Oven Fresh This Month In Wiffleball

Love them or hate them, Palisades WBL has cracked out another impressive episode of their This Month In Wiffleball series. This time they recap the playoffs and announce which players won awards. The Giants won the championship, which is nice because the Blue Jays have won the championship 3 times in a row (2008-2010). It's unfortunate but Palisades seems to have escaped the view of many wiffleball enthusiasts lately. Palisades parting ways with the NWLA early this past summer could be to blame. Yet Palisades has since remained the most popular third party wiffleball league out there. They still have a lot to offer: top notch competition, dazzling videos, and a heated message board. Long story short: don't forget about Palisades. Although their name may be somewhat tarnished from the very public disputation with Kalamazoo Wiffleball League from earlier this year, the fact remains that they are well deserved contenders for your attention.

And if you think this will be the final episode of This Month In Wiffleball for a while, think again. This episode foreshadows that there will be a video following the free agency.

New Article For NWLA About OCWA Freaky Franchise

Freaky Franchise finished the 2011 season at 9th place (NWLA Rankings) making them one of the best backyard teams in America. I felt it necessary to shine the spotlight on them for a brief moment and interviewed the players to see what they had to say about their new found success. I had not written an article for the NWLA website in quite some time but knew an article about a team from a small league breaking into the top 10 in the nation was a story worth writing. If you would like to read the article you can click HERE or click on the Freaky Franchise image at the top of this post. Enjoy.

If you would like to actually see Freaky Franchise in action you can check out a link to a VIDEO showing some game highlights. Yes, the music is annoying and the camera angles are not very inspiring but you'll get to see their unique field - Bush Grapes Park (they play off a house).

Let The 2012 Previews Begin

Wiffle in Southeast Michigan (WSEM) are officially the first league to come out with a 2012 preview video. Congratulations guys. It's good to see that these guys are so certain that they're having a 2012 season. I've personally met a few of them and they are a great group of players and I look forward to following them this upcoming season and seeing some of them at the 2012 London Wiffleball Tournament in London, OH this summer.

Wiffleboy28 Has A New Video Out

Attention all you Wiffleboy28 fans...as you may know he has a new video out. This time the subject of his attention is predicting ball movement and further instruction on pitching delivery. Most of his videos tend to be the same thing but I never tire of watching him nail that strikezone. His talent is undeniable and the fact that he's willing to pass his knowledge to striving young pitchers is admirable. His videos normally just trail off but this time he poured a bucket of balls out and hopped on top of them. I'm not sure what that's all about but makes for a memorable finalé.

Tadashi Still Doing His Thing

It's nice to see that our friend in Japan, Tadashi Onizuka, is still working on his game. He appears to have all but master the screwball. I'd love to interview this guy but a lot gets lost in translation because I don't speak Japanese and he speaks little English. He may forever remain an enigma.

Turkey Day Wiffle

Not all of us are so lucky to live somewhere with palm trees where the weather is always nice, especially during Thanksgiving. But I'm sure there were some of you out there who risked getting pneumonia to play in places like Massachusetts or some place like that. If that did indeed occur it wasn't uploaded onto Youtube as of yet.

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you play any wiffleball?

NWLA Releases National Teams and Wiffy Awards

The National Wiffle League Association recently released the names of the players from across the country who made the list for the national teams as well as the coveted "Wiffy" Awards. This is the 6th year that the all-powerful "Wiffleball100" (the guy who runs the NWLA website) has taken the time to weigh all the players within the jurisdiction of the NWLA and declare which are the best. Each year the NWLA gets more leagues than they had in the previous year and, as a result, it's fair to say that this is a project that is an extremely laborious task and we thank the NWLA for taking the time to tell us which of America's backyard players are among the elite.

"The Boss. He's Back!"

Commissioner Dee of the HRL Twin Cities posted an update on November 9th entitled 'Life, the Universe, and Everything'. The big news message within Dee's message has rocked the wiffleball world with excitement: Pat "Truck" Moriarty is coming back. And by coming back, I mean reclaiming his role as commissioner of the HRL. In 2010 he stepped down as commish and turned the league over to Craig "Dee" Deelsnyder. While Dee has done a great job running the league, it is undeniable that the HRL lost it's social flair (with the exception of the Blue Jays, of course) that it had when Truck was at the captain's wheel. I was not the only person who shared the position that the HRL had become reclusive under Dee's watch. The HRL was once very involved in the NWLA messageboard but suddenly dropped out of the national spotlight in 2010. Their league board was quite alive and well, however, leading some to believe that they no longer were concerned with what everyone else was doing or maintaining their reputation as the nation's top recreational wiffleball league. With the sudden downturn of the HRL, the Kalamazoo Wiffleball League and Palisades WBL muscled away the spotlight and the HRL - a distant memory. KWL commissioner, Brian Meyers, wrote an article about his disappointment in the HRL and called them out as his league (KWL) had won the 2010 Wiffy Awards for Website of the Year and Commissioner of the year, which the HRL previously had a dynasty on. But I've got to ask, is Dee the one who should shoulder all the blame for the HRL's fall from grace? I don't think so. It takes more than one guy to get the word out about a league and a commissioner can only do so much. Dee cited that he had a lot of things going on in his personal life and that he could no longer "put the time and effort needed to run the HRL" and that "life was catching up" to him and that, as a result, he was stepping down as league commissioner. It is unfortunate that such an able commissioner is stepping down from one of the nation's top leagues but we can all take great comfort in the fact that the league is still in good and familiar hands as the league enters it's second era under Pat "Truck" Moriarty's reign.

Halloween Costumed Wiffleball Game

In the event that you ever wanted to see the Lucky Charms guy dive for a fly ball or a biker pull a "free willy" over a first basement - then you're in luck! There's no sound except for one part near the end of the video. I have no clue why.

"Wet" Wiffleball

"Like dry wiffleball? We like it wet." Best part of when he's saying that is the guy next to him is holding a limp noodle. If you've been watching wiffle videos or prowled the webernets for new leagues for a while, like me, you'll find that the field looks so familiar. Come to find out it's the Fridley Factors field, which was a Minnesota league that appeared to primarily consist of family and neighborhood friends. This video is only worth watching for the first minute and a half, then it turns into some sort of vlog entry or something.

Kid Pitches In The Snow

I suppose that this is an indication that we could be seeing at least some wiffle-related activity this winter from places OTHER THAN Florida.

Premature Death For One GSWL Wiffler

It is with regret that today's post is the announcing of the untimely death of Kyle Piazza from Golden Stick Wiffleball League on October 30, 2011. His demise came at the hands of cancer. He only lived to be 28 years old but his reputation appears to have had the tendency to precede him as he was described as "unbreakable as they come" on the NWLA messageboard today. He  won Most Valuable Player last year in the MA Region of Yard League and won the MA Region with the Throwbacks in 2009. Clearly this guy was talented and his absence will be noticed in the MA Region but he "will always be a champion" according to an article on the GSWL website. Golden Stick has also uploaded a tribute video that you can view if you so desire.