Team Tuesdays: Manchester Punchouts

by Evan Bortmas

The people of the small village of Manchester, Michigan know only three things: farming, broiling chickens, and Wiffleball. Ever since Manchester native Evan Bortmas started playing Wiffleball in second grade he had dreamed of playing competitively in a league, which eventually led to the beginning of the Manchester Wiffleball Association, or MWA. In Manchester the pitcher's mound was a mere 35 feet from the strike zone, bases 40 feet from the plate, and in some parks, the fence just 50 feet from home. That meant in order to be a dominant pitcher you had to have a repertoire of pitches that moved extremely far, extremely quickly, or else the batter could easily tag one and send it over the fence. On the other hand, if you wanted to be a good hitter against good pitching, you had to have a great eye with excellent reaction speed. The MWA survived two seasons, but was shut down in 2008 in order to find more widespread competition. In turn, the best players from the league were selected to represent Manchester in Saline's annual “Wiffleball World Series”. The team was based heavily on the pitching aspect of the game, hence, the Manchester Punchouts were born. Throughout the years, the Punchouts have made several changes in their logo, colors, and roster, but the core of their team has always been there. Dakota LaDouceur, Jimmy Hamilton, and Sam Hatt have played in over 25 games collectively with Bortmas and the Punchouts, including finishing in 4th place or higher in three tournaments, and not including any pickup games. Last year, the Punchouts with Bortmas, Hatt, LaDouceur, and two fill-in players finished fourth overall in WSEM's fall “Beat It” tournament. Although the newest additions to the Punchouts' roster, Logan Zigila and Craig Spring, have not played competitively in any games outside of the MWA, they are great athletes and former baseball players that should fit nicely into the Punchouts' lineup. Early lineup speculations for the season are as follows:   - Batting 1st, #2 Craig Spring, OF/DH   - Batting 2nd, #12 Logan Zigila, 3B/ DH   - Batting 3rd, #9 Evan Bortmas, P/OF   - Batting 4th, #5 Dakota LaDouceur, RP/OF   - Batting 5th, #3 Sam Hatt, P/OF   - Batting 6th, #99 Jimmy Hamilton, OF/ DH The key to the Punchouts' success in 2012 will be offense. Nearly one-hundred percent of Punchouts victories since the end of the MWA have been deficits of three runs or less; most of which were one-run deficits, and about half have been 1-0 wins. Though pitching has proven to be the strong point for the team, the offense has a history of stranding runners on base. Statistically, the four original players are above average, but at any time there are hot hitters, one or two players seem to be struggling, which makes it hard to string offense together. This being the first full season that the Punchouts have ever played, it should be interesting to see if a growing chemistry throughout the year will affect their statistics at all. If they can produce offensively at a more consistent rate, the Punchouts will be one of the teams to beat in 2012.