We're now under 100 days until the greatest day of the sporting year arrives. This year's tournament, the 9th Wiffleball Championship of the World, was officially announced to take place on Saturday, August 1st. So with all of that in mind there are a few things that need to begin taking place. First being the building of the complex. This year is going to be different from almost every other year, first because it is scheduled to be an 8 team tournament, and second that there will be three fields build instead of just two. The only other year this was attempted was 2012 for WP6, but a freak overnight tornado/hurricane/apocalyptic thunderstorm wiped out any chance of holding an 8 team tournament. In that tournament, the only one played without electricity (no music, no announcing, nothing..), the Goodfellas were able to win their one and only trident, by beating the currently defunct He Man Woman Haters (a.k.a Fresh Cuts). This year we will be trying the 8 team format again, and will be counting on no freak weather occurrences to change that. Another new feature of the complex this year may be new and improved foul poles, an idea taken from another league's set up.
Earlier this month the Commissioner's office took a group of officials out to Indianapolis, to work with and learn from the NCAA, at the Final Four, on how to run such an extensive and elaborate event. Granted that the Final Four is a bigger event, always held in a town much better equipped to hold a large event, MLW still feels that they have taken some solid principles and practices that they can apply in regards to the event itself and crowd control.
Beginning sometime around Memorial Day, the complex is expected to be available for practices and other wiffleball activities. A full schedule of dates for these activities will be released in the coming month, as well as the schedule for #PaloozaWeek and the tournament game schedule. Maybe the most important date for teams, players and owners is the submission date for rosters. No team is technically officially qualified for Wifflepalooza until they submit a primary roster to the Commissioner's office. The roster can be modified anytime from the submission date until the night before the tournament, but in order to officially get on the docket for the tournament a preliminary roster must be sent in. The submission date this year is Friday, June 19th. For now, we'll continue to countdown, and gossip.. and wait to finally get started on another beautiful season.
