Wiffle Ball (1 Viewer)

[John Alvarez]

Or dad to beat your ass when you did something stupid..... Hot wheels tracks were good for that too....

 

[Mike Frezon]

In my neighborhood, when kids were busy elsewhere (lunch, dinner, whatever) and it was just down to the two of us...we'd switch from a base-running game to home run derby. That's when we'd usually break out the softer plastic ball (without holes).

Past the pitcher on the ground -- single. Past the pitcher in the air -- double. Hit the house on the fly -- triple. Hit the roof -- Hone Run. OVER the roof(!) -- Grand slam.

Boy, did conditions have to be just right to hit one over the house! I can remember the feeling of waking up on a summer day...getting dressed real quick...running outside...the smell of the fresh-cut grass in the bright sunshine. Lets play ball!

It sucks to get old....but the memories are terific! Wiffleball is one of the highlights of my youth.

 

[MikeH1]

Wiffle ball up here in the Great White North. I especially remember it in Grade 6 in the mid 80's when we had indoor intermurals and played baseb...errr whiffleball in the gymnasium. I don't think I ever touched one after that though.

Didn't the Beastie Boys sing about the mighty whiffleball in their debut album?

 

[Scott McGillivray]

Beastie Boys mentioned that they abused the cops daughter...

"We did her like this, we did her like that, we did her with a wiffleball bat..."


Or something like that.


Here in Saskatchewan, Canada we used a wiffleball to play a game we called "Pickleball" which was sort of like indoor tennis. You would setup a badminton net so that it was on the ground like a tennis net and play with wooden paddles that had holes in them. It was a lot of fun.

 

[Jeff_CusBlues]

I still love the smell of fresh cut grass.

 

[Jeff_CusBlues]

At least he didn't make you go out back and tear off the switch he would beat your ass with.

 

[Brook K]

Wiffleball in Missouri, though in my small town neighborhood we never had more than 3-4 people and often just 1-on-1 games where sometimes we ran bases and sometimes we used the "homerun derby" rules.

We usually used plastic balls with no holes that went farther and we almost never used the yellow bat. We used knock-off plastic bats with thicker barrels, closer to the dimensions of a baseball bat.

I could never throw a curve, even with a real wiffleball. A sinker was all I could manage. But I was the only lefty in the neighborhood so I still did ok.

Like Michael, one of my friends and I kept stats too. This was the guy I played Strat-O and Pursue the Pennant with. We even kept stats when we played on his Odyssey video game system. (as everyone knows, Atari baseball sucked)

 

[Dave Poehlman]

Oh yes, I've felt the sting of a line driven wiffleball on my thigh whilst wearing circa 1970's short shorts. You are not alone.

 

[MarkHastings]

Yeah, we never had enough kids in my neighborhood to make any kind of real game, so we had to inprovise.

My parents house had a nice big stretch of land to the side and we always used the side of the house as "Homerun" territory. Of course, the house was to the left, and us (being HUGE Red Sox Fans) we always called it the Yellow Monster - ....as well as the usual rules (past the tree is a triple, etc.) - We also would make the road an out so you didn't cream the ball every time. It made it more interesting because you had to hit it over the tree, but not past the road for a triple.

And during college years, when we'd have the great big cookouts at my parents, we'd have MAJOR wiffle ball games. In later years, we even found the sets that had the little plastic bases, which made it SO much easier than our old method of using the peach tree. LOL

I remember it was so hard because you had to RUN, then touch the trunk without being tagged out, and without poking your eyes out from the branches.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

The Beasties Boys song was Paul Revere. It followed the line "The Sheriff's after me for what I did to his daughter"



Senior year in High School, I got out of every gym class by playing the gym teacher in pickleball the first day of each semester. If I beat him, I didn't have to dress the rest of the term.

SOB went against his word and flunked me the last term. I had to run laps every day from the day seniors got out till graduation in order to get my diploma.

 

[Evan M.]

Yep.....played Wiffle ball up here in Maine too in the 70's/80's.......heck, I sill play it with the kids around the neighborhood....

My favorite was getting up and playing it in the street. As already stated....the manhole cover was second and dead patches of grass on the side of the street was 1st and 3rd. Homeplate was either another cover or a ballglove. Now let me post this NEW question.......when it was just 2 people playing against each other and you got a single or double.....as you walked back to homeplate for the next at bat did you guys ever use the phrase "ghost man on first"....or second or third??????

 

[John Alvarez]

Always.... Many times we had a "do over".
Di you ever play 3 flies? You hit the ball into the crowd and whoever caught 3 got to hit?

 

[MarkHastings]

Totally!

I remeber the goofs we'd play on each other where we'd pretend to tag out the "ghost man" for stealing.