National Notebook (June 2021)

A monthly look at what is going on around the country in fast pitch competitive Wiffle®Ball.

Backyard Ball: Falkner Wiffle® League

It can be maddening trying to keep up with the always-growing collection of backyard Wiffle® leagues on Instagram. One current league worth keeping tabs on this summer is the Falkner Wiffle®Ball League in Naperville, Illinois (@falknerwiffleleague).

The 8-team league was established in 2013 and its 8th season is currently in progress. As a result, the play in FWL is more advanced than you may find from the average, less established backyard group. The games that I watched recently have been low on walks and both pitchers and hitters come across as relatively polished players.

The league has a bunch of hard throwers. Based on my limited viewing, there is not much variety in terms of pitch selection but not every pitcher was just throwing straight gas either. Andrew Falkner — [one of] the league’s namesakes — stands out both statistically and on video as being the cream of the FWL pitching crop. A lanky right-hander with a nice head of hair, Andrew combines above average velocity with a couple of nice side arm offerings. Through games played the weekend of June 19th/20th, Falkner has allowed just 13 runs in 45 innings pitched, while striking out nearly two batters per inning. Mitch Brouder, Michael Stots, and Joey Clausen have also stood out from a pitching perspective.

An even bigger sign that this is a rather fully formed and mature league when it comes to gameplay, is the quality of the offenses. Few hitters seem overmatched by velocity alone and many have demonstrated the ability to turn on a fastball. While the league is ostensibly a base running one, the cozy field dimensions negate much of the impact that running would otherwise have. A fair number of the barreled line drives end in the trees just beyond the playing area, resulting in a sizeable number of ground rule doubles and home runs. These hitters have had a lot of reps facing competent pithing and it shows.

If you are looking to follow along with the action, make sure to give their Instagram a follow to receive alerts. Games are live streamed but — at least thus far — are not archived either on the league’s Instagram or YouTube channels. Catching the Instagram streams when they air is your best bet to see the Falkner Wiffle® League players currently, although hopefully they make their way to some tournaments in the not-to-distant future. They certainly have the talent to do well outside of the backyard.

Familiar Faces in New Places

Derek Radek – Leroy Wiffle®Ball Association: This Chicagoland player made his return to Wiffle®Ball last October at the United Wiffle®Ball National Championship. As is often the case in those types of situations, Derek was immediately re-bitten by the Wiffle® bug. Given his background in Fast Plastic and Golden Stick, Radek’s presence in MAW this summer does not come as much of a surprise as all three share relatively similar gameplay styles. However, he is also competing in the Leroy Wiffle®Ball Association this summer. A league with baserunning, yellow bats, and a ball bucket (among other gameplay elements) is a departure for Derek, but he seems to be acclimating well. Through the end of June, he ranked 6th in ERA among pitchers with at least 4 innings thrown.

Tim McElrath/Sean Ryan – Colonie Wiffle®Ball: Palisades WBL and Hudson Valley Wiffle®Ball League standout, Sean Ryan, made his return to full time competition this year, debuting in both Mid Atlantic and Colonie Wiffle®Ball. Likewise, Sean’s longtime friend and sometimes teammate, Tim McElrath, also debuted for Colonie this season. Sean has essentially been a full-time player in the long running, upstate New York league appearing in 22 games and amassing 132 plate appearances through July 5th. Sean ranks top ten among all Colonie players in homeruns, batting average, and slugging percentage. Tim has assumed more of a parttime role, appearing in six 2021 games to date. His .500/.625/.600 slash line puts him among batting average and slugging leaders. More impressively, Tim has allowed just two earned runs in 12 innings and leads the league in both strikeout and walk rate.

Colin Prentiss/Brian DiNapoli/Troy Parks/Ryan Patnode – Fanway Park: These Golden Stick New England mainstays are competing in the Finchburg, Massachusetts-based Fanway Park League this summer for the first time. Prentiss and DiNapoli in particular are tailormade for the hybrid medium pitch/fast pitch league (two-game series alternate one game in each style) given their prior success in both Yard and fast pitch in and out of GSWL. DiNap has been hitting leadoff for the Reds who are off to a hot start in 2021 while Prentiss has taken the mound on several occasions for the defending champions, the Giants, who have also hit the ground running this season.

In Memoriam

Wiffle®Ball leagues and tournaments are here one day and gone the next, often forgotten the minute they are done. Here is a look at one longtime northeast tournament hanging it up in 2021 after twelve years.

From 2008 through 2019, the Wiffle®Ball Bonanza in Ligonier, Pennsylvania (about an hour southeast of Pittsburgh) offered a one-of-a-kind backyard Wiffle® experience while raising money to battle Type 1 Diabetes.

The tournament began in 2008 as an unofficial get together between [future tournament organizer] Zach Freeman and eleven friends. The event quickly evolved into something much bigger, with 16 large-roster teams (7-12 players) competing in an all-day tournament and home run derby. The gameplay style was easily recognizable – base running, fast pitch, clean balls, Easton (and similar) bats – but with a few unique twists as well. For example, the four pool winners advanced to the 6-team single elimination round, with the other two teams being decided through donations to that year’s T1D charitable cause. In another clever twist, the results of the home run derby (one player per team) decided the seeding for the elimination round.

Elements such as those added to the festival-like feel of the tournament. Tournament participants and spectators could purchase an all-day beer & food ticket and pick up cornhole games were commonplace. The tournament took place on just a pair of fields which made for a long day but gave players plenty of time to take in the rest of what the event had to offer. The main field was a replica of Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field and temporary lights allowed the final games of the day to be played after dark.

By the late 2010’s, the tournament was a quick 16-team sell out. While most participants were locals who got their annual Wiffle® fix in during that one Saturday in July, the event did draw participation from surrounding states and occasionally some regular Wiffle®Ball players as well.

The 2020 Wiffle®Ball Bonanza was postponed from its usual mid-July date to late September due to COVID-19 and eventually canceled altogether. After 12 years and $125,000 raised, the Wiffle®Ball Bonanza officially called it a day in 2021.

Scoreless Streaks

With summer officially underway and most groups at least one month into their seasons, most pitchers have given up at least a run in each of the league’s they participate in. However, there are still a few pitchers holding onto zero ERAs even after tossing a significant number of innings.

Not surprisingly, MO WIFF leads the way here with THREE pitchers having thrown at least 15 innings (two that have thrown more than 30 innings) without allowing a run. Cam Smith (38 IP), Brett Spencer (33 IP), and Jordan Smith (16 IP) are all unscored upon thus far in MO WIFF, which has been a pitching dominated league in its inaugural season.

In the Kalamazoo Wiffle®Ball League, Nate Thompson still has a zero in the runs allowed column through 22 innings of work. This is somewhat familiar territory for Thompson, who threw 24 scoreless innings during the 2019 KWL playoffs.

Texas Tidbits

The Whiskey Ducks & TC35 combination (Jason Rendon from the Whiskey Ducks, Chase Oliver & Eric Attwood from TC35) – who won the Southeast Wiffle® Open back in early June – are now going by the amalgamation “35 Whiskey Ducks”. The trio finished second at a recent Cedar Park fast pitch tournament and will be joined by Joseph Vasquez and Luke Richter at the United Wiffle®Ball National Championship in October.

The Runs captured the June Cedar Park fast pitch tournament thanks to a fabulous pitching performance by Drew Dobbins. Dobbins allowed just two runs the entire tournament, pitched a shutout in the finals, and is said to have been clocked at 90+ mph at several stops in the tournament.

Both the Texas state medium pitch and fast pitch state championships in Cedar Park will take place in July, with the latter scheduled for Saturday July 31st. Louisiana’s Anarchy is one out-of-state team that will be vying for the Texas title. Anarchy is likely to run with a three-man roster in Cedar Park consisting of captain Ben Schafer, along with pitchers Ryker Holloway and Riley Viator. That team is likely to score enough runs during the course of the day and if things click pitching wise, they will be a tough out. Of course, there are plenty of tough Texas teams they will have to deal with, which we will detail in our tournament preview later this month.

Rookie Watch

·       The Diablos’ Hunter Van leads all Kalamazoo players with 20 home runs. Van has a seven HR lead over the next closest player (Nate Thompson) despite having played two fewer games to date. He has hit a home run in nearly one out of every three trips to the plate this year.

·       Pitching for the Fog, Chase Johnson had a great JAL debut back in May when he allowed just one run (on a home run) while posting a 3:1 strikeout to walk ratio. His next game the same day did not go quite as smoothly, but Chase still ranks among the top pitchers in the league in the very early goings of JAL 22.

·       Brendan Boas continues to impress during his rookie campaign. About midway through the RPWL season, Boas still holds a solid .931 OPS and a sub-1.00 ERA in limited innings. Brendan made his Longballs debut in June at MAW Wiffle Wars, where he allowed four runs in just about 15 innings pitched.

Here and There

Colin Pollag is dominating the offensive leaderboards in Ridley Park. In 6 games, the RPWL Phillies’ captain is hitting .583/.737/1.250 with 5 homeruns . . . In the race to see who replaces Trevor Goforth as JAL’s top pitcher (now that Goforth has relocated to Texas), Brannan Merriweather is the clubhouse leader. Merriweather has only thrown two games (10 inning) in JAL 22, but the JAL 21 MVP and Pitching Award recipient has picked up right where he left off. He’s allowed 3 runs in 10 innings while striking out more than 2 ½ hitters for every walk given up . . .  It is still early – less than halfway into the season – but offense is way up across the board in MLW in 2021 relative to 2020. The league wide OPS was .790 in 2020 but sits at .994 currently, an increase of 25% year over year . . . Although he has been the most prolific pitcher from RPWL for a half-decade now, Tommy Loftus hasn’t pitched much in actual league play. Prior to 2021, he pitched more than 10 innings only once (in 2017 when he threw 32 innings). Loftus is on track to set his career high in RPWL innings with 26 innings pitched with a decent chunk of the season left to go.