Team Tuesdays: Jason Mattseals

by Carl Coffee & Greg Franzen

The Jason Mattseals were pretty much the whipping boys of the league last season. At the last minute, Jason Matt and Imran Kakli came together to form a roster full of fun-loving competitors. With the league unsure if they would even show up to play, the Mattseals surprised everyone by playing 25% of their season in the opening weekend! Last season, the team’s regular players were Jeff Biegas, who will be a part-timer this season, Jason Hewlett, who will be back on the pitcher’s mound this season, Diamond Digit winner Danny Johnson, who is no longer with the team, and Jason Matt and Imran Kakli, who will both be playing full time. Showing up to games, they did; winning those games, they did not. The Mattseals struggled to find any sort of identity until they played a four-game series in early June against the Flying Squirrels. The Mattseals upset the Squirrels twice that day and split the four game series, behind a dominant pitching performance from Hewlett. The Seals also upset the Westside Warriors once, and had two forfeit wins against the Ass Kickers to finish the regular season 5-23. The Mattseals drew number-one seed Git R' Done in the playoffs, and almost had the upset of the century. In the first two games of the best-of-three series the Seals blew two late-inning leads and lost both close games to end their 2011 season. The 2012 Jason Mattseals now have a new leader, Greg Franzen. He is changing the entire identity of the Mattseals, and I now throw this article over to him to tell you all about that. Franzen throws to Adam Cosby for the force. When the 2011 season came to a close with a first-round playoff loss to the eventual champions, Git R' Done, the Mattseals went into the off-season looking for answers to how they could correct their 5-23 regular season record and turn around their luck for 2012. I was contacted by Carl about playing wiffleball in early December. He mentioned there was a team looking for a solid hitter/fielder. Having played organized baseball since the age of six and high school freshman baseball with both Carl and Corbett, they felt I would be a good fit with the Mattseals: a team looking for a new identity. I worked closely with Jason Matt over the off-season, and when Carl mentioned each team needed to have matching jerseys I wanted to try and design something fun and different. What I came up with will hopefully be a highly talked about and admired jersey by the league. The big question for the team was who would be returning to play again next season. We already were prepared for the return of three stable veterans in Jason Hewlett, Imran Kakli, and Jason Matt. The loss of Jeff Biegas as an everyday starter and player was huge, because we were losing our best hitter of the 2011 season, and offense was one area the Mattseals really struggled last season. Jason Hewlett, however, managed to come through with two new names and I was able to recruit a former high school cross country teammate. Having to play five non-regular players last season hurt the Mattseals chances to gel together as a team. This year the Mattseals have an entire team of dedicated players who will play in most, if not all of their games. Here is a brief rundown of the 2012 Mattseals roster. • Greg Franzen (Captain) – A wiffleball rookie, Greg has undertaken the roll as Mattseals captain and is hoping to change the Mattseals perception in this league. Greg is looking forward to trying to spark the Mattseals offense with his bat and help solidify the defense. With good speed and excellent hands, he should be a welcomed edition to the newly revamped Mattseals. • Jason Matt – Wiffleball veteran Jason Matt brings pitching and game experience to the Mattseals. Jason is familiar with pitching in big games, having been placed into that roll against Git ‘R Done in the playoffs with the unfortunate injury to Jason Hewlett. Jason comes into this season with a strong dedication to help improve the Mattseals. • Jason Hewlett – Wiffleball veteran and last year’s Mattseals pitching ace, Jason Hewlett was counted on to pitch most of the innings for the Mattseals last season. Unfortunately, this was a heavy undertaking and Jason got injured before the playoffs. With the new pitching rotation rules this year, other players of the Mattseals will be stepping up to provide more starting and relief pitching. Jason has been working hard this offseason to improve his pitching arsenal and should provide a dominate presence on the mound. Jason has tweaked his batting style a little bit as well and it has improved his swing and power. Jason is an all-around solid wiffleball player. • Imran Kakli - Wiffleball veteran Imran Kakli brings a fun and energetic presence to the Mattseals. Imran wanted to have a stronger presence with the Mattseals last season, but his work schedule conflicted with many of the games. Luckily, the Mattseals will be playing a majority of their games on Sunday, which should provide Imran with more playing time and an opportunity for a bigger role on the team. Imran brings a knowledge and understanding of the game that will help the rookies and veterans of the Mattseals unite. • Chris Paquin - Wiffleball rookie Chris Paquin is no stranger to playing organized baseball. Chris jumped at the opportunity to join the Mattseals when recruited by Captain Greg Franzen and he brings with him a strong knowledge of baseball and strategy that will be very beneficial this season. Chris will have the opportunity to do some pitching this season and he has been practicing hard to fine tune his pitching style. Chris will be a good fit with the Mattseals. • Adam Cosby - Wiffleball rookie Adam Cosby was recruited by Mattseals veteran Jason Hewlett. Adam will be inserted into the pitching rotation and will allow Hewlett the rest and recovery that his arm needs. Adam has a good baseball background and is very anxious to get this season started and has been a dominate force at practice. He is a welcomed addition to the Mattseals. • Mike Myers - Last, but certainly not least, wiffleball rookie Mike Myers was also recruited to the team by Jason Hewlett. Mike has previously played baseball and has shown promise with good hitting and fielding. He helps to round out the Mattseals and we are excited with what he can offer the team this season. Mike Myers is looking to provide a spark in the new Mattseals offense.At the first team meeting, the Mattseals discussed moving away from Brownstown Middle School and finding a new home for a new identity. After much searching, that home has been found. The Mattseals will play their home games in 2012 at “The Club at Civic Center Park” located in Woodhaven, Michigan on Hall Road. This is a good location that should provide the general public with a good chance to view what our league is all about, while still being partially secluded from most other events at the park. This will be a pitcher friendly park with deep fences all around. Home runs are possible with the wind blowing in the right direction. The Mattseals have been practicing hard this off-season and they are coming together as a team. This revamped Mattseals team is young, hungry, and ready to change their previous image in the league. All the players are very well rounded and will be able to contribute something to each position. They are not afraid to critique each other in order to improve their game. There is a strong level of respect and motivation that will be the driving force behind the Mattseals this season. I am proud of what this team has to offer and I am excited to see us match up against the other great teams in the league this season. “Clear eyes, Full hearts, Can’t lose” – Coach Eric Taylor, 'Friday Night Lights'

Walk-up Themes: Vol, 2

		Your Junk my Happy Zone
		by Brandon Corbett

You know how this works. Remember the thought behind this is, first, an amusing anecdote about the player to hopefully get a "hah!" or "yeeep, that's him!", then - only as an accidental afterthought - the "cool" factor you would normally go for with a walk-up theme. Come to think of it, that is kind of the thought behind Wiffle all the time. Get excited; here we go!


"S.U.T.F.S."  - Dark Wave -  Chad Hoppe  -  Wiffling DeLoppes


"She underlines the fuck scenes for ya? Jesus, if she underlines the fuck scenes for ya, she must worship the ground you walk on." - Reggie "Reg" Dunlop

As a great player-coach, Chad reminds me of the above-quoted Dunlop. Not only for his fuck scene appreciation, either! In 2011 Chad took a team that had never performed well and no one gave much respect, made a few lineup additions, and boom! Instant sensations! Unlike the Chiefs, however, the DeLoppes actually became great at the game. You cannot deny the comparison of Bobby, BJ, and Nick Snow to the Hanson brothers, though.


"Sweet Release"  - Wugazi -  Chris Paquin  -  Jason Mattseals


Sweet release; that inexplicably smooth, calm and collected bit of "BOO YA!" Chris Paquin has that on the mound. He picked up a Wiffleball last Saturday, and immediately had movement that could only be described as "Chadwick-like": not a lot of speed, but pitches that turn on a dime or make you bite before they blow a kiss goodbye as they bow further and further out of reach in slow motion. For our purposes we will treat any previous contact Chris may have had with a Wiffleball as if it never happened; it makes for a much more intriguing story. Especially when Paquin throws out quotes to equal his rookie pitching arm. For instance, "Six strike-outs; put that in your book!"


"Body Shot"  - Electric Six -  Adam Grant  -  Campus Commandos


The Electric Six song in the mix again goes to a Commando! "Body Shot" is spot on for Grant, just as "Escape from Ohio" was for Pfefferle. Adam does not like to give up that inside corner while in the box, and as a result he takes a lot of balls off the torso, thighs, and groin. He also gets a league-leading amount of walks for it, though; so, that must make up for the plastic onslaught.

[As an aside: rumors of Grant's habits of lying down on bars and being the vessel for the other type of body shot are rampant, yet completely unfounded.]


"Hey Stars"  - The Juliets -  Joe Seto  -  Donkeys


Snubbed from the All-Star teams last season, by most opinions, "Hey Stars" is essentially Seto reminding all those guys who beat him out for the teams that he is coming for them this year. All Joe really needs to do is breathe heavily into the phone after saying those two words to drive this point home. However, he will more than likely back it up with surgical pitching and batter's box bravado for a less creepy effect.

Team Tuesdays: King Friday

by Richard Hurd

No one on the King Friday team has ever played a game of Wiffleball, nor would anyone with any prior experience be allowed to be. My sole purpose of joining the league is to dominate it with rookies. Everyone on the team is a fierce competitor and will only be happy with a playoff berth. A little about myself: Richard A. Hurd, captain of King Friday. I played eight years of organized baseball and softball, and made the all-star team all eight years. I also played three years of high school football and played varsity all three years. Taking a look at me you may find that hard to believe; I am a big guy and way out of shape, but I love to win and almost always find a way to do so. Beer pong has been my game for the last 3 years, as well as the game of most of the players on my team. I have won a large amount of money playing organized pong and have beaten some of the best players in the country. Playing pong is how I came to know Carl Coffee and in turn how I came to learn about this Wiffle league. It is hard to make predictions not having seen any of the teams in the league play, but myself and most of the players on the team have dominated every activity we have ever tried. So, if near the end of the season we do not at least still have a chance to make the playoffs, I would see the season as a complete failure. I would expect King Friday to have two or three players make the All-Star team. I do not know what the home run record is,1 but whatever it is it will not be the same after I am done. We are old-school ballers, we played ball when most of this league was still watching Teletubbies. We win no matter what it is. Wiffle Ball will be no different; King Friday will have 14-20 wins, depending on how quickly we get acclimated to the league. I would guess it will be to the higher end of that scale. I know only a few members of the league: Carl Coffee, Ryan Bullard, John Hill and Jason Matt. Having played beer pong against all of them, I can honestly say I am not at all worried about making the playoffs if they are any measure of the talent in WSEM! 1 The HR record is 17, set by Joey DeLano.

Off-season Training Regimens

		Your Junk my Happy Zone
		by Brandon Corbett

Everybody trains in the off-season. Okay, that is not true. Many of us probably have joined hippie colonies in order to avoid touching plastic since September. I did not touch a bat or ball until the couple days of pick-up games we have played. The off-season, for me, is the time to have the real fun with this game: make ridiculous side-project websites, do increasingly ridiculous podcasts, and let the crazy fly! The Wiffle community is crazy! Learn to love that! Still, some do take the down time to enhance their skills in the game: batting practice, pitching the snow pitching in a garage (it did not snow this year), running stairs, math and science. Then there are people who take training to a whole new level; techniques so advanced that you know they are poised to take over the league. The following are a few of those wonderful men.



Mike Merlo (P, Flying Squirrels) has the honored status of "old guy sturdy veteran" in WSEM. Fittingly, in accordance with the age-appropriate tendency to say things like, "in my day we used to walk up-hill both ways to and from school," Mike actually went through the expense and filed all the zoning paperwork to bring "his day" back today! What Merlo did was engineer a system that adjusts the altitude of both his home and workplace, changing the plane between them so that it can always be set to an incline. Genius! Nobody has told him, however, that since he drives to work he is not actually doing more work himself.





Josh Nagorski (OF, Thunder Ducks) wants to become a defensive star and perennial winner of one of the Diamond Digit awards. Nagorski also knew of the phrase "hot hand", so he devised a way to always ensure himself of having that hot hand: use ice cream to practice throwing. On one hand (no pun intended), digging into the bulk-size container of the frozen stuff and balling it up quickly improved his dexterity and "ball" control. He realized almost instantly, though, that even with the grip on the cold mass it was still too easy to hit a stationary target; he would need to find moving targets to simulate a game situation. It was on his next trip to the freezer section of the grocery store that he realized the perfect solution: train right there in the frozen foods aisle! With plenty of ice cream at hand and a steady stream of people passing by, Josh had an efficient means to hone his skills. Later, after being questioned by police - most likely to learn how to improve their softball squads - when the handcuffs were removed Josh realized the success of his training: his hands had never felt so hot!





New to the game of Wiffleball, Rich Hurd (C, King Friday) has been avidly watching as much tape on the sport as he can. His real irregular training began during his seventh watch-through of "The Bird: Give it to 'Em", WSEM's video highlighting pitchers, though. While trying to incorporate the styles he saw in the video into his beer pong game, Rich realized that not only was it getting him nowhere with Wiffle, but it was also negatively affecting his beer pong form. After finishing off the eighth, ninth and tenth cups, he took a break and scrolled through other "suggested videos" that might be of help. It was by accident that a Bars of Gold video was selected initially, being the band featured in "The Bird". However, that happy accident led Hurd down a trail of ever-more enticing videos about real bars of gold. Time-skip two months forward: Rich along with a cheeky local trail-guide and a Saigon whore are Indiana Jones-ing it up, trekking through jungles in search of the lost bars. Hurd's goal: well... nobody really knows how it relates to Wiffleball. But who cares?! He is going to be filthy rich! (No pun intended.) Besides, tangling with snakes, jungle cats, aborigines, and ancient booby traps is sure to hone skills relating to everything.





You may have seen this one on late night television alongside other famous infomercials, as it has become a championed training exercise. Joe Spagnuolo (OF, Donkeys) had an epiphany one night while looking forward to the 2012 Wiffle season: "if I can hit a brick, I can hit Dennis Pearson!"; the sort of advice that a bizarro Rip Torn might give. Taking heed to the sage advice, Joe promptly set a brick on a tee and started taking swing after increasingly aggressive swing with the plastic bat. Eventually, after a mere seventy-four hopelessly misshapen bats, Joe began to move the brick impressive distances away from the tee: eight, maybe nine feet! Spags knew he was onto something, but was it enough? Better to be safe than sorry, he evolved the setup: hit a swinging brick. Eighty-six snapped-in-half bats later he was connecting with enough force to break the string suspending the weight and flip it a few feet forward. He had done it. Joe knew he could now handle an 85 mph plastic ball, no problem. With that came the Spags Power Smash Swing, and infomercial stardom!