Wiffle ball blast salvages stunted baseball career
Thomas C. Willadsen April 25, 2010
I have always enjoyed baseball, though I have never excelled at it. When my sons were younger, they would say, "Daddy, you should play for the Cubs."
I would respond, "The only thing that keeps me from playing for the Cubs is ability."
Charlie Brown's struggles on the baseball diamond are legendary. Mine are real. My first year of Little League my team won two games-both when my family was on vacation.
One year I managed the softball team my church sponsored. I would only play when the team needed me on the field to keep from forfeiting. Players that arrived late to the games would spot me on the field and run from the parking lot to take my place. That year we did not forfeit, but we did not win a single regular season game. The Baptists in that league were especially good fundamental ball players.
I could not even think of myself as "manager;" given the quality of my team's play, "coper" was the best I could muster.
Once I hit a triple in a church league softball game. As I stood on third base I was filled with wonder-not that the left fielder had been playing so shallow, not that I had really turned on an inside pitch and sent it to the warning track-I marveled at how far third base is from home plate. I thought I was going to die.
I stood panting on third base and realized that my dream of hitting a home run, a real, over-the-fence home run, would never come to pass.
Fifteen years later my Rotary Club was looking for someone to manage a team in the inaugural Conquer the Concrete Wiffle Ball Street Tournament. This is an officially sanctioned event. Wiffle ball is a lot like baseball, without the strategy, running or defense. It is the perfect game for Walter Mitty's like me.
There I stood in the bottom of the first on the corner of Commerce and Ceape, waving the yellow bat menacingly. Here's the pitch, a tad inside, but I stride into it and...the satisfying sound of plastic on plastic, the hollow thwock of solid wiffleTM contact...and I had done it!
"The youngster goes yard!" I shouted. I had hit an over-the-fence home run. And the loyal members of the Oshkosh Morning Rotary Club recorded it in their scorebook. In the words of Casey Stengel, "You could look it up."
The next year the club was looking for someone to organize the team, and I managed to clear my schedule for that Saturday. This time I did not only hit several over-the-fence home runs, one of them was a walk-off job. Cinderella story: two men on, down by two, bottom of the last inning, two out, here's the pitch...it might be, it could be...touch 'em all, Slugger! In that moment I was Bobby Thomson, Bill Mazeroski and Joe Carter, without the adoring fans and endorsement opportunities.
This year's tournament will be Saturday, May 1. We're looking for teams of three players.
A $30 entrance fee and the donation of a food item for the Oshkosh Area Community Pantry buys each player a t-shirt and a shot at glory. Visit www.oshkoshmorningrotary.org to enter a team.
Maybe you will achieve a lifelong dream and hit a real home run. Even if you do not "go yard" you will have had a good time, and raised money for worthy, local organizations like Take 5 and Eyes of Our Children.
The Reverend Thomas Willadsen keeps his Wiffleball medals in his office at First Presbyterian Church. He's not as pathetic as he appears.