Cornerstone juniors Darren Bennett and Tim Devaney have started a Wiffle Ball league known as Wiffleball Wednesdays.

Devaney said it’s that time of year again. He can remember the days when he was young and his dad was teaching him to play baseball.

“I’m ready to embrace it again,” he said. “I’m excited to get some fresh air and swing the bat and pitch and shag pop-flies.”

The obvious problem with playing baseball is that Cornerstone doesn’t have a baseball team. For this very reason Bennett and Devaney decided they would try and do something about it. Their solution is Wiffle Ball.

Devaney said everyone loves Wiffle Ball even if they don’t love sports, because it’s fun and laid back. He figured people would jump at the opportunity to play, especially since Cornerstone is a baseball-deprived community.

Bennett and Devaney met and talked specifics. Then they created a CUBE posting and a Facebook group promoting the league.

“Basically, it was just a matter of sending out e-mails to RAs and having RAs send e-mails to everyone in their section,” Bennett said. “Eventually people just started showing up and it just became like a weekly get-together for students who wanted to play Wiffle Ball in a positive atmosphere.”

First, Devaney was worried that people would put Wiffle Ball aside, but he said it’s been a nice surprise to see rapid growth. The first week gained the interest of around eight people and in the second week the size nearly doubled. Devaney said they’ve even developed a large fan section.

“We didn’t pull a random time and place out of a hat,” Devaney said.” We were strategic about the Wiffle Ball planning, because we knew we would already have an uphill battle to fight to get support for a brand new activity, so we wanted to give it our best shot possible. We purposely play in front of Quincer at 4 p.m., because Quincer is the best spot on campus to play since it’s a central location at a prime time.”

The hope is that students heading to dinner will stop and play.

“I actually think it will catch on better than any intramural sport because it’s Wiffle Ball and everyone loves Wiffle Ball. You don’t have to be a jock to play it, or even like sports. It’s just a game. It’s fun,” Devaney said.

If Wiffle Ball gains strong interest Devaney would like to compete against other schools in the future.

There has been a lot of word-of-mouth promotion and they are trying to make strategic alliances with people like Dave Murdoch, Director of Student Leadership Development.

“He’s done wonders for similar student activity sports at Cornerstone like hockey and broomball that have been raised up at an underground level, and we figure he can do the same for us,” Devaney said.

Though similar to baseball, Wiffleball Wednesdays has different qualities. It calls for a plastic ball and bat. If the runner hasn’t made it to first base and the pitcher retrieves the ball, the runner is out. Stealing bases is not allowed and strikes are only called if the batter swings. These are the most basic rules, but some of the rules are made up as necessary to adjust to the setting of each game. Keep in mind that Wiffleball Wednesdays is a variant of the official Wiffle Ball game, not all the rules are the same.

The turnout each week has been large enough for two teams to go head-to-head and each week the players switch around for the sake of competition.

“We’ll probably keep going until the end of the semester. Unfortunately, that’s only a few weeks away. I love Wiffle Ball and would love to play more and I think the other players would too, but we can only do it as long as people are here. My hope is that we will get a strong enough turnout now so we can easily start up a strong league once again when we get back for the fall semester,” Devaney said.

The equipment needed to play is provided by Bennett and several other players who bring their own bats. Bennett went to Meijer and bought a few Wiffle Balls, bats and bases.