A New Kind of Legend

		Your Junk my Happy Zone
		by Brandon Corbett

During Saturday’s 3-2 series win by the DeLoppes over the Squirrels the members of WSEM present were met with a moment of transcendence, one which fell just short of magic. Following twenty-three shutout innings pitched by Cliff Comstock and Austin Bischoff, the stars began to align after BJ Hoppe’s two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning put the DeLoppes ahead in the deciding game of the series. One by one the dragonflies broke their flutter and set down on bat knobs, back stops, and the sporadic taller blades of grass missed by the grounds crew. The gaggle of young toads, which had hopped around the field more often that day than Austin Bischoff kicked out bases on hard slides, now stood at attention. Friends, they felt that something big was about to happen.

Carl Coffee cast his eyes over the field, squinted, took a deep breath, cocked his bat, and stepped up to the plate for the Squirrels. A missile from the right hand of Chad Hoppe followed, passing mere inches from Carl’s head. The peanut gallery shouted oohs, aahs, and one distinct hell yeah! baby! The ball came to rest on the other side of the drainage ditch twenty yards away. Carl gave no reaction.


He then waved his bat in front of his hips, and unfurled two ponderous questions in succession: “you gonna throw the ball? You scared?” Chad stood perplexed, a hundred thoughts running through his head: was Carl taunting the veteran pitcher? Was the blistering sun getting to Coffee? Is Coffee really not better when served hot? Chad shook his head, steering his concentration to not let Carl get into his head. Hoppe then eased through his steady wind up, released the ball from a three-quarters arm slot, and dropped a patented “Broken Zipper” just under the zone; it could not have missed by more than half a centimeter! Carl Coffee stood statuesque. “Oh my God! How could you take that!” Bobby Hoppe exclaimed from right field, with the sentiment echoed by members of both teams. “Take what?” Carl deadpanned. Chad’s jaw dropped on the mound. Down by two runs, Coffee really was trying to show him up out there!

Hoppe stopped playing around. He stiffened his delivery, started a hard slider up and in, which cut sharply, like a German army through France, drilling the upper-inside corner of the zone, and actually sent splinters flying. Chad just stared a cold stare from the mound; so effective it actually got cold in Death Valley for a second, until Carl came through with the quote that restored temperatures to normal: “Wow! I really shouldn’t try to play without contacts in! That pitch sounded amazing; wish I’d been able to see it!” Laughter mixed with the restored croaks from toads and wisps of dragonfly wings, and below it all you could hear the beginning murmur of a legend coming to life:

“and look who's coming up. All year long, they looked to him to light the fire. All year long, he answered the demand; until he was physically unable to see tonight with two bad eyes: the only thing, getting through Chad Hoppe. And with two out, you talk about a roll of the dice. This is it!”

Get into my Yard, III - The Westside Reservation

		Your Junk my Happy Zone
		by Brandon Corbett

When last we loitered on the land of others and littered it with lavish words it was at our southernmost field, Frenchtown Field in Monroe County. Today we stick with the "F," but flip the compass and travel to the most northern site to feature Wiffle in Southeast Michigan action: The Westside Reservation in Farmington. Carl and I were ecstatic when the Warriors announced mid-season that they were building a field, as that gave us fields in three counties! That is an impressive way to increase the size of your footprint.

The journey to getting the Westside Reservation built was not an easy one, however. The initial field location - a little league sized ballfield with a grass infield, benches, and a backstop - had to be abandoned due to conflicts with a home-owners association and painting lines on the field. Hey! Remember that "angry neighbors" stat from earlier this season? "Chalk" up a couple more for their mid-season resurgence! Never one to give up on his team or vision, Alex Shore, captain of the Warriors, had a back up plan ready to go no more than a day later it seemed. [Insert gag about Alex being quick at everything he does here.]

The second field location, the Reservation we all know and love (or hate), is located in the vacant back lot of a Church that is kind enough to let us park in their lot. According to Shore, the Church was excited that someone asked to do something with the land, as it usually just went used. The land itself is a hard, shallow clay surface with a slight roll in the infield, which makes for some interesting bounces on ground balls. While topography and ground conditions are unlikely to have been studied beforehand, this actually is something that plays into the Warriors aggressive style. Waiting back to field a ball can lead to mistakes, while charging in will limit the chances at the ball taking odd hops. Above ground the field is covered in fuller, nicer grass than other fields in the league. Note: I did not say longer. The Warriors do a good job making sure the field is cut into good playing condition before games. It is nice to have a playing surface that is not a putting green, like Frenchtown, a semi-arid savanna, like the Drey, or a jungle, like Lafayette.

One fault with the Reservation is a result of the hard ground. It is impossible to pound the stakes for the silt fence all the way into the ground, and there is a four to six inch gap left between the ground and bottom of the fence. When the first games were played ground-rule doubles were frequent. The problem was quickly rectified by instating a new ground rule: when the ball goes under the fence, the runners go back to the last base touched (excluding home-to-first, where the runner is given first). It is a fair solution that nullifies what would otherwise be an unavoidable, yet considerable problem with the field construction.

The fence is still the most talked about aspect of the Reservation. Although, with that ground rule in place, players are free to talk about the dimensions of the fence instead of how it sits. A topic much more baseball, and much more fun! The first build of the field had a fairly standard, elliptical outfield wall. However, with Shore being a lefty, so few other lefties in the league, and at least one team building their field to screw lefties, the Warriors redesigned the outfield wall to lefty-friendly accommodations. [Unfortunately, no pictures of the new dimensions are available.] There is a short-porch in right field approximately 60-65' down the line and running perpendicular through right-center, before jumping straight back to a deep center field estimated around 110', and coming around to a fairly average 85' down the left field line. Many opponents call bullshit on Shore's friendly confines, but hey, is that not why you build a home field? To have an advantage? To build to your strengths or opponents' weaknesses? As a righty who can only hit pull field and a fan of odd, extreme field design, I simultaneously bitch about the short porch because I cannot hit into it, and praise the clever creativity of the complete asymmetry and the huge leap in depth; my left brain hates it, my right brain cannot help but love it. The Reservation easily gets the award for "most off the wall wall!"

Every WSEM team but the DeLoppes made the trip to play at the Reservation this year. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me. I am proud of Shore and the Warriors for putting it together, and of the Commandos, Ass Kickers, Git r' Done guys, Mattseals, Squirrels, and most of all the Belgian Wiffles for making the trip. More than what happens on the field, this league and this game as a whole is about giving guys the opportunity to make something: a field they can be proud of, or just a memory of a once-in-a-lifetime experience taking the team bus to Farmington to swing plastic on wacky dimensions behind a church. "Once" because the Warriors will not be returning to WSEM next year, as their roster is heading off to college. So, even if the home field advantage of the Westside Reservation could not get the Warriors past the Ass Kickers in the first-round in 2011, hopefully, "hey, remember that summer we were in a Wiffleball League together and built that awesome/ridiculous/ridculously awesome field?" will be a question asked to spark conversation by the 2011 Westside Warriors years down the road.

Here is a montage thrown together by their captain for Westside's 2011 season:
(It includes a few shots we do not have from around the Reservation.)

Endorsements Everywhere!

		Your Junk my Happy Zone
		by Brandon Corbett

With Brian Meyers of the KWL this morning breaking the story of commissioner Carl Coffee changing his name to "Maxwell House" as part of a sponsorship deal with the coffee company, now seems like the right time to come clean with all of the corporate endorsements that WSEM players have sullied the game with... I mean, have successfully gotten involved with to become household names, snag a little padding for their wallets, and grow the WSEM brand with consumers nationwide. [Full disclosure: Nationwide Insurance paid us handsomely for that spot.] Adam Grant has never been more proud of this league!

Alex Linebrink
Ray-Ban

Alex purchased his first pair of red lenses when trying out for the part of Cyclops in a local theatre's production of X-men. He did not land the part, but damn did he look good in the shades! He parlayed the confidence gained while wearing them into a fulfilling improv career, as well as a five-figure (if you count decimal places) endorsement deal with Ray-Ban when they took notice of his on-field swagger. Rating: Total swag!

Matt Murtha
Rip It

What's your best course of action when you make an energy drink that tastes awful and only gets drank when people don't have the 3 quarters and a nickle more it takes to buy something better? You hire a class act to be your spokesman! That is what Rip It did when they brought in Matt Murtha on an undisclosed deal, and their sales have increased three-fold! Now, with nine people drinking Rip It regularly, the company is looking to diversify its product line with a daily supplements series called "M-Train!"
Rating: All aboard!

Alex Shore
Apple iPhone

Some endorsements just seem so natural; Alex Shore will go Generation Y on your ass! Really, what better way to do that than with an iPhone and with the legion of young, Facebook-updating, Twitter-raging fans you get from appearing in Apple ads? By far the most lucrative deal struck yet by a WSEM player: four-figures up front, with a $500 bonus for every leaked sext message to or from a fan, along with a free phone to match every outfit in his wardrobe. You can count on this kind of money being thrown around to really drive up Shore's stock in free agency this off-season.
Rating: Game changer!

Brian Constanti
Cool Flo Elbo

The partnership between Brian and the surgeons behind Cool Flo Elbo is of the most symbiotic kind: Brian is given free experimental surgery to revolution his pitching, and the results - the resurgence of his dominance on the mound - say all they need to for the product. Cool Flo is an "advancement by simplification" of the technique used in the Easy Flow Elbow, mostly famously adorned in the arms of Bruce Willis and Romulox of the La Brea Tarpits. The wide range of movement the surgery grants to the arm gives more speed and nasty, unpredictable movement on pitches. It is, however, difficult to master use of the new joint: many practice sessions at home in front of the computer are prescribed to help the process. Wiffleball is an experimental game, so experimental surgeries seem right at home.
Rating: Bitchin'!

In the Cards #6: Matt Murtha

In the Cards #6: Matt Murtha
Flying Squirrels

Matt "Murphy" Murtha, "the M-train," and we can probably add "Jim Morrison" and "Michael Jackson" to his list of nicknames while we're at it, has more than just killer pseudonyms going for him. For starters he is the perfect team player: able to play any position, including pitcher, and bat anywhere in the lineup for power or as a table setter. Similarly, his conversation skills are unparalleled, as there is no limit to walk Matt can and will talk about at length. Whether on or just around the field Murtha is one of those guys that brings out the fun in the game.

Long before he was the "M-train," we first met Matt when he tagged along with John Ferry of the Detroit Isotopes to play some pick up games in 2009. This was the first time we had run into other guys who already played the game, and thought this might be the start of wiffle taking off in SE Michigan. Turns out Ferry was a bit too much of a character to work with, but we kept in touch with Murtha. In our 2009 Rally Around the Flag-a-Palooza Matt played with David Buhr's Belgian Wiffles and, despite a tough outing for the team, kept coming back whenever we called him. His reliability and steady play paved the way for him joining the Squirrels in 2010, where he has played ever since.

Matt "Jim Morrison" Murtha's strongest asset on the field doesn't come in one category; it's not his bat, his arm, or his speed, rather a combination of everything. He is a captain's dream in that you can put him any position or slot in the order and he will be serviceable and give a solid performance; heck, he doesn't even care when you ask him to sit out. He may not make extravagant diving plays in the field, but he isn't going to misplay many balls either. As a pitcher his lethal trait is his accuracy: 51 K and just 14 BB in 30.1 IP, or a 3.64 K/BB ratio. He doesn't have huge movement or speed, but he rarely walks batters and forces them to swing at well located pitches for outs or swing through them with the cut he does have on his pitch.

Offensively "Murphy" possesses good pull field power, as well as the oft-overlooked ability to simply make solid contact. His numbers this season (3 HR, 9 2B, .219 AVG, .377 SLG) are lower than his performance really deserves. He does not get the weak, short infield singles that most other batters do. Everything off Matt's bat is hit hard and, unfortunately this season, often at someone, giving the defense the ability to make the play on him. Perhaps it is from his day (and night) job working the numbers at a lumber yard where Matt brings the big stick and burst of power off of his bat. Or is it that glove he wears when he bats?

One thing just about everyone who shares the field with Matt "Michael Jackson" Murtha notices is the batting or golf glove he usually wears at the plate. They notice, and they poke at it, but Murtha isn't phased by any of it. He can take it and wait for the perfect time to pay it back. The M-train is thick skinned. Not callused, although that is the prevailing thought as to why the glove helps him with a more comfortable grip. Still, the glove always rouses comments and questions from both the peanut gallery and opponents alike: "Why? What does it do?" ... "Wow! I've never seen that!" ... "Does it really help?" ... "What the hell? A batting glove?!" ... "What are you hiding under there?"

Maybe there is something to that last, seemingly joking probe. On various occasions the glove has shown that it has a life, and mind, of its own – its own will. Is it possible that the glove is one of the nicknames? Most likely “Murphy,” the one that goes back the longest. Maybe "Murphy" is not a nickname at all, rather some other Wiffle loving consciousness that has affixed itself to Murtha’s wrist just to get its Wiffle fix? You never know. Symbiotic nonsense could explain how Matt can go from that cool, confidently calm persona seen on the front of his card above to penis jokes and escapades of man love seconds later: aka, "Mmmm. The perfect sandwich." And there we go, another nickname!

His passion for playing the game, easy going attitude, timely mischief in the moment, along with the ability to engage and entertain any company in any context unequivocally makes Matt "Mmmm" Murtha the poster child for Wiffler's everywhere.

Matt's 2011 regular season stats and glove on the back of his card: