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Sports

Summer Palisades Wiffle Ball League: More Competitive Than You'd Think

Wiffle Ball enthusiasts from Nyack and Piermont—and elsewhere in the region—can join up.

You know the types.

A bunch of weekend warriors—mostly guys in their 30s and 40s—trying to hold onto their youth by playing a kids' game.

Yet, these guys are different.

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Sure they're in their 30s and 40s, though some are younger. Yet, they've taken this kids' game—it really is a kids' game; not a sport played by both kids and adults, like baseball or football—and taken it to a whole new level.

Step up to the plate with the Palisades Wiffle Ball League. You may want to wear a cup though because the games get pretty intense.

"We take it way too seriously," said Brett Bevelacqua, the league's commissioner and Dr. Frankenstein to this monster. "We can't wait to play; everyone wants to win. It's really ridiculous.

"Every week, I get guys telling me they're dedicating more time to this because they're not pitching as well or hitting as well as they'd like."

That spirited play often includes colorful language, guys diving for balls and broken bats, just like a Major League game would, he said.

The ridiculousness started innocently enough. Bevelacqua was cleaning out the garage of his house, in Palisades, one Sunday three years ago when he stumbled upon an old Wiffle Ball and bat.

It was a beautiful August day so he decided to call a few friends to come over, and they played Wiffle Ball in the front yard, just like when they were kids. They agreed to play again the following Sunday and even more people showed up. They continued to play every Sunday through the fall and continued to talk about how much fun they were having throughout the winter.

This is where the roots of the league really took hold. Instead of fondly recalling the games of that late summer and fall, the friends started trash talking about who was better and who could strike out whom, Bevelacqua said.

That's right; they were talking smack about a game with a plastic ball and bat.

"It's all based on trash talk," Bevelacqua said. "That and the stats (we'll get to that later) are the fuel that keeps the league going."

So Bevelacqua decided to start a Wiffle Ball league and the Palisades WBL was formed. The inaugural game was April 20, 2008, and it's taken off from there.

Now, in the midst of its third season, the league has expanded to six teams with Major League team nicknames, such as the Blue Jays and Reds. The games have long since moved out of someone's yard and are played at Tappan Memorial Park, Sparkill's Tallman Mountain State Park and the Fred S. Keller School, in Palisades.

The league also has several sponsors that are key to its success, Bevelacqua said.

The 2010 regular season began in late April with five-inning doubleheaders played every other weekend. Four of the teams will make the playoffs, culminating in a best-of-three World Series in late September.

While it's just a game, the players still take it very seriously. Statistics are kept in 33 categories for the 22-game regular season and post-season awards are handed out for MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year.

"It's quite competitive," said Congers' Pete Montanez, a 34-year-old player for the two-time defending champion Blue Jays who has been clocked throwing a Wiffle ball at a little more than 80 mph (the second fastest in the league). "We have our own rivalries on the field."

While some guys talk trash more than others, it's the results that matter, Montanez said.

"It's a long season and guys are going to say what they want to say,  but you have to see what happens on the field," he said.

That competitive spirit is chronicled by Bevelacqua, a video producer, who compiles concise, narrated highlight packages each month, including the well-known music, in the image of the famed baseball highlights show "This Week in Baseball."

It is a continuation of a 2008 documentary on Wiffle Ball called "Yard Work," which has been broadcast on SNY, he did.

"Everyone waits for them (the monthly videos) because you want to see yourself on camera," Montanez said.

All of these, as well as the league's history, photos and much more can be seen at its Web site.

While the videos and stats may be high tech, the rules are straightforward.

There's a pitcher and two fielders, but up to five on a side can hit from the six-player rosters, whose ages range from 17-42. The distance to the outfield fence is about 100 feet. Three feet behind the plate, there's no umpire—just a 24- by 28-inch rectangular net that serves as a strike zone.

Pitchers are 45 feet away from the plate. It takes five balls to draw a walk but it's still three strikes and you're out and three outs in an inning.

Bevelacqua, a 40-year-old member of the first-place Reds, said the game "is one of the best addictions you can have."

Bevelacqua, who lives in Yonkers now, is attempting to start a Westchester County division. Failing that, he would like to expand to 10 teams next season in Rockland County, with a Palisades region and a Pearl River region. That shouldn't be hard since this year players had to be turned away.

He also wants to try and get the game to continue with the next generation. He hopes the league can work with the Keller School to start a youth league or at least host a youth tournament next year.

A side benefit of the league has been the friendships born from it.

"It's amazing how it brought so many guys so close together," Bevelacqua said. "We've made some really great friends. That's what makes it worthwhile."

Montanez said he has gone to several ball games with guys he met in the league and said the friendships are "an added bonus."

Chalk that up to one of many bonuses the league offers its players. That includes growing to a far bigger enterprise than Bevelacqua ever dreamed it would become on that August day three years ago when he invited some friends over to relive their youth.

"I figured it would have been over in two, three weeks," he said. "Now, guys are fighting to get into the game. I never thought that would happen."

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