Blitzball - The fastest ball on the planet?

August 12, 2007

We recently had the opportunity to test out the Blitzball, a new type of wiffleball from College Hill Games. This ball is unlike any other that we have tried. The only hole in this ball is a small, pin-sized one, probably meant to prevent the ball from getting permanently dented. Instead of a perfectly round sphere, the Blitzball has 72 hexagonal sides that deflect air in all directions when thrown.

Three-time MLW All Stars Shaun Breen and Quentin Jensen returned to “The Sac” in Cohoes, NY to try the ball on their home field. Overall, they liked the ball, but they noticed a couple of things that could use improvement.

Pitching the ball was a bit of a challenge at first. The ball had a natural rising motion every time it was thrown, causing the ball to rise up to a foot or more at times. With some minor adjustments, this became easy to control.

Throwing curve balls was amazing. Although the ball doesn’t curve on its own, like a regular Wiffle Ball, the Blitzball does curve with minor effort. And the curve is great. A pitcher could probably throw all curve balls and dominate nearly all batters.

Hitting the ball was difficult at first. When contact was made, the majority of the balls went foul. After a little practice, the hitters were able to start hitting the ball fair.

However, the ball did travel much further than our official Easton practice baseballs when hit. Just about every hit was a home run, which takes away from our objective — to make our version of wiffleball as close to actual baseball as possible. Perhaps if we had a bigger field, this wouldn’t be a problem.

Fielding though could be a nightmare. When hit, a ball that looked like a home run to left-center field would curve enough in the air to land in right field. A regular, in-play fly ball would be almost impossible to catch. Also, after fielding a ground ball, throwing back to the mound, which acts as the lead base, may often be a problem because of the ball’s natural rising action.

Even though we found a few things that we didn’t like about this ball, the amazing curving action alone far outwweighed the negative aspects. I’d rate this ball a 7-out-of-10. It won’t replace our official game ball, but I could see using it for one game a year, much like we’ve done with the Sandlot Diamond Ball in the past.

For more information about the Blitzball, head on over to the College Hill Games web site, and be sure to check out the videos on their site to see the amazing curve action for yourself.

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Barry Bonds: 756 homers — still 58 shy of record

August 8, 2007

Although Barry Bonds has passed Hank Aaron to earn the Major League Baseball all-time home run record, he’s still 58 home runs shy of the Major League Wiffleball career record, held by Mike Breen. Bonds trails Breen 58-0.

It’s possible that Bonds may be preparing for a wiffleball career after baseball and try for the MLW record too. Last month, he participated in a family wiffleball game at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

It’s good to see that Barry Bonds was using the official Major League Wiffleball, with 26 holes cut uniformly around the ball.

Bonds’ contract with the Giants is over at the end of this season. If he decides to end his baseball career, and move to the Albany, NY area, he’s definitely welcome to try-out for MLW.

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Happy Father’s Day

June 17, 2007

Playing a friendly game of wiffleball with family members is a great way to spend Father’s Day, or any day. Here, Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Johan Santana plays wiffleball with his oldest of two daughters, Jasmily.

Notice, they’re using an official MLW ball, which Santana requested from our staff after posing for a photo for this site.

In 2006, MLW Commissioner Shaun Breen renamed the MLW “Cy Young Award” to the “Johan Santana Award” after he learned of the star pitcher’s interest in wiffleball. Santana has won two MLB American League Cy Young Awards (2004, 2006).

The original photo can be seen on page 45 of the Minnesota Twins 2006 official team yearbook.

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Tommy Lasorda holding a wiffleball

March 19, 2007

Major League Wiffleball staff caught up with former Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda at a spring training game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Washington Nationals at Space Coast Stadium in Viera, Florida.

Mr. Lasorda was kind enough to pose for a photo holding a wiffleball from his seat.

In addition to his success as a manager, both in the Major Leagues and the 2000 Summer Olympics, Lasorda is also known as a former spokesman for Slim Fast diet shakes.

He can also be seen in many baseball blooper clips for an incident that occurred while he was coaching third base at the 2001 MLB All Star Game. Lasorda was drilled by a flying baseball bat that was accidentally released by Vladimir Guerrero. Fortunately, Lasorda was unharmed.

See the full photo on Flickr

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