Happy New Year to one and to all of Wiffle Nation!!! I hope everyone had a great holiday season!! In case you haven't heard, the Griffleball League made quite the name for itself during the Christmas season. With the money that we raised during last year's Home Run Deby, we donated a $100 gift card from Dick's Sporting Goods to a local young boy who has been through two kidney transplants. His name is Blake Loudenber and he and his family were very thankful for our donation. If you search "A Miracle For Blake" on Facebook, you can view his official Facebook page where his aunt thanked the GBL with pictures and statuses.
In other news, we announced that Opening Day 2015 will be Sunday April 26. This year will mark the first time in the six-year history of the GBL that we will begin the regular season in April.
We also announced some scheduling and format changes that will take place in 2015.
Games will be played exclusively on Sundays this year. Each team will be scheduled with 10 Sunday doubleheaders to make up a 20-game regular season. There will be four bye weeks throughout the year for holidays and such.
The playoff format will also be different this year. In 2015, there will only be four playoff teams as opposed to the usual six. This means that the teams with the two worst records during the regular season will not qualify for the playoffs. That's right. The GBL postseason is no longer a right. It's a privelage. We are hoping that this new format will increase the intensity and importance of regular season games. This change will also minimize the length of the playoffs and prevent the 1st and 2nd place teams from getting rusty at the end of the year since they will no longer have bye weeks in the 1st round of the postseason.
#RATCHAT
I never said that I "will not" let Michael Sessions manage the GBL at the NWLA Tournament this year. I just don't want to make any official commitments yet. We are still six months away and want to continue considering all options. Who knows. Maybe Ozzie Guillen could express some interest between now and then. We wouldn't want to have to tell Ozzie that we already decided on a manager.
You can't really go wrong with either of these guys for National Player of the Year. They both have superstar wiffleball talent and they are both class acts. It's very tough to compare and contrast statistics between two different leagues. Just way too many factors at play. But I do like to see new faces in new places. Ryan won the award in 2012. He has also won many other wiffle awards throughout his career. He knows how good he is. Therefore, I am glad to see Regis win the award this year, and I don't think that Ryan was robbed.
Negative. Only time will tell exactly how much their off-season additions will pay off, but I like the way they are headed. The Sox roster had a lot of weaknesses in 2014 and General Manager Rick Hahn has done a great job of patching up those soft spots. Here's a fun fact: Only 17 players in all of MLB hit .300 or better in 2014. Three of them will make up the top third of the Sox lineup in 2015. Adam Eaton, Melky Cabrera, and Jose Abreu.
I have officially registered, and I am looking forward to making another trip to WSEM land this summer. Hopefully this year I wont have to face Whiteford Wicked Aces pitching. For as much as I enjoyed playing at Poolside Park last year, I didn't enjoy getting carved up all weekend.
I thought that Matt Kuna had a good chance to win some sort of Wiffy. He had arguably the best single season in GBL history in 2014. He dominated from both sides of the plate.
Matt was easily the best player in the GBL in 2014. He led the league in HR, RBI, ERA, wins, and strikeouts. He was also just one base hit away from leading the league in batting average and winning the hitting triple crown. It's been a very long time since the GBL saw a player have this good of a season. Matt's 2014 gives Kyle Lidster's 2010 a run for its money.
The GBL actually had it's all new black and gold flag at the NWLA Tournament last year. That's simply Chris Gallaway being Chris Gallaway. I decided to change our league colors going into last year because I felt like it would help give us more of an identity. Nothing against leagues with red and blue color schemes, but those colors just don't jump out in the wiffle world. They are just too "Major League Basebally". I decided on black and gold in reference to Griffth High School which is the high school that most of the GBL players attended.
Tough decision, but I gotta go with Carl Coffee. He and I share a special bond. We are both fans of the Detroit Lions. Perhaps Gallaway would do a better job at organizing a wiffleball-themed wedding though.
I like the idea of the mock tourney, but I don't like the fact that it is influenced by outsider voting. In my opinion, only NWLA website staff should be allowed to decide the winners of each mock game.
