2022 Drop 100: A Hypothetical Look at the Top 20 from 20 Years Ago

What might the top 20 of a Drop 100 looked like 20 years ago? We took a stab at a theoretical 2002 top 20, using the same criteria as utilized for the contemporary Drop 100 lists. This article provides additional information and commentary on some of the players making up this retrospective, completely unofficial Drop 100 list

Former Philadelphia Phillies prospect and future Wiffle®Ball National Champion, Mickey Hyde, put himself on the Wiffle®Ball map in 2002 as a member of the Toadkiller Dogs in the new United States Perforated Plastic Baseball Association (“USPPBA”) Southeast region. Hyde competed in Major League Baseball sponsored Yardball events at the end of the 1990’s – not too long after his pro baseball dreams ended after the 1993 minor league season – but 2002 was when he made his first big mark in Wiffle®Ball, a sport he would remain on top of for the better part of the next decade.

Hyde dominated the new USPPBA Southeast region (largely Florida, some Georgia participation) 20 years ago. At 35 years old, he led the Toadkiller Dogs to an opening tournament win, by going 6-0 on the carpet and leading TKD in hitting as well. That was a harbinger of what was to come for Hyde and TKD that summer. When the A-Bros lost their first game in more than a year early in the 2022 season and the Stompers stumbled to a 2-2 record in the third USBPPA Northeast qualifier after starting the year 11-1 with tournament titles, Hyde had his team positioned to take over the #1 spot in the USPPBA standings. The team held onto that spot through the regular season and regional playoffs and headed to the 4-team National Championship Series (“NCS”) that October in Sarasota with a 30-3 record. Hyde was a workhorse for TKD all year, particularly after secondary pitcher Ernie Bianco went down with an injury after the first tournament and didn’t return until later in the season.

The strikes against Hyde occupying in the top spot are that Mickey and the Toadkiller Dogs were eliminated by the eventual champions, the Vipers, in a Best of 3 semi-final series in the NCS and the Southeast *arguably* had the weakest regular season competition of the four 2022 USPPBA regions (New England, Northeast, Southwest, Southeast). Hyde’s closest competitor for the #1 overall spot won the national title in ‘02 and he competed in a tougher region. However, Hyde was arguably a bigger contributor to his team’s success and dominated the SE (which did include several quality veteran teams) by so much, that he takes the top spot.

The other contender for the 2002 crown is the Vipers’ Jim Balian. While Balian had plenty of Wiffle®Ball experience prior to 2002, it was largely confined to leagues & tournaments in Arizona, and he was not yet the national Wiffle®Ball “name” he would become. That changed in 2002 when Jim hooked up with the well-traveled duo of Billy Owens and Rich Ewald to form the Vipers of the USPPBA Southern California region. Balian and the Vipers handed the A-Bros their first loss in well over a year, later swept the A-Bros – the 2001 national champs – two games to none in the Southwest playoffs and took down the Toadkiller Dogs and State of Mind to win the 2002 USPPBA title.

Balian was a major part of that National Championship team, taking home National Championship Series MVP honors. A two-way player, the one thing keeping Jim from the top spot on this hypothetical, retroactive top 20 list is that Hyde did more with less. The Toadkiller Dogs won more regular season games than the Vipers in 2002 and while Hyde has some quality teammates, he didn’t have another upper-level arm like Billy Owens or even a quality veteran bat like Rich Ewald to lean on. You cannot go wrong with either Jim or Mickey in the top spot – both had incredible seasons – but Hyde’s individual performance was slightly more impressive both at the time and still is with the benefit of hindsight.

The Blue Sox went from a good upper-mid-level team in the Northeast – the kind that could beat any team at any time but was rarely one of the top three or so teams on paper at any tournament – to the USPPBA New England champions in 2002. They did so off the strength of a fabulous two-way season – particularly in the back half – from star player Ryan Kaddy.

Elvin Cortez (Hitmen) passes on a pitch at the first qualifier of the 2002 USPPBA Northeast region season.

The Sox started the year 1-2 at the first New England event of 2002 but went 21-4 the rest of the regular season and finished things off by defeating In the Box in the regional playoffs to advance to the NCS. While the Blue Sox run was far from a one man show – Chris Chabot, for example, had a strong season as well – Kaddy was their star player on both sides of the ball. The Blue Sox did not have quite as good of a season as either the Toadkiller Dogs or Vipers nor was Kaddy as individually impressive as the two players above him on this list, but his season was strong enough that it could have landed him in the top spot in several other years.

The USPPBA was set to expand from two regions in 2001 (west and east) to four regions (northeast, southeast, northwest, and southwest) in 2002. However, the pacific northwest region pulled out of the organization late in the game, forcing the USPPBA to put together a last-minute New England region to keep the four regions concept intact. Among the downhill impacts of the move were Chrystie’s current team, In the Box, relocating to the New England region and New Jersey-based 2001 In the Box member, Nick Schaefer, amicably leaving the team so he could play closer to his Jersey-home in 2002.

Schaefer joined the Stompers – who entered the year one pitcher away from being a regular tournament contender – and the addition paid immediate dividends. The Stompers spent most of 2001 losing close, low scoring games to the top northeast teams while only occasionally pulling off an upset here or there. Schaefer helped the team not just get over the hump but helped transform them into one of the top teams in the country almost overnight. The Stompers won the first two USPPBA Northeast tournaments of 2002, bagged 3 out of 5 total, and finished 5th in the country – the top team not to advance to the 4-team USPPBA National Championship Series. Schaefer went 15-3 in USPPBA play and registered a 1.98 ERA in 88 1/3 IP. Although never recognized as a strong hitter – somewhat unjustly – Nick had a strong season at the plate including a walk-off 3-run home run to win the second tournament of the year. What keeps him out of the top 3 spots is that he would occasionally throw less than 100% to conserve himself for later in the tournament, which led to an inflated ERA. Schaefer wasn’t a one-man show by any means – teammate Dan Isenberg, who checks in at #20 on this list, had a career year in 2002 and was arguably the best left-handed pitcher in the country that season – but Nick still likely did more for his team than any player other than Hyde while competing in the toughest tournaments in the country that year.

Three members of State of Mind – the 2002 national runners up – show up on this list with Chris Sarnowski leading the way at #5. “Sarno” broke out on the national stage that year as a two-way player. His hard screwball set him apart for the time and the vicious hacks he took at the plate often at equally as devastating results. Jay Ventresca (#7) was in 2002 what he was in 2022 – one of the more dangerous hitters in the sport. He also pitched semi-regularly in 2002, though slid into the third spot in State of Mind’s rotation behind Sarno and Corey Poat. Poat (#19) – a hard throwing right hander – was key to SOM’s 2002 success. Poat became an upper-level pitcher that season, which was big in that moving State of Mind from a perennial 4th/5th place tournament finisher in 2001 into a national contender. Poat allowed for Ventresca to slip into the third spot in the rotation where he was better suited, gave State of Mind a formidable #1/#2 punch at the top of the rotation, and rounded out their order nicely as well.

The 2002 USPPBA Champions, the Vipers (L-R): Rich Ewald, Jim Balian, Billy Owens, Tom Jankowski

A few young up-and-comers that would go onto have great careers would have made their list debuts high up the chart in 2002. Joel DeRoche first started turning heads in 2002 as his family team, the Tracy Shockers, entered USPPBA competition. Joel led the Shockers to a pair of runner up finishes out in in the California region and a top four finish in that region. His pitching ability was lauded at the time and the Shockers good season in a tough California region would have led him to debut high up this list had it existed back in 2002. Out east, another family team with some young, high-upside players broke through in 2022. The father-son trio from New York, the Wood ‘n Bats, finished 3rd/4th at three Wiffle Up! tournaments in 2000 and 2001, before picking up their first Wiffle Up! tournament title in Philadelphia that June. While father and both sons could play, it was Ryan Wood who started to emerge as the best of the bunch. In 2002, Ryan was almost unfair from 42 feet away, especially when the opponent only had a yellow or thin aluminum bat to swing. He was equally as dangerous at the plate and helped the Wood ‘n Bats to a top 8 finish at the Wiffle Up! World Series. It would be a few more years before Ryan showed off his skills outside of Wiffle Up!, but he was already one of the top players in the game by 2002.

One last notable tidbit from this list is the strong New England presence. New England dominated the national competitive fast pitch Wiffle®Ball scene in its earliest days. The first four National Champions (1989-1992) all hailed from Massachusetts and only one runner up (the Trenton Milkmen in 1992) came from outside of New England. While there were plenty of leagues, tournaments, and teams playing a lot of Wiffle® in New England over the next decade and some very notable players as well, New England lacked the strong fast pitch presence it held earlier in the 1990’s. This was at least in part due to the region’s most prolific group – the New England Wiffle®Ball Association – being medium/slow pitch organization.

2002 would have been a seminal year in terms of players on (and high up) The Drop 100 list. While some would have fallen off or down the list from prior years like the Rhode Island Kings’ Mike Washington (injury) or Nick Tariela (lack of playing time), other New Englanders in the top 20 likely would have been on the list for the first time in 2002, including Derek Wagner (Patriots), Adam Trotta (Doom), and Justin Dana (JJ Wild). That’s in addition to veterans Kaddy and Bruce Chrystie (In the Box) who would have been holdovers from the prior year. 2002 likely would have represented a low point for New Englanders in the top 100 over the next decade+ as the region took over fast pitch Wiffs with the emergence of Golden Stick.