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exerpts from Red Dorkbat's memoir, Ground Rule Trouble: A Renegade Wiffler's Tale:
late 1960s: Pomona, Ca. The neighborhood kids had several fields set up. Sometimes it was hard to choose where to play.
The Alley, The Gravel Lot, McCallan's Backyard... until we cleared out the big empty lot on the corner and made the Ultimate
Wiffle Diamond, with a plywood fence and scoreboard. I still have a plastic Dodger helmet from those days.
1976-1980: Cardiff-By-The Sea, Ca. The Nerf Years. Found a curious foam rubber ball at the variety store, like a Nerfball
but smaller and denser. We had a small backyard and with that ball a line drive wouldn't break the window. The bat was a
stake with a tape handle, which we also used to smack June Bugs over the fence. My submarine-forkball was unhittable in those
days.
Spring of 1988: Questa, NM. Picked up a wiffle set at the WalMart in Taos and managed to get some games going with some
jazz musicians who were building an adobe recording studio. Right field was all sagebrush and anthills. Hitting it over
the purple schoolbus was no guarantee of a home run, there was a fielder on the other side who could blinldly chuck it back
over for a close play at the plate.
May Day 2003: San Francisco, Ca. Organized a game with a small group of anarchists who had gathered in Golden Gate Park
to honor the Industrial Workers of the World. Gear: classical wiffleball and banana bat. Drawbacks of the Field: blackberry
hazard along third base line, wild pitches into lake. The Game: One Big Inning with no outs, no batting order, no rules
whatsoever.
Spring Training 2004: Chairball is an indoor wiffle pitch game for any One Man League. An easychair in one corner of the
room serves as strike zone. Ground rules are set up around the house; depending on where the ball rolls, imaginary batters
get singles, doubles, home runs, make outs, etc. In April, while giving up 10 runs in 9 innings to the red hot Imaginary
Couchpotatoes, I overextended, had to go on the DL, narrowly averting Tommy John surgery.
THE PRESENT: conversion of garage into wiffle batting cage. The length of the house just allows for the regulation 40' pitching
distance. The strike zone is now an ottoman, flipped up on its side, atop a milk crate. Unfortunately, the heat vent gets
in the way of a hanging screwgy-drop. Looking into padding for the garage door so as not to frighten the neighbors. That
no one has gotten any non-imaginary hits off me is most likely due to the fact that no actual batters have dropped by yet.
Maybe the mailman would want to take a few cuts...
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