Canonsburg wiffle ball team takes its cuts at national tournament
Jake Davey realizes what he and his friends do over the summer is unique.
“If someone comes up to you and says, ‘I’m in a wiffle ball league,’ you’d say, ‘That’s pretty rare,'” Davey said.
As unorthodox as it might be, it isn’t for Davey and his friends.
To them, it’s just summer.
“We were a group that was on a travel baseball team when we were 12 or 13. We would always play wiffle ball in our spare time,” Davey said. “Then one summer, we thought we should do it all summer, so we put together a league.”
Wiffle ball – a baseball variation, with fewer players, smaller field dimensions and lighter, plastic bats and balls – has been a game among young kids and teenagers for more than 50 years.
Now in its fifth year of existence, the Wiff Is Life League, a wiffle ball league composed mostly of Canonsburg teenagers, competed in the sixth-annual National Wiffle League Association tournament earlier this month in Morenci, Mich.
Despite not placing at the tournament, Davey, commissioner of the WILL, said it was a great experience.
“It was a lot of fun,” Davey said. “We learned a lot. In Morenci, they did a really good job. They have all the fields in one location. They have a concession stand, ball boys and certified umpires. All this for wiffle ball was pretty cool to see. It was a lot of fun.”
Sam Skibbe, NWLA website content curator, said the NWLA, which has 57 member leagues in the northeast and midwest, is a legitimate parent organization.
“It’s not some run-of-the-mill league where we throw something together,” Skibbe said. “This is a big operation. – We have guys throwing upper 80s, with (a lot) of movement from 45 feet. In the majors, you’re not seeing quite as much movement, and it’s from 60 feet.”
To qualify for the national tournament, the WILL Waves had to first place in a regional qualifier. The Waves traveled to the seven-team regional in Wilkes-Barre June 10, with the top four teams advancing to the national tournament. The Waves went 3-1 in Wilkes-Barre, finishing second overall and qualifying for its first NWLA tournament.
Davey said choosing the roster for the regional and national tournament wasn’t easy.
After starting with eight teams, two players per team, in its inaugural season in 2013, the WILL now hosts 16 teams with five or six players on each team, nearly 100 players in the league.
Additionally, the rules are significantly different in the national tournament than in the WILL.
The WILL has two outs per inning and six balls for a walk, compared to the tradition NWLA tournament that follows normal baseball rules. The WILL is a medium-pitch league, while the NWLA is a fast-pitch league, meaning the pitching is faster and more difficult to hit in the national tournament. In the offense-heavy WILL, the bats are much bigger than at nationals, which features the thinner, traditional yellow wiffle ball bats. The rest of the rules – pegging runners to get them out, pitcher’s poison and two outfielders, one pitcher and up to two additional hitters per team – are the same.
The WILL held tryouts to select the players for the regional and national tournaments.
“We had a tryout, because it’s a different style, so you can’t just go off league stats,” Davey said. “Whoever did the best at the tryout we took from there. I feel like we got the best of our league together.”
The seven players chosen for the Waves were Rob Licht, Dylan Coyle, Mike Graziani, Josh Palma, Matt Mish, Jordan Castelli and Davey.
The group drove four and a half hours to the tournament last Friday for the pre-tournament festivities, which included an All-Star Game and a Home Run Derby.
Pool play began for the 16-team tournament July 15, and the WILL’s first game was against a team from Washington D.C. The Waves got out to an early 2-0 lead on a Licht home run, but the Waves couldn’t hold the lead and lost 4-2. Licht is one of the best hitters in the WILL, as he currently owns a .723 batting average with 27 home runs in 18 games.
The Waves then faced a team from Detroit that would go on to win the NWLA championship, with Castelli losing a pitchers’ duel, 1-0.
“On the team that ended up winning it, their pitcher was filthy and that wasn’t even their ace pitcher,” Davey, who has 51 home runs in 25 games in the WILL, said. “Their ace was the tournament MVP. I can’t imagine facing him if the other guy was as filthy as he was.”
The Waves won their last pool play game, 1-0, against a team from Minnesota. Mish threw a complete game, and Licht hit a home run.
The team was then seeded 10th in the double-elimination tournament, which started Saturday night. The Waves played the same team from Minnesota in the first round, losing 4-0. They were eliminated by a Philadelphia team, 2-1, in extra innings, before winning a consolation game against a team from Chicago, 8-0.
While the Waves didn’t fare the way Davey and his teammates would have liked, they can’t get too down. They have the first round of WILL playoffs that start today and finish later this month.
The WILL has two divisions of eight teams, and each team plays a 29-game schedule over the summer. There is one game day a week, usually at North Strabane Park, with each team playing three or four five-inning games in a day.
After each game day, Davey inputs the statistics onto the league’s website from the day’s games.
“I’ll be up until 1:30 a.m. most Wednesdays putting in the stats and going through them all,” Davey said.
Along with a website and a bid to the national tournament, the WILL also has several sponsors, including Shady Rays sunglasses, Anytime Fitness in McMurray, Escape Room South, Select Genetics and Big D’s House of Tees.
The league also holds charity tournaments in the winter to collect winter coats for the needy and toys for Toys for Tots.
With many of the players moving onto college, Davey, who is going to Marietta College in the fall and plans to play baseball as an outfielder, hopes to continue the WILL as long as possible.
“I know some things will come up, but we’ll go as long as we can and keep it going as long as we can,” Davey said. “I think we’re going to transition to Sundays for next year, because a lot of people are working now.”
As for next year’s NWLA tournament, Davey said he thinks the experience will help the Waves in the coming years.
“It’s a tough transition,” he said. “With fast pitch, guys are throwing 80 miles per hour and making it move every direction. Trying to hit it with that little yellow bat is tough.”