are no doubt familiar with the the series "Music Minus
One" in which recorded music (pop, jazz, classical) is tracked without
one of the accompanying instruments. Thus allowing the aspiring
drummer, guitarist, cellist, etc. to play along with the recording as if
they themselves were the missing musician. It's not just amazing and
fun, but it's educational too! Now, I bet you're asking yourselves,
"hey Glen, what does this have to do with W(h)iffle Ball"? Good
question Mr. and Mrs. Fan. Prepare to be blown away by the answer!
Here at the Commissioner's office we get a lot of questions about
statistics, rules, weekly highlights, etc. And often, a fan will
inquire into a player's whereabouts, as in, "where's that wily Eric
Zamonski these days"? Or, "Boy, I haven't seen Chris Anderson in a dog's
life". One of the most repeated questions, week after week, month after
month, is "What's up with that Dave Bush"? Well fans, ask no more. You
probably thought Dave was wiling away the hours over at Starbucks
trading derivatives and orchestrating stock swaps, or something like
that. And you, like us, would have been wrong. Dave has been secretly
developing a brand new product, just about to hit the market, called
"W(h)iffle Ball Minus One". It's based on the Music series, but
instead of erasing a single instrumental track, it eliminates an entire
W(h)iffle Ball player. It turns out that Dave hasn't really missed the
last 75 games. He's just been test marketing the new product.
Congratulations, Dave. It works! And I know I speak for the entire
league when I say "job well done".

Game of April 10, 2010

Yesterday afternoon, as I relaxed on my porch, salving the day's physical wounds with the necessary lotions and unguents, and the spiritual wounds with the balm of my choice, "Stats" Lindsay's lovely wife Karen happened by my home and legal domicile. After exchanging a ...few neighborly pleasantries she uttered the following words which have now permanently burned themselves into the very depths of my being: "I heard you got shellacked!"

Well, Karen, let me just say this: I'll take on you, and all the wiffle widows combined, ANY TIME, ANY PLACE!!! It's one thing to wait patiently by the phone to hear about your "man's" latest exploits on the asphalt and another thing entirely to step into the arena and put the plastic where it counts. Like the great Bobby Riggs before me, I throw down the following challenge: bring it on!

Shellacked indeed!