Whiffle Ball

Recently the weather has shot up to surprisingly warm temps. It's going back down again, but it has been enough to put thoughts of spring in everyone's heads. With spring comes baseball, and I've heard a lot of people mentioning it recently as we approach March and the weather teases us. I never played baseball or softball, but Marvin did. He played T-ball and even had a trader card with his player photo on the front and "stats" on the back. However, in the back yard, we played a lot of whiffle ball.

I'm pitching and Marvin is at bat, important to point out in this pic with the short hair.

It was easy to play whiffle ball with two people thanks to the ingenious invention of ghost men. We used various Frisbees, trees (second base shown above), ball gloves, jart hoops and whatever else from the garage that would work as bases. The game was usually set up just behind the separate garage, hitting towards the back field. You didn't need much space for whiffle ball. There were a few different bats. I had a long skinny yellowish colored one. Marvin had a gigantic fat red one. There may have been at least one more.

Every time there was a hit, we'd run to the base(s). Once safely there, "Ghost man on first!" or whatever base we made it to was shouted. Then we could proceed back to the home plate. It was imperative you made this clear. Otherwise, the pitcher could bombard you and get you out. If you didn't say ghost man on whatever, then clearly you were just off the base and free game. This probably started a few arguments.

It was so hard to throw that light, holey ball with any kind of meaning. And even though you felt like you put enough force behind the ball to get it to the moon, it just never went far. There were balls zinged to the face, bats to the head (when we had Shannon or Heather to play catcher), and I'm sure a fair amount of slides ending in scraped knees and grass stains.

I wish I could play it again, just one more game, today. See who would win.