Then & Now: West Virginia Wiffle Leagues
In honor of West Virginia Day (a state holiday celebrated every year on June 20th) I wanted to do something special by knocking the dust off an old column known as the Then & Now series. This column highlighted how things have changed over the course of time. The primary focus was on things to do specifically with the league such as changes in equipment or rules and reflecting on it's significance. For this entry I'll be broadening my scope to the entire state of West Virginia.
I've been playing organized wiffleball in West Virginia since the turn of the century but I'm not the first to do it in the state. Many of you may not know it, but I have a degree in history and consider myself to be a wiffleball historian of the southern United States and while I do not know who was the first league set up within our state, I can take you back nearly 20 years in time. All of you are probably only aware of a couple of leagues to every exist in WV. There's our league, of course, and the old league Greg and I ran that led to the creation of the HWL. That's where most knowledge of leagues in this state ends. But there's so much more...
There have been seven other leagues to operate within our borders in the past 20 years and I'll be sharing some of what I know about these leagues with you in this article. Some of these leagues lasted a while and others were incredibly short lived. A few of them I had personal contact with and the others were either extinct before I got in the game or were unreachable. It's a shame these leagues aren't around anymore. For whatever reason, keeping a league running in this state is very difficult to do and out of the eight leagues to ever start up in West Virginia (at least to my knowledge) only our league remains.
Let's start with the oldest league on the list, Matt Velez Wiffleball League (MVWL) from Wheeling, WV. Also known as Wheeling Wiffleball, MVWL started in 2000 and unceremoniously disbanded in 2008 after an "indefinite hiatus." Like many leagues on this list, their website is no longer available to view so this article will (in many ways) serve as the only posterity for these organizations. This league was the premier organization in WV while I was getting started with the GDWL while Greg and I were still in high school. These guys had a great site, had some highlight videos that you could watch if you were willing to wait for Windows Media Player to buffer for an hour ahead of time, and some colorful personalities. They had a well-documented rivalry series with a league from the Flint, MI area (Major League Yardball) from 2000-2006 and you can read about it HERE. This league sort of vanished suddenly in 2008 with no warning and I never could get our old league and this league together to start our own rivalry. It's always been a regret of mine to not initiate that possible networking opportunity while they were still active. They were the most impressive league to operate in the state that didn't involve Greg or myself. The northern part of the state has never had a league resurface since MVWL called it quits.
Sticking with chronological order of foundation, we'll shift our focus to Teays Valley, WV. The Marina Wiffle League (MWL) was founded in 2001 by myself and my little brother, Matthew Thornton. We played a handful of games that summer and the following summer with our cousins, neighbors, and other family members. We played in our incredibly narrow front yard. We didn't keep stats and only took a few pictures. It would prove to be the testing ground for what would become the Garrett Drive Wiffleball League (which wouldn't be founded until 2002). We used a variety of bats ranging from captain caveman large barrel bats to broomsticks. As for balls, we used official wiffleballs, tennis balls, waded up foil, and any other ball we could get our hands on. It was the most primal of leagues and was never a serious endeavor. The league was absorbed by Garrett Drive in 2002 and never played beyond that year.
2002 was my sophomore year in high school. I finished up my final year in the local Babe Ruth Baseball League and did not want to embarrass myself trying out for the high school team. So, I decided to take my wiffleball playing more serious and started the Garrett Drive Wiffleball League (GDWL) with the idea of keeping stats and documenting the league with articles and photography. Whereas the MWL was in my neighborhood, I started this league in my grandmother's neighborhood. My brother and I spent a lot of time there in the summers and there were tons of teenagers and kids there so it was a good place to get some interest going. I had no idea about the league in Wheeling and I was so naive to think that we were starting the world's first organized wiffleball league. Ahhh, to be so young and incredibly dumb! We started the league with 8 players that first year and one of them was my best friend, Greg Sowards. We played until 2011, making the GDWL the longest operating league in state history with 9 seasons (hiatus in 2008) and 12 different teams throughout that time. Documentation of the league could have been better. We went through a few different websites but the latest website can be found HERE. Until recently the league still had an active league lineup website with years of statistics available. But that site was deactivated by the service and all that history and data is gone. The disbanding of the GDWL ultimately lead to the formation of the Huntington Wiffle League and the many lessons and failures Greg and I endured served us well in the founding of the HWL. This league owes a great deal to the experiences shared in the GDWL.
Easily the most mysterious league I ever heard of was the West Virginia Wiffleball League of West Virginia (WVWLWV). There used to be this website called wiffle2k.com. It was this league in Chico, CA that had this rankings list of over 60 league websites and this league was easily the most bizarre to make the list. I suspect now, just as the Wiffle 2k guys did back then, that this league was either not real or incredibly unorthodox. I never found out where specifically the league was located but I know there was some activity around that time (around 2003) in the form of a tournament in Sinks Grove, WV. Whether or not it was related, I'm not sure. But it was somewhere in eastern WV for sure. I wish I knew more about this league but their website, as well as the wiffle2k website, has been lost forever.
2005 was a big year for the GDWL. We had a few expansion teams that year and it was a breakout year in many ways. I received an email one day from this kid named Allen Skidmore. He said he was from Flatwoods, WV and had started a regional league called the Braxton County Wiffleball Association (BCWA). He had heard of our league and followed us online for a little while and decided to start his own league. It was the first time another league was in existence at the same time as my league so I found that fact very exciting at that time. They played for a few weeks and I suggested that we have some teams from our leagues get together for a small tournament. My hope was to spark some rivalry to help both our leagues grow. He decided it was best if he hosted first. So a group of my guys accompanied me to Flatwoods where we met a few of Skidmore's teams. We played at this park with grass that was about 7" tall and used shoddy equipment and vague rules. His league was still very much a work in progress and I expressed that he needed to develop his league some more before hosting any more events like this. I never did find out what all happened but 2005 would be the only year the BCWA would play. They disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. I wouldn't hear of any other league to pop up in the state for another 5 years.
In 2010, I found this tiny league in Parkersburg, WV called the Timmerman Yards Wiffle League (TYWL). It was ran by this young dude named Joe Cook. He seemed to be a pretty hip kid who assembled around a dozen players. His league was a lot like GDWL, they played on small fields and with small teams (two players to a team) and filmed some of their games. I reached out to him and we talked that summer off-and-on. I designed their logo for them and offered my advice but sadly, the league didn't survive beyond their first short season. Despite multiple attempts I could not get into contact with him the following year. TYWL suffered the same fate as many other WV leagues. Getting beyond your first season is one of the hardest steps a league takes and only three leagues out of the nine this state has had have successfully made that step. TYWL seemed to be a league that could have done this but for reasons I never found out, they managed to fail anyway.
In 2011, I noticed that the Palisades WBL in New York was expanding their format. They were started satellite leagues in Illinois and West Virginia. The WV league was located in Danville, WV (Boone County). I reached out to the guy who runs Palisades and asked for the contact info of the Danville WBL (DWBL), he obliged. I reached out, helped him start a basic website for the league and offered some advice on getting their organization off the ground. They were just far enough way to be unrealistic to make any games between our leagues possible. I watched them struggle to get through that season as they found it difficult to negotiate work schedules and all the woes that many new leagues battle. This league stood out because of their competitive format. They followed the Palisades model of fast-pitching and large loco bats. The rules for a Palisades league also take some getting used to. From what I gathered at the time, they had tremendous difficulty finding many players at all and with the ones they had - they did not have many that were very talented. This league seemed to crumble because of the ambitious vision of their commissioner that may have tried to do too much, too soon. His attempt was admirable but despite the solid effort, the DWBL did not survive beyond it's first season.
The following year (2012), I found myself with a lot more spare time on my hands. The GDWL disbanded and I was in my second year of writing for my online wiffleball news blog/magazine called Wiffler's Digest. I was spending a lot of time watching many others have a great time playing in their leagues all over the country. I was very envious and really wanted to get back on the saddle again but knew my league was done for good. Chris Gallaway of the Potomac Wiffleball League in Washington D.C. invited me out to his league to do some interviews and cover his league for the magazine. I gladly traveled there that April and his success with his league inspired me to start a new league but when I returned home I had no clue where to start. Fortunately, Greg Sowards had read my mind and found the perfect location for a league to play. It was in Huntington, WV at Saint Cloud Commons Community Park. We contacted everyone who ever played in the old league and advertised in the area for new players. We had no luck getting any new players but had a dozen old players play that year in a 5-team season. The rest is history. But for six years the Huntington Wiffle League (HWL) has been arguably the best run wiffleball organization to come out of West Virginia.
In 2013, the HWL expanded to six teams and was having a lot more expansion during the fall ball season. I could not help but wonder if there was some untapped potential in Charleston, WV. So I started a small fall ball league at Little Creek Park that played every Thursday for a month or so and voila, the Charleston Wiffle League (CWL) was born. The experiment was very short lived. We only had two teams, one of which became the Breaking Balls. The HWL was growing fast and I ultimately decided to put my focus into a league that was already showing signs of growth rather than trying to make something happen in a city that was slow to respond. 2013 would be the only year this league was active. I am anxiously waiting for the day that someone is inspired by the HWL to start their own league in areas nearby like Charleston. It would be refreshing to see another league spring up within 75 miles of us that we had no involvement in. I often wonder if such a day will ever come.
So, the state of West Virginia has seen 9 leagues in 20 years. There has scarcely been any time throughout those 20 years where any leagues coexisted simultaneously. Because of that fact, this state has never been known for this sport. States like PA, NY, and others have several leagues who feed off of one another and, in many ways, help preserve their existence through rivalry and competition. This is an area where WV has always missed an opportunity. I continue to be amazed that areas with larger populations such as Charleston, Morgantown, Beckley, Martinsburg, Parkersburg, and Clarksburg do not have any leagues in them. It's such a shame to see such potential never come into realization. If there ever comes a day where the HWL no longer exists, will that be the end of wiffleball in West Virginia? I certainly hope not.
