With External Contributions, Commissioner's Office Announces Facilities Upgrades to Fields for Wifflepalooza XX

 VINELAND - 

Over the past weekend, the Office of the Commissioner announced an extensive plan to upgrade and re-do the grounds of the Willie J. Huff Wiffleball Complex, in time for Wifflepalooza XX on August 8th. After discussions with all of the participating teams over the last six months, the league was able to obtain a substantial influx of cash to begin the purchasing of all new materials for construction of each of the two fields. 

    The plan is, to make Harry Kalas Field (Field 1)'s entire wall made of wood. The evolution of the wooden portion of this field has taken many shapes over the years, from the 5 panel upright "Black Mamba" starting in 2010, to the horizontal 5 panel wall the same height as the rest of the fence starting in 2023. Now, going forward the entirety of Field 1 will be wood. Discussions around the "fence rule" now that the entirety will be much more sturdy are yet to occur, but it is expected that the league will maintain it's previous rule about destruction or damaging of fences. The upgrade of Field 1 will include improved boundaries and dirt areas as well.

    Billy Mays Field (Field 2) will be upgraded as well, going from wooden stakes and orange fencing, to the nicer sturdier metal stakes and green wire fencing that was previously the composition of Field 1's balance. The boundaries and dirt areas will see improvements here as well.

    While there has been no talks of changing the back-stops, there is real traction around the discussion of expanding the strike zones. No vote has been made official, but based on discussions that occurred at the end of last season, there is the belief that the league has the votes to move forward with expanding the strike zones to 25x25, a symmetrical square, instead of the 24x23 shape that exists now. This will also include re-constructing the strike zones to be "stand alone" in that they will protrude out from the rest of the structure so as to take away the "leg" disputes that have plagued many games in the past.

    The final piece of the plan is to include full-time permanent Bullpen areas for pitchers to throw and warm up. As of the time of this writing, the league has no set location within the complex where the bullpen would be.

    It total, the league so far has purchased 17 new sheets of plywood, 25 metal stakes, 2 50x4 rolls of wire fencing, a bunch of PVC and 4 cans of chalkboard paint, with what is believed to be a small balance left over to clean up the odds and ends needed as the project evolves. The Office of the Commissioner would once again like to thank all of the team captains for the participation and efforts in collecting the contributions that make this type of infrastructure advancement possible.