Wiffle Ball Field a Must-see

I rounded the corner in my Nissan X-terra and - even though I'd seen the movie Field of Dreams a dozen times - couldn't believe my eyes.

A friend had told me about his place but his description didn't come close to doing it justice. For instance, he didn't call it "the coolest place I've ever seen in my life". That's exactly what it was, though.

Lights streamed in the windshield. We felt we had been driving through the woods for the better part of an hour, seeming as if we were headed to hide a body or something. It wasn't a blinding light because we were still several hundred yards away. It was more of a heavenly glow.

We circled the nearest house and found a parking spot in the front yard. As soon as we opened the door, my friends - teammates - and I knew that when we got back in my vehicle, we wouldn't be the same.

It was every sports-minded child's dream come true. For that matter, it was a dream come true for any sports-minded adult, which is what we now were. We walked through and out the back of the garage, then through the gate on the privacy fence that also served as the left-field barrier. The sight surrounded me at once, much like climbing the steps and seeing Wrigley Field open up before my eyes for the first time. But this was a wiffle ball field.

It was overwhelming.

A tree house/pressbox rose above the left-field fence. There were signs on the outfield walls, advertising smokeless tobacco and a local photography studio. Several of the teams we'd see in action tonight had their own banners nailed to the fence. The distance from home plate had also been calcuated and was stamped on the walls - 92 feet to straightaway center, 80 feet down the lines.

There was a backstop, almost like you'd find at the local softball complex, except homier. A tool shed served as a clubhouse and its outside walls supported photos of past champions and the brackets for this year's double-elimination tournament. Huge boulders served as bases for mounted seats which had been found when the local dog track got new ones. There were five seats behind home plate, two more mounted on a rock a few feet away from those, four more down the line and a huge rock that supported two rows of the seats, eight in all.

The Piselli's home stretched from the left-field line to a straight line from dead center field. When the wind blew in the right direction, we were told, a batted ball could reach the roof, though it was a rare occurrence. JT Piselli, who owned both the house and, more importantly, this field, waved us over and introduced himself to my teammates. He explained it was the 12th year for the tournament and he was excited to have us there.

We made small talk, still too much in awe of the place to muster more words.

Farther out, behind this field, we could see there was another field under construction. Between the two fields was a full-sized batting cage, which served as the left-field fence for the outer field. We were told the field would be in use during the day. The batting cage was ragged, worn out by the daily use of it by two of JT's three teenage sons.

The tournament had begun earlier in the afternoon, as soon as the players from the first two teams could get home from work, change clothes and make the drive to the field. Games would continue that night until after midnight and would begin again at 8 this next morning. Most of the players were either old friends of JT's, friends of his children or people who had heard about the tournament - and the field - through the grapevine and begged an invitation. The latter group included our team.

JT gave us a brief history of the tournament, which it turned out, was an offshoot of a prior annual tournament that had ended when a scorned wife burned her husband's field.

"She knew that would be the thing that really hurt him," JT explained with a grin.

About 20 hours later, we'd been eliminated from the tournament. We finished fifth of 20th teams, which turned out to be a fine showing in our first event. With the sun bearing down, we left the tournament with those who would see it through.

And, we'd make sure we were back again the next year.