On Saturday Glory Days Sportshosted their 1st ever "Backyard Classic" Wiffle Ball Tournament. This proved to be an AWESOME event and will be held annually for all to enjoy.
The day began with teams filing in around 9am to register. The early chatter overheard at the registration desk was all about the setup of the fields. 9 Wiffle Ball fields setup with everything from Backstops, Strikeplates, Fully painted foul lines and infield lines, to the Home Run fence complete with the yellow Foul Poles! 8 Fields for all of the games and 1 Home Run Derby Field, sprawled uniquely over a 4 acre piece of land. The L shape land design wrapped tightly with trees all around allowing for wind protection too. The huge castle park playground, directly adjacent to the registration desk, never lacked children running and playing throughout the day. The HotDog guy ended up selling out of all of his goodies (hotdogs, soft pretzels, water ice, several varieties of drinks) by early evening too! A lot of work from Glory Days Sports really paid off BIG!!!
After registering, teams started claiming fields for some early practice. That is when they first experienced the sound of the now famous "Strike Plate" design by Glory Days Sports! A Wiffle Ball thrown as a strike would hit the "strike Plate" and let everyone know (fields away) of that batters ineptitude! We have been told, players would later hear this wildly loud sound in their sleep all night. While hard to put in to words, the sound falls somewhere between 2 Mack Trucks colliding and the implosion of Veterans Stadium! It was extremely loud, somewhat high pitched, and extraordinarily memorable.
The next unbelievable audible energy experienced, came from field 5 during warm ups. ARH (our Spring Coed Softball Champions fielded an awesome team of 5) was taking batting practice, when all of a sudden "PING"! Heads jerked from one end of the acreage to the other. All gawking towards field 5. Then again, "PING"..."PING"..."PING"! Players rushed the registration desk, asking about the legality of that bat. ARH was sporting an aluminum bat! Completely legal, this bat is manufactured by Wiffle and shows ARH is serious and has come for only one thing...1st Place!!! As play progressed all the buzz was about some of the younger players that entered the tournament. We had a squad from Medford, if you added all their ages together, they may just be equal to that of say a Tom Daddazio (these kids were awesome though)! Atco Fence and The Hammonton Allstars both had young players that put others to shame too. An ex-minor leaguer by the name of Dom Raio couldn't even crack his own team's lineup due to his team's young fellow. Pappy's Pupils, consisting of the other elder statesmen of our tourney (Chris Caprio), pitched for an amazing bunch of disciples. They made it all the way to the semifinals!!!
When the smoke cleared, only two teams remained standing, the behemoth ARH and the wiffle gurus of SJ Hazmat. This was no surprise to anyone that played either of these teams throughout the day. ARH (Champion of Glory Days Sports Coed Spring Softball) cherry picked captain Ricky Heggan, bombers Gregg Silvesti and Rob Vetesse, Johnny Walker Jones and the little known Chris Ezzi. We believe almost the entire team pitched throughout the day but Heggan and Jones were spotted between every game sanding their wiffle balls. These guys were serious I tell you!
Unfortunately not serious enough! Serious is the understatement of the year when witnessing the master piece of a Hal Mitchell performance! This dude stared daggers at every batter, all day. I watched one player spontaneously combust under Hal's gaze! At no point, did he crack a smile or enjoy a moment of the entire day. I promise you he was all business! Just look at his picture above with his trophy!Trophy??? That's right SJ Hazmats outlasted ARH under the tutelage of Hal Mitchell, Dave Mitchell, Chris Hunt and Mitchell Young. These guys play Wiffle Ball every Saturday in Hal's backyard! Correction: SJ Hazmat play Wiffle Ball in Mitch Young's backyard every Saturday not Hal's. Rumor has it, they all have the Hazmat symbol of 3 wiffleballs tattooed on each of their butts too (the left cheek of course)!!! Thanks for the exclusive information Nick Gargano!
Congratulations SJ Hazmats...1st Annual "Backyard Classic" Wiffle® Ball Tournament Champion!!!
Until next edition...this is Jamie Connor signing off!
