Every once in a while, one must take a step back to reflect on their life at present. This is one such moment for this guy right here. In standard Timmy style, I have managed to keep a good tabs on myself of late. The boys and I have been hitting the Wiffleball field on a near-daily clip and let me tell you something. Wiffleball is more than just a child's game or a schoolyard romp...
There comes a time in every man’s life when he realizes that there is so much serious stuff going on around him and he has to choose between sitting on his butt and taking it, or get out on that field, be it grass, asphalt or gym floor…..and smack the shit out of a little plastic ball. Wiffleball is not a game for he weak hearted, nor is it a game of shear will and determination…it is just a game; a game that breaks a man out of his everyday surroundings and into a field of dreams. The day a boy picks up a white ball with slits on the side and tosses a perfect slider, fastball, 12-6 curve or even the ever elusive screwball…is the day that boy realizes what will keep him young forever.
Youth is not something to be wasted on the young. It is a gift for all ages. A man of 22, 23 or even………25 dare I say it, can benefit from a summer night under the lights of a high school parking lot with three of his best friends batting against the eternal struggle of hitting one of the slowest change-ups imaginable and trying to not look like you’ve been diagnosed with Down’s halfway through the swing. A night of pure talent taking on brute strength and a Neanderthal wit that couldn’t cut a single strand of human hair. A night of debauchery with the boys out on a warm night, people shouting “swing battah” and “homerun” from their cars.
A night around which nothing is based but a simple and heated game of the Summer Classic series. Team Schpladdough (pronounced shplad-dow) and Team Coathanger (pronounced kote-hang-er) mortal enemies took the field on such a night. A rage of emotion erupts in the first inning, first half, first batter, first pitch…the first batter for team Coathanger, for the season’s greatest fight, belts an uncatchable homerun out of the 60 degree 60 foot field erected on the grounds of the high school parking lot. The game was all out of their hands from that point on. Team Schpladdough took control with a grand slam in the bottom of the first with no outs. You can imagine the emotions….Jubilation, celebration…degredation and humiliation…the game was a one-sided ridicule where the starter for the winning team pitched a complete game with at least 8 K’s (track was lost, but T was on with the sick junk). Working with his NEW screwball, an entirely undpredictable, yet nearly unhittable junk pitch and a changeup that shut down 5 batters and K-ed 4, he managed to escape situations that would drop a gem from a newborn T-Rex in his dinosaur booties.
All-in all, the teams played good ball. A game that will forever pull a man from his responsibilities as a swim coach, a golf pro’s assistant, an after school program director, or a substitute, Wiffleball will always force a good game. Wiffleball games will force you out of your comfort zone and into a new world full of fielding, pitching, and swinging for a base hit. A world entirely comprised of grown men, who refuse to grow up…Grown men who will fight the crushing oppression of the middle class work life…Grown men who know that there is more to life than chasing that average temporary high…oh….uh…Grown men…who know…there is…more…
Team Schpladdaugh, Team Coathanger…play on, young players…play on…
Until the Summer Classic inspires once again…
