I've been playing a lot of wiffleball with my friends lately.
Except, we don't use a wiffleball, we use a tennis ball.
And we use a taped wifflebat. (I'm an expert bat-taper-upper)
So I guess it's really just baseball with different instruments.

The tennis ball/taped bat combo is perfect for a little league field.
Anything that hits the outfield grass on the fly is a double.
Hit the fence and it's a triple. Just the right amount of home runs.
Any ball fielded on the fly or cleanly in the infield is an out.
You don't need gloves. No running, no throwing.
We use the imaginary runner system.
(Although, we've been discussing using the pitcher's mound as a universal force-out - you know, in which the pitcher has to touch the rubber and call the base before the runner reaches - but running is such a pain in the ass...)

I highly recommend tennisball/tapedbat baseball for spur-of-the-moment baseball on vacations and such. The ingredients are easily acquired at a hardware store. Wifflebat, 2 or 3 rolls of electrical tape (don't use any other kind of tape - duct tape is too hard to wrap diagonally and it starts leaking adhesive after a while - other kinds of tape are too glossy and the tennis ball slides off the bat too often - masking tape is probably the best alternative - and don't skimp on the tape or weight it down too heavily - I prefer 3 rolls), and a canister of tennis balls (3 balls, 3 strikes). Little league fields are the most plentiful, easiest to find.

Wiffleball in its pure form is always fun, but I personally need a windless environs, a wall on which a strike zone is painted, and infield-sized playing dimensions. Wiffleball in a stiff breeze is soul-frustrating. Lawn-chairs as strike zones are never accurate enough (you need to be able to throw a high strike - lawn chairs are good for ephus pitches, that's about it.) Playing without reasonably short dimensions is boring. You need to be able to hit home runs, and the home runs need to go over a fence to be truly satisfying, IMO.

I've played some other insane versions.

One summer I played in a long, ten-foot alley wide with a taped bat and a racquetball. Having ten feet of fair ground really trains you to hit it up the middle. But once you get ahold of a racquetball, WATCH OUT.

Another time I played on a little league field with a wood bat and an indian rubber ball. IIRC, I went 14-16 with 10 home runs. Easy, but still fun.

Anyway, I'm wondering what kind of bastardized versions of baseball people play for fun. Getting a big group of friends for a real game of hardball is ideal, but sometimes you make doo-doo with what you got!

Living in Allston and not near any field that we are up to walking to ... we had to devise our own Home Run Derby field. Using the house across the street's gutter as the left field foul pole and the end of their driveway as the dead-center line, we play HR Derby where only pull hits and CF hits are in play (we are all righty so that helps). Anything else is an out.

To make it more fun, we added called K's and walks. Using a folding chair - if the pitch hits the chair and you don't swing it's a called strike - misses the chair it's a ball. A walk results in imaginary runners...

Oh and we use the standard wiffle ball and bat set --- if we used the tennis ball and taped-up bat we'd be paying for a few windows...

In Fall River, the game was stickball with a pinky. We would play it in schoolyards, which minimized damages. Minimized. Every once in a while, a long ball would be hit and a pinky might crack a window in the school, but normally, no damage was done.

Forgive my ignorance, but what's a pinky?

A pinky is a soft pink rubber ball, slightly smaller than a baseball.

I think it's what I call an indian rubber ball.
Maybe a little spongier, softer, and lighter than actual indian rubber.

The game in the 'ville was stickball...taped up hockey stick handles and tennis balls. Two varieties - fastpitch, where anything hitting the painted square on the wall behind you would be a strike...and for the days when you just wanted to swing away and hit bombs, slow pitch...usually hitting the ball on one bounce from the pitcher and playing the length of the schoolyard...hitting the house across the street (about 200 feet away) was truly an accomplishment.

I love wiffle ball, and I'm an avid player. It's great fun and anyone can play it, plus it is fun messing around with that ball and seeing what pitches you can throw.

In Brooklyn we played punchball, wiffleball and stickball. We played stickball the real way, on the street with sewers as bases, and no pitching. You just took your best swings and ran the bases.

I miss those days.......

We like to go down to the local Little League fields. Usually about 8-10 of us. We use real bats and real balls and play actual games if we have enough people (less fielders, but you get the point. If we don't have enough people, we just play right field. It's good because it's fun, lazy, and you get to hit a lot of dingers.

It's not really a bastardized version, but what the hell. It's fun.

A roll of hockey tape works great too.

Cool topic! Played it exactly the way you did - taped up yellow wiffle bat with the tennis ball - BEST COMBO.

When I was a kid we played something very similar to what 4B described in the first post. The only difference is that we used to cut the tops off of the wifflebats and put in something heavy. Usually a small showerhead or some D batteries, things of that nature. The small showerheads worked best because you could really jam those suckers in there without ever having to worry about it flying out on a swing (at least they never flew out for us). Then we would just wrap it up in whatever kind of tape (I think the black electricians tape was preferable). The only difference here is that you could really put a charge into those tennis balls. This was more a game of homerun derby than anything else, but you could also play a pichter's poison/line ball type of game. Obviously, a Little League field would be way too small for this. Often we would play in a 300' down the line type of field or literally in an open field (soccer, football, etc.). Good times.

When I was a kid we played HR derby, exclusively.

Standard whiffle ball and bat (actually, we would use 1 ball every 2/3 games) and a lawn chair. The rules were 4 balls for a walk, 3 swings/outs per inning, 1 fastball per inning, and if a pitch hit the seat part of the chair while the batter was taking that was an out.

The lack of fastballs meant there was a constant array of junk that was thrown. There was also a rule that if you were hit by a pitch on a fast ball, you took first base.

It was a great game. We used landmarks for the HR boundaries. I think I played that every day from when I was 10 until I was 16.

I played a very similar version to what Forthbase described, except we would use duct tape to wrap around the wiffle ball bat. We’d then cut the base of the handle open and “cork” the bat with newspapers and put entire bottles of Elmer’s Glue inside to make the bats heavier.

Sigh…the good ol’ days

My brothers and I grew up in northern Vermont with a fairly spacious backyard surrounded by tall pine trees. When we laid out the diamond, the trees formed a 37-foot left-field wall. Except for "Dugout Doug" W., the town's lone Yankee fan, we were all Sox fans.

Our game was three-man Wiffleball, with a pitcher, a left fielder, and a first baseman / right fielder. We started with the real Wiffle balls, but soon switched to the "Fun Ball," a baseball-sized plastic ball with holes all over (like a practice golf ball). A good pitcher could snap off a reasonable curve with them, without the frustratingly wild twelve-foot breaks of the Wiffle balls. Balls and strikes, remarkably, were called by consensus.

The diamond was more of a kite shape: the distance to first base was exaggerated so as to prevent easy infield hits. A batted ball that failed to reach the pitcher was termed a "Corky Foul," after Corky W., who had blazing speed but no power. Kind of the Otis Nixon of Wiffleball.

We had no "ghost runners." If you were held up at third to load the bases, well, too bad, it was your turn to bat and you had to give up your place and get in the box. This led to interesting strategic options on defense -- the pitcher almost always covered the plate to prevent runners from coming home and thus keep the bases clogged up.

For the first at-bat of the day, the Cosom "Saf-T-Play" black plastic bats needed to be banged on the ground a few times, as they were overnight havens for earwigs. After a fairly wet night, one could easily get 50 earwigs falling out of the handle end of the bat. All the bats had bizarre modifications, some with electrical tape, some with duct tape. The "Dolphin Bat" had been repaired so many times that its business end looked like the snout of a porpoise. The bats made a distinctive resonant "TONK" with they connected with the ball.

We kept batting stats on a piece of posterboard in the shed behind home plate. Curtis S. hit 109 home runs in 1982, a record that will probably stand forever.

On a rainy afternoon in August 1983 Eric L. pitched the game's only no-hitter, aided my my brother's acrobatic leaping catches in left field. Eric plunged facedown into a puddle in front of the pitching rubber as the final out was recorded. Then we had Kool-Aid to celebrate.

This is an awesome topic. I play whiffle ball with my friends, and we use a regular wiffle ball and bat (only the handle is taped). We play in my friends back yard, where they have a fence on both sides of the house. If it goes over the fences, its a homer. If it goes onto the deck, which sticks out into the playing field, its a homer, and if it goes on the roof, its a homer. Off the house is in play, and if it goes under the deck its a double. We have a back stop behind home plate, and if the pitch hits it, it is a strike. We play where there is one fast pitch per at bat, but it can't be thrown when there are two strikes.

Once again, this is a cool topic. It is cool to hear the different ways people play whiffle ball.

When I was a student at the University of Maine, back before MALC was even born, we used to play our own winter version of baseball in the snow, on snowshoes! We'd dye a baseball bright orange so we could find it, go out to the practice fields, and try to figure out where the infield was. We'd building a snow mound for the pitcher, and take up our positions.

It works best with "bear paws", and not with standard snow shoes. I played right field (where else do you stick the girl!)

I also witnessed a baseball game played on skates on the Stillwater River. THAT was NOT pretty.

Anni

"Wiffle-ball is the King of all lawn sports." - Neal Price, 1998.

Wiffleball kicks ass. We play at my friend's mum's house where there is a 10ft high, 60ft long big green wall in the outfield. We paint the foul lines and double lines and have a legit strikeout zone. You arrive at 10am and the next thing you know you're trying to squeeze one more game in before it is dark. or you fall down drunk. Have to have beer with wiffleball.

Still play stickball every sunday with a tennisball stickball bat from the barnstable bat company at a field that pretty much a chain linked fenway, except we can scale the monster and rob home runs.

I concur. This thread is terrific.

My buddies and I play whiffle ball across the street in the school yard from where we live in Boston. The backside of the school has a wide open parking lot that is perfect for the game. We get some strange looks from the kids on the playground, which is next to the lot, considering we're all about 25-27 years old but after a couple of pitches they sit there and laugh at us as we play. Except for me. They marvel at my skills.

We use this blue canvas chair (the fold up kind from LL Bean) as our strike zone and if the pitch hits the chair, it's a strike. We play 4 balls for a walk and 3 strikes and you're out and 2 outs per inning (to keep the game moving). We usually rotate pitchers every inning as well. We also have a rule that if you take a strike on a 3-0 count, it counts as 2 strikes. Helps to keep the hitters honest and not playing for just walks (ala Mark Bellhorn).

We set the chair up in the corner of the lot and thanks to the fencing surrounding the lot, we have natural foul poles and home run territory. Anything over the fence on the fly is a homer. If it hits the fence on the fly, it's a triple and if it one bounces up to the fence, it's a double. Singles are usually just line drives past the pitcher that fall short of the fence.

The best part about our set-up is that it is usually not too windy, which means you can actually pitch to batters. My buddy throws a nasty curve and riser while my knuckler isn't too bad. The attached link is pretty good for showing how to throw various pitches and what not.

Pretty Cool Wiffle Ball Page

Anybody ever play in a real, official wiffle ball tournament? The kind seen here?

Wiffle Ball

My buddy Botolph is the King of Wiffleball.

Don't believe me? Go ask him!!!

One of the particularly nice days some of my friends at the old university played some wiffleball out on the lawn. We used shoes for bases...the field was a little smaller than a little league field - 50 down the lines maybe. Just used a standard yellow wiffleball bat and ball. Guys vs. girls and they had more people than we did, so more fielders. Normal rules, with a ball getting stuck along the fence in the outfield being a ground rule double.

It was kind of a bummer though when my teammates wouldn't let me pitch after one inning, since I had a couple strikeouts and threw at one batter. Ah good times.

At home I play with my sister from time to time. A couple times with my friends and their siblings with comparable rules. Standard ball. I use the basic yellow wiffleball bat, and she uses a big ass red bat - six inch diameter approximately. 5 inning game. An out is recorded in the normal manner - any ball caught or tagging the runner is an out, or force outs naturally. Ghost runners of course so long as there are fewer than 4 batters per side - they advance as many bases as the batter. A ball hit into the bushes is a ground rule double; stuck up in a tree is a ground rule triple. Basically anything out of the infield goes for a double. Past the big rock or down the hill is a triple. Over the wall is a home run. Balls and strikes go by consensus - but since the mound is like 18 feet from the plate on my home field (which is wicked small), pretty much every at bat is a hit or a strikeout.

And from time to time we'll play some Home Run Derby. We tend to make it up as we go along, except a home run is anything over the stone wall at my house. Or at my friend's house a HR is anything off of or over the house or clearing the fence around the pool.

My friends and I play whiffleball in our narrow backyard. We have a rock wall about 80 ft out, so it is not hard to hit a homerun. The twist though, is that everything to the opposite field is foul since the yard is so narrow, and it will go into other peoples property. Also we have a basketball pole directly behind third base which is about 20 ft, diagonal from home and anything to the left of that pole is foul, so you have to hit it up the middle to make it a fair ball, and since on top of the rock wall we have trees the ball has to land on top of the rock wall (which after the rock wall the ground behind it is raised), if the trees knock it down it is not a homerun. We use plastic taped bats. Just a way to make a whiffle ball game out of a yard thats not really suited for the game.

We also have more of the classic whiffle ball games at other friends places with better areas for whiffleball, this is just the unique way we play with a small yard.

Or check my highscore: WIFFLE® Baseball

Another particularly fun variety that we play is pool baseball at my friend's house. We use a plastic bat (there's a hole in it, so we have to tape it to prevent water getting in) and tennis balls. There's a fair amount of home runs hit. Left field is the deepest part of the "park" - you have to hit it over the fence for a home run. Probably 60-90 feet. The right field fence is the deck - it's very close, maybe 20 feet, but it's high, and none of us are lefties. We set up lawn chairs on the edge of the pool as bases, and we put up an inner tube at home as a strike zone. It's a good 2-on-2 or 3-on-3 game, and it kicks ass in the summer.

We play that also, except for with a kickboard and a splash ball, and theres a short porch to right probably about 40 feet, and left field is probably around 80 ft, with center being around 60 ft. We use the depth markers as bases, which forms a perfect diamond. We also fill the ball up with water to minimize the amount of homeruns. This game is also made for 2 on 2 or 3 on 3, and is a great game to play in the heat.

Hmmm...it was only mildly baseball-related, but in high school my best friend and I came up with the following:

Equipment needed - one vacant baseball diamond and three tennis balls

Game play - Playing field is the infield diamond, bound by the base paths. Each round starts with a player on third base holding a tennis ball, the other player on first base holding a tennis ball, and a tennis ball on the pitcher's mound.

At an agreed upon signal, the round begins. The object is to score points...a point is earned by hitting your opponent with a thrown tennis ball. No physical contact is allowed between players. Neither player may leave the infield diamond. Thrown balls that leave the infield diamond are out of play...a round ends when all three tennis balls are out of play. At the end of each round points are totalled...game is over when one player reaches an agreed upon total (usually 20) or players are too injured to continue.

The game was invigorating, to say the least, and usually resulted in more bruises and welts than a good sparring match.

A was at Target a few weeks back picking up a few things for my trip to Chicago for the Cubs/Sox series when I came across an authentic, authorized 'Whiffle Ball' 'It Curves' logo'd T-shirt!! I got all nastalgic and purchased it of course......wore it to Wrigley under my Sox jersey....

You can get gear here.

I lived in Brooklyn for a year in '99-00... I lived in Sunset Park. I got into a handful of stickball games and it's no joke. But it's not even half as fun as wiffle ball.

On Sunday my brother had a birthday party for his son. A gigantic adults-only wiffle ball game was sparked. A bunch of the kids were begging to play and were vehemently DE-NIED!

There are few things better than wiffle ball as it brings out the best and worst (all at the same time) in adult men.

From the July 21 Globe:

Paul Harber - Putting a serious spin on casual backyard pastime; Wiffle Ball players head to Stoughton for annual tourney


But Wiffle Ball has, in recent years, developed another, more serious side.

There are competing Wiffle Ball organizations, and leagues where players wear team uniforms, play a season-long schedule, and vie in national tournaments offering as much as $10,000 to the winners.

Locally, there are leagues sprouting up in towns such as Randolph, Weymouth, and Bridgewater.

Wow, I'm so glad I started this thread.
Hearing everybody's stories and different versions is awesome.

I really enjoyed Clyde's post, I even felt goose bumps here:



It's like stepping into a time machine.
Thank you, all.

I think my most storied wiffle ball summer was in 1990.
I had just graduated 8th grade and it was my first year in Babe Ruth and the A's were (again) dominating baseball's regular season. At that time, the likes of Canseco, McGwire, and Rickey Henderson were a lot of my friends' favorite players. I was really liking Junior Griffey back then (maybe cuz I am a LH and played CF). I was a couple of months shy of learning who Terry Cooney was.



1990 was also the one and only year I'd ever root for Paul O'Neill in the post-season. I think for kids who really love baseball, their baseball lives peak between 13-15. After that, they get jobs and driver's licenses and girlfriends. Baseball takes a back seat.

At any rate, I managed to get an unofficial wiffle ball league going with two other guys I played ball with. It started off one day in early June with the 3 of us playing Wiffle HR Derby at the end of a dead end street. By the end of the summer, there were 6 teams of 4 guys. One of the guys on my team was a C and loved Benito Santiago and even wore the # 09 on his jersey. Every at-bat he would proclaim himself "Benito Santiago, the unimous choice for 1987 NL rookie of the year."

I don't even remember who had the best team but whenever I play wiffle ball or walk by a wiffle ball display in CVS, I think of that summer. It's definitely the year I officially fell in love with the "game" of baseball. What's funny is I don't have a spare tire or a can of Fix-A-Flat in my trunk but I have a wiffle ball bat and ball.... just for emergencies.

We play all the time out in the quad at school, just bring out 2 desk chairs for the home plate and use the dimensions of the quad and trees for the bases. Sure is fun throwing junk, I managed to get charged while pitching, hit 2 batters in a row in crazyyy curve balls, one was a headshot . Its so awesome pitching when you can put a huge break on the ball, especially lefty against righty.

We also have a row of pine bushes about 2-3 feet high for the outfield wall, makes for some fun diving plays

I am 29 and the youngest of 7 (5 boys). My dad passed on almost 2 years ago and my mom's about to put the house we all grew up in on the market. Well all my brothers and I were over the house yesterday discussing some options for my mom. I got a call on my cell from my wife and had to check the trunk of my car for something. I was outside talking on my cell, swinging a wiffle bat that was in my trunk when one of my bro's came out. When I hung up, he asked me to toss him a couple pitches. Next thing I know, a game breaks out.
Our "home field" doesn't provide me much an advantage. I am the only lefty in the fam. There is a huge-ass tree that hangs over what would be best described as RF and it has robbed me of more home runs than Bonnie & Clyde have robbed banks. I attribute wiffle ball to the reason I started switch-hitting in baseball. I had one summer when I was about 12 when I got SO pissed off at that tree I swore I'd never bat lefty again playing wiffle ball. Took me about a month to get situated batting righty but it came.
Anyway, it was just cool playing wiffle ball out infront of the old house with my brothers one last time. Usually when we play there, the cranky old neighbors across the street yell when the ball goes on their lawn. Yesterday they came out and watched. I think they missed us kids F'ing up their lawn.