THE WORLD BEGAN ON AUGUST 14, 1953...

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WIFFLE BALLS
inventor: David N. Mullany
1953
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"Of course I got a bat! What, do you think I'm a fag?"
~ Johnny Crowder
'The Lord Of War And Thunder'
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The world began on August 14, 1953 . . .  that's the day that the first WIFFLE BALLS (invented a year earlier) went on sale in this baseball-crazy country. Mr. David Mullany created the first Wiffle Ball in Fairfield, Connecticut, after seeing his 12-year-old son struggling to throw a curveball. Mr. Mullany (to whom we bow down and show obeisance) cut eight oblong slots into plastic orbs that were used to package cosmetics and the Wiffle Ball, an American institution, was born.
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Oh, Wiffle Ball, Wiffle Ball, it nearly compels me to wax poetic. I'm now 46 years old, but the love that I have for the game of Wiffle Ball will possess my heart long after my body has any capability to throw a breaking pitch!
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My Brother and I were born to a beautiful, baseball-loving woman. Shirley grew up following the Cincinnati Reds, and as a child she acquired a nickname based on a long-forgotten Big League pitcher. As an adult, she worked for the Los Angeles DOdGers and the Los Angeles Angels (that was before they became the California Angels, and then the Anaheim Angels, and then the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and then the Chicago White Sox Victims). She instilled in her two boys and one daughter a love for America's pastime. (In fact, my sister was the first girl we ever heard of to play on a boys' Little League team.)
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But when we weren't on a baseball diamond with 7 other guys, and when we couldn't scrounge up 2 other guys to play a game of "Over-The-Line" at the park, my Brother, Napoleon, and I were battling it out in a game of Wiffle Ball in the yard.
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We had some outrageously competitive games in our "Glory Days." We perfected the art of pitching a Wiffle Ball and baffled many a batter who tried to hit us. I remember 1990 and a young, athletic college student who, claiming to have played Wiffle Ball throughout his childhood, challenged this old geezer on the UCLA field behind the John Wooden Center. Well, my screwball was only breaking about 10 feet that day, and after taking it for strike three about a dozen times, he just shook his head, and I concluded that whatever game he was playing as a child, it WASN'T what my Brother and I called, "WIFFLE BALL."
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If you have never owned a Wiffle Ball, you've never really been alive, my dear friend! Although they do tend to crack between the oblong cutouts after some time (especially if you hang too many curveballs for my Brother who swings with great authority), they will last for countless hours of baseballesque bliss and excellent exercise! They can be used anywhere outdoors because the Wiffle Ball weighs only two-thirds of an ounce, and if Nappy never knocked one through a window, neither will you!
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And although the Wiffle Ball is light, it does not follow that it should be taken lightly. After San Francisco Giant (man, do I hate the Giants!), Kevin Mitchell, won the 1989 National League MVP award, he publicly stated that he had really learned to hit the curveball by playing a lot of Wiffle Ball the previous off-season. One of the greatest hitters of all-time, San Diego's Tony Gwynn, used to hit Wiffle Balls off of a batting tee because he could tell from the spin where he had struck the ball. Play with a Wiffle Ball and you're in Big League company!
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And SURPRISE! Wiffle Balls are still made in the U.S.A. The day production moves to Communist China, I'll jump. Twelve Wiffle Balls are currently going for $14.95, that's only $1.25 per ball. Do you have any idea how much fun you can have with a Wiffle Ball? Well, take my word for it, you'll get more than a dollar and twenty-five cents worth!
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Now all you need to do is get the regulation, Old School, plastic yellow ("banana") bat. Of course, if you really want to splurge you can purchase the newly invented aluminum Wiffle Ball bat. Funny story: My dear ol' Ma bought an aluminum Wiffle Ball bat as a gift for my Brother on his birthday. But she wasn't sure what size to get, so she called the company. "How old is your son?" the representative asked. When she said, "Forty-one", he laughed loud and said, "I think you'll want to go with the heaviest model."
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One of the great disappointments in my life (SERIOUSLY!) is that they didn't think to organize Wiffle Ball competitions until Nappy and I were in our 40's. We scouted out the competition at the "Wiffle Ball World Series" here in Phoenix a few years ago. (Players fly in from all over the country!) We figured that even at our advanced age and with my arthritis, we could still give those young studs all they bargained for and more, if we polished our long-neglected technique over the next year. Alas, it never happened, what with work and life and all the other crap that gets in the way of Wiffle Ball play.
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But that doesn't mean YOU can't fly into Phoenix next year and win the title! Get to it, man! Get yourself a dozen Wiffle Balls, a "banana" bat and start practicing. Hint: The ball breaks in the direction of the solid half. Want to throw a 'Drop'? Make sure the solid section is on the bottom at your release point. Then get inventive -- there are innumerable variations on that theme! You can thank me for the hint when you see me. You'll recognize me because I'm always the guy who picks up the suitcase that comes around on the airport luggage carrousel with a plastic yellow bat strapped across the top of it!
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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