What do you need to start a sports league? An old barn helps as does some yard space. Throw in Craigslist and a case of wiffle balls, and you have the inaugural season of the Hudson Valley WBL, a three-team league dedicated to playing wiffle ball at Dave Grogan’s homegrown Barn Yards Stadium, below his home in Milton.

“I enjoyed playing softball,” said Grogan, the league commish, as he prepared for a late Sunday morning game against the Dodgers, “but this is a lot better.”

Grogan lives in a former school house in Milton, but when he dismantled the barn on his property, formerly a Quaker meeting house, he used the wood to build the left field fence directly in front where the building once stood.

And this is perfect for the league’s right-handed hitters, where the fence is pulled into around 70 feet. The rest of the fence reaches as deep as 85-feet in centerfield.
Grogan had the place to play wiffle ball, but he needed players, so he placed an ad on Craigslist, and Paul Rivera, who plays on Grogan’s Cardinals’ team, answered.

“I played pick-up games with some friends. I like the fact that it’s organized. So it’s a little more competitive because of that.”

The three-man teams, including the Padres, play six-inning games Sunday mornings and Friday evenings. The infield consists of lined base paths 42 feet apart. The mound is also 42 feet away from the strike zone, a metal sheet measuring 24 inches by 28 inches, 13 inches off the ground. The backstop is a piece of fencing backed-up by a lawn chair.

A ball hit in front of the base paths and around the mound is an out unless you hit the well water pipe, and lines are drawn in the outfield to separate the distances for a double and triple. Ghost runners are used, but human runners can be put out by simply throwing the ball at them.

And like that match on grass at Wimbledon this year, Grogan’s Cardinals outlasted the Dodgers 31-30 Sunday in a three and a half hour game.

“It was an epic game, the highest scoring game we’ve ever had in the Hudson Valley WBL,” said Grogan. “It was really a crazy game.”

Robin Deutsch, the Cardinals’ starter, hit a line-drive grand slam over the centerfield fence after he gave a slam to the Dodgers’ Fred Lynch.

Wiffle ball was invented in 1953 by David Mullany in Connecticut for his 13-year-old son when he took a plastic ball and cut slits into it. The slits allowed the light plastic ball to move when pitched – similar to what a baseball pitcher can do on a field with a hard ball.

Fortunately for many homeowners, a wiffle ball does not break windows, while players still enjoy the thrill of making contact, getting hits and bringing home runs.

Grogan’s WBL uses two bats, the standard issue thin plastic yellow bat and a plastic bat with a head two and three-quarter inches round, similar to a baseball bat.

Rivera prefers the standard-issue plastic bat.

“It’s lighter,” said Rivera, of that bat. “I feel you have more accuracy with the ball.”

Deutsch, who lives in Freedom Plains, is the assistant athletic director at Vassar College. And he had not swung a bat for 30 years before answering Grogan’s ad. During his first practice at-bat, he cleared the fences with a pitch.

“Dave said it was beginner’s luck, I say it was skill,” said Deutsch. “It’s just a lot of fun.”

By Bond Brungard
sports@tcnewspapers.com