Add Wiffle ball to the list of sports affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 41st World Wiffle Ball Championship was scheduled to take place in July in Midlothian. Coronavirus concerns caused the tournament to be rescheduled to Saturday and Sunday, and guidelines set by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in late July forced organizers to move the venue as well. Now it will be played in Mishawaka, Indiana.
So, Memorial Park in Midlothian will be without the sound of plastic hitting plastic this year and the hometown team, the Midlothian Marauders, will instead compete in Mishawaka’s Rose Park.
“We’re taking our show on the road,” team organizer Ed Novick said. “I drove my son, Canyon, to college in Ohio and we passed by Mishawaka and I said, ‘Well, now I know where Mishawaka is at and I’ll be back here soon.’
“Traveling to a new place gives you a feeling of it being a national tournament. The last two years, I was going to my hometown. Now we’re part of a bigger production and it’s our turn to go on the road.”
This year’s Marauders’ team features Novick, 54, Bremen baseball coach Mike Cline, 46, Cline’s son Charlie Bennett, 19, and a pair of 24-year-old former Bremen stars Tyler Banovich and Sean Grant, who were baseball teammates at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin.
“Mike knew some players from this area who could help us to win,” Novick said. “I remember Tyler as a kid and he was a great athlete. Sean is, too. It’s good to have some younger players on the team. I’ll be the team catcher and I’ll let them dive around on the field because they are not as clumsy as I am.”
This is the Marauder’s third appearance in the tournament. They went 0-4 and failed to score a run in 2018.
Last year, the team of Novick, his son Canyon Novick, David Leonhardt Jr., Cline and Nolan Dreher picked up some wins.
The team finished 2-2 in pool play last year and won a play-in round game to make it to the Round of 32. But they faced the top-seeded Cult West Warriors and lost 17-1. The Warriors went on to win their fourth straight championship.
As of last week, 43 teams were signed up including 12 from Illinois.
The Abusement Park, a team featuring athletes from the Frankfort and Mokena area, also will try its luck in Mishiwaka. Members of that team are Dominick Bartemio, Brett Watson, Jack Dwyer, Colton Becker and Matt Contey.
Teams from New York, California and Kansas will join a bevy of Midwest teams in the tournament.
Tournament director Mike Baniak said there were plans to keep the tournament safe in Midlothian but mandates made it impossible to host it in the area.
“We were left with no choice,” he said. “I don’t think we could have held the tournament and complied with the governor’s most recent mandate of sporting events. I know he didn’t do it with Wiffle ball in mind. But the guidelines were drawn up to prevent us from doing this type of tournament. They prohibited hosting a tournament with teams from out of state. Strike one. They also prohibited any kind of tournament with a championship to be awarded, so strike two. That was it.”
Midlothian hosted the tournament the past two years and it will be back if there are no pandemic restrictions.
“We plan fully on having the tournament in Midlothian next year,” he said. “But we’re excited to have a quick reunion with our old home. We’ve used Mishawaka for a couple of decades.”
Highlights from the tournament and other Wiffle ball features are found on the oddballsports.tv website.
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.