Flashback to the Begining, a look back to the leagues 1st season. 5/25/08 by Brian Meyers As I sit around the house relaxing over this great Memorial Day weekend, I can't help but keep my mind from wondering back to the first season of the KWL. Thinking about how much the league has changed, how much better the website has become and about some of the players of the past. What has become of these fine gentlemen that helped make the league what it is today? I don't often talk about the first season, as it pales in comparison to what we have today. Until this weekend, I have never felt that the 06' season was more than a small stepping stone to what we have today. However, looking back at pictures and players of that inaugural season, I now realize it was much more than just a crappy website with a short season. On July 18th of 2006, the Kalamazoo Wiffleball league started with its first pitch. A pitch in which felt nothing more than just another curving plastic orb. But a pitch that started what four guys worked to organize for the entire spring and early summer of 2006. Myself, Andy Ross, Jim Moe and Daryl Hutson started what seemed to be just another step towards fair competitive play, but has become something beyond our own imagination.

On our lunch break, Jim Moe and I would drive around surveying local parks for possible wiffleball field locations. We look throughout Kalamazoo and Portage before finally looking in our own backyard at Oshtemo's Township park. The park is only located about 2 miles from my house and had a pre-existing backstop with a small field area. It was like it was meant to be! We assembled a proposal for the Parks department and I set out to the meeting. The parks department really liked the idea and gave us the Thumbs up we needed to start the Kalamazoo Wiffleball league. Due to budget constraints, we were unable to attain chain link fencing for our first season, so we improvised with Green plastic drift fencing. Pictured below is what has now become The Township Field; however in 06' it was affectionately named Wiffley Field.

Since we started in such short notice, we had to quickly gather interested players and form teams. Fortunately for us, we recently had a back yard tournament and had quite a few interested people. The league started with just four teams; The Industrials, TNT, Homerun Hillbillies and the Blind Dadoes. Daryl, Jim and Myself formed the Industrials (A rockin' name that Daryl came up with). We also added my wife Katie and eventually picked up a newcomer to the league, Josh Brady. 06' Industrials Team page Andy Ross formed what was known as the Blind Dadoes. He joined with up with fellow band member Aric Dideriksen and newcomer Jason Jones. At about the half way point of the season, Jason Jones brought along now KWL superstar Jamey Detamore. 06' Blind Dadoes Team page The Homerun Hillbillies were the only team not deranged from our own group of players; an entirely new team and new to wiffleball. The Team consisted of team captain, Brad Olsen, J.D. Lutz, Todd Lutz, Steve Abshagen, Scott Abshagen and Ben Flekenstien. 06' HRH Team Page Joey Brainerd joined up with now KWL legend, Joe Mcgee. In order to fill the extra holes, Joey's cousin Justin came along to help cover the ground that Mcgee could not. Later into the season, newcomer Matt Kornegay got into the mix. 06' TNT Team page

After the amount of work that went into forming the league, this pitch symbolized a sigh of relief. It had finally all came together and we were finally playing ball! As we played out those first couple games, the reaction of local park goers was priceless! They often stopped and starred in disbelief that grown men were playing wiffleball on what seemed to be a regulation field. Lots of questions were asked and the buzz really started to give the league a good head of steam.

The games were getting played and the stats were recorded. We started to compile the stats online much like other online wiffleball leagues did. Fortunately for us, Daryl Hutson was very web savvy and able to build the league a website. It was a transition, as Daryl built lots of websites for businesses and had never had to build a website that was so number driven. Below is what our lovely wiffleball website began as. The Design was nice, but the arrangement of number driven stats left something to be desired. (haha, I think Andy still wears those blue jean shorts to play in!)

Since the league only consisted of four teams, it left me with more time to work on details of the wiffleball league. One of the coolest features of our 06' site was that I was able to build box scores! Because the league more than doubled its size in 07', we ditched the time consuming feature. But none the less, many players (including myself) favorite part of the old site.

Daryl helped me alot with the website and I tried to do as much of the site updating as I could. Unfortunately, it left the website with what at the time I thought was cool headers. Check out the awesome Color, Black/White, Color, Black/White arrangement.

The Season that gets little love, 2006, is finally starting to sink in as possible the most important season we have had yet. Looking back, it seemed so grass roots and that is because that in fact is what it was. I often shy away from talking about the season or showing pictures of the season, because I was simply embarrassed by blue jeans and cut off tshirts. However, that should not be the case! We started low budget and put together a good league. We did not have matching shirts, a cool outfield fence, striped foul lines or cool strike boards, but what we did have was commitment and a passion to make it better!

I would like to take this time and thank everyone that participated in that first KWL season. Thank you for dedicating your time and efforts. Without those twenty-something players this league would not have become what it currently is. Thank you for helping turning four guys vision into a reality!

Just for a little fun, here are some players pictures from that first KWL season and Thank you for joining me down this trip down memory lane! Andy Ross Daryl hutson Jason Jones Myself Joe Mcgee Joey Brainerd Katie Meyers Jim Moe