The Boys & Girls Club of Evansville is bringing back the gym class classic, wiffleball, and they're inviting you and your friends to play.

Wiffleball has been around for decades. The original Wiffleball was invented by a man named David Mullany in 1954 after watching his son and some of his friends play baseball in the backyard using a plastic golf ball and a broomstick. After several attempts at a design, he settled on the iconic one we all know to this day; one half solid plastic, the other with eight oval-shaped holes to make throwing curveballs easier. Despite the temptation of outsourcing production to another company to save money, the original Wiffleball is still made in the U.S.A. in a small brick building in Connecticut.

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1st Annual Boys & Girls Club of Evansville Wiffleball Bash Registration

The game of wiffleball has remained popular with kids and adults since its creation with several states hosting their own championship tournaments. There's even a World Series of Wiffle Ball in Ohio which bills itself as "the largest wiffle ball tournament in the world." Locally, the game has found its way to Bosse Field as a fundraiser for Aurora the past couple of years and for the first time will make its way to Bellemeade Park, the beautiful new baseball field on the Boys & Girls Club campus in downtown Evansville, for the inaugural Wiffleball Bash later this summer.

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The Bash is set for Saturday, June 10th (2023) with check-in set for 7:30 AM and the first games starting at 8:15 AM. Registration for a team of 5 is $200 ($40 per person) and can be done online through the Boys & Girls Club of Evansville website. The deadline to register is Friday, June 9th and everyone on the team must be 18 years old or older.

Every team is guaranteed three games in the round-robin-style tourney and the winning team in each group will advance to the quarterfinals tourney where they'll continue playing until a champion is crowned. The winning team will get bragging rights and a traveling trophy.

In addition to the tournament, the day will also feature food vendors selling a variety of different products. All you need to bring is some lawn chairs, a pop-up tent to shade yourself between games, and your own beverages (as long as they're not in glass bottles).

All the money raised from the event will help the Boys & Girls Club of Evansville continue to provide youth development programs to kids ages 5 to 17.

[Sources: Boys & Girls Club of Evansville / Smithsonian Magazine / World Series of Wiffle Ball]

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