Rain couldn't wash fun away from Wiffle ball tourney

BANGOR — When I explained that I never played wiffle ball before as I was signing up for a fund-raising tournament for the Make a Wish Foundation, the event organizer asked me flat-out, “What kind of sheltered childhood did you lead?”
It’s not that I have never swung those skinny, yellow plastic bats or thrown that trademark plastic ball with holes in one-half of it. It’s just, I never played an official wiffle ball game, by the rules, at any time in my life.
So on Saturday, in the early morning hours while Tropical Storm Danny was just getting started dumping over two inches of rain on the region, I stood there with about 50 other men listening to the rules of wiffle ball and wondering aloud to myself, “What did I get myself into?”
What I got myself into was a lot of fun — even in spite of the pouring rain, soaked tennis shoes and bruise on my right arm (more on that later). The Wiffle for a Wish fund-raiser was set up by WABI-TV morning anchorman Wayne Harvey as a way to raise money to grant children who are suffering from life-threatening medical conditions. The tournament consisted of 16 teams paying $100 per team to compete in a round-robin qualifier with playoffs to follow.
For those who haven’t played before, wiffle ball is played with five people in a field that barely resembles a baseball diamond. There are lines painted in the grass that signifies an out, a single and a double with a fence in the back. There’s no base running in wiffle ball. Instead, hitters need to hit the plastic ball past one of those lines to be considered a hit. If it falls short of the first line, it’s considered an out. You can also strike out and pop up to the other team. Everything depends on where the ball lands.
At this tournament, I ended up playing for the Longhorn Steakhouse team, which consisted Paul, an Old Town man, along with his 12-year-old son Jonathan, and myself. All three of us were fill-ins playing against some serious competition. Some men were throwing those wiffle balls as hard as some high-level college pitchers throw a fastball, and the curve a wiffle ball can make is ridiculous.
Needless to say, in all four games we played in we got hammered. It may be no coincidence that I pitched all four games and had never pitched a wiffle ball game before in my life. In the first inning of my first game I gave up a grand slam — a GRAND SLAM in wiffle ball — en route to a 10-0 drubbing. The other two round-robin games and playoff game went pretty much in the same fashion.
As for that bruise I got on my right forearm, I never expected to have my life put in danger by a wiffle ball come-backer. I’m fairly certain if that hit would have found my face I’d have one of those unique wiffle ball dimples imprinted onto my skin.
In spite of all the losing, the Wiffle for a Wish tournament was a lot of fun and something I hope to do again next year. Then again, losing four straight games pretty quickly did have a silver lining to it — it did allow for the three of us to finally get out of the pouring rains of Tropical Storm Danny, but not before we were soaked to the bone.