GREENFIELD — If you’ve driven down Severance Street this spring and summer, you may have gotten a peek at some intense Wiffle ball action.
Indeed, it was the inaugural season of the Greenfield Wiffle ball League, which occupied the empty field just past the Route 91 underpass next to the old North Greenfield Emergency Operations Center building. Hatched during a sleepover earlier this spring by friends Hugh Cyhowski, Johnny Marchefka and Jackson Campbell, the season came to an emphatic conclusion Wednesday afternoon when the Slam Chowders knocked off Special K’s in the league title tilt.
“One of our friends had talked about doing a Wiffle ball tournament so we just decided to go one step further and make our own league,” explained Cyhowski.
The trio named themselves commissioners and got to work, crafting what wound up being a seven-team league with games taking place around the players’ busy high school and summer league baseball seasons.
The league needed a home field, however, and Cyhowski said they got to work turning the empty space on Severance Street into a Wiffle ball haven.
“The grass was very tall the first day,” he recalled. “The field wasn’t really being used so we actually had to mow it. We got my friend’s big tractor.”
From there, the crew began construction on two fields set up to accommodate the league’s needs. Construction fencing was rolled out for home runs, held down by stakes, and rubber bases spaced out to 40 feet created the official diamond. White spray paint went down for a batter’s box and foul lines. Then there was the strike zone, which was a homemade metal apparatus Cyhowski uses to practice baseball pitching in his backyard.
Cyhowski, a 15-year-old rising sophomore at Greenfield High School who threw a five-inning perfect game during the varsity baseball season this spring, said the league had about 30-35 members during its height earlier this summer. There were players from all throughout Franklin County on the seven clubs.
“All of our friends, friends of friends… we had people coming and going,” he said.
The league created a Youtube channel and an Instagram page, posting full games and highlights along with commentary and sound effects.
“Being able to make a Youtube channel, having the escape to do that, plus the challenge of trying to put the league together in general was a lot of fun,” Cyhowski said.
As for the house rules, the league created a Google doc with their findings. It looked very much like a normal baseball game, though plastic yellow, taped bats and Wiffle balls replaced the rubber and alumnium pings. There were fun rules, of course, everything from pitchers being pulled from the game if they hit two batters in a row (“if you can’t throw strikes, get outta there”) to using the strike zone backstop as a target for a force out at the plate. In the field, teams could use up to three players in addition to the pitcher, while at least three players must bat with a maximum of five allowed in the lineup.
How many Wiffle balls did the league run through over the course of a couple months?
“I bought at least 20 from Aubuchon,” explained Cyhowski. “I bought a couple 12-pack boxes. Other kids would bring them as well because you’d crack a bunch or lose them in the woods. You can never have enough.”
The city started mowing the field once the league set up shop there, and Wednesday’s season finale featured a homemade trophy for the winning team. There’s talk of another tournament during the fall, with a more refined league next summer.
Just some summer fun for a bunch of Franklin County youngsters.