Photo by Jon Anderson
2019 Hoover Wiffle Crown All-Star Game
The Bluff Park women's all-star whiffle ball team (in light green) defeated the Ross Bridge women's all-stars (in pink and black) 24-23 in the 2019 Hoover Wiffle Crown All-Star Game at Hoover Sports Central in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Aug. 18, 2019.
Community bragging rights are up for grabs again in the world of women’s whiffle ball this weekend as three communities go head to head in the 2022 Hoover Wiffle Crown.
The first three years of the event featured women’s all-star and championship whiffle ball teams from Bluff Park and Ross Bridge, but this year, the Lake Wilborn women have jumped in the fray.
Another change this year is that there will only be games between the all-star teams from the leagues and not the championship teams from each league, said Sherrie Roberts, the commissioner of the Bluff Park Women’s Wiffle Ball League.
With the addition of a third community, officials from each league decided to focus on the all-stars.
The Bluff Park all-stars won in 2019 and 2021, and the Ross Bridge all-stars took the crown in 2020. Ross Bridge’s championship team won over Bluff Park’s top team each year, but the teams in Bluff Park are put together by a draft rather than complete teams signing up together.
The 2022 Hoover Wiffle Crown games will be played Sunday, Aug. 28, on a neutral site — field 2A of the turf baseball/softball fields at the Hoover Metropolitan Complex. It will be a double-elimination tournament, which means there will be either four or five games.
The first game will be between Bluff Park and Ross Bridge at 1 p.m., and a new game is scheduled to begin each hour after that, Roberts said. That means the championship game will be either at 4 or 5 p.m., depending on who wins game 4.
The biggest challenge in putting on the Hoover Wiffle Crown is the difference in rules between the leagues, so each league will have some adjustments to make, Roberts said. For example, the women in Lake Wilborn pitch to opposing teams, while the women in Bluff Park and Ross Bridge have one of their own players pitching to them. So the Lake Wilborn women will adjust to self-pitch.
Meanwhile, Bluff Park players will have to adjust to a different kind of ball because they normally use a pickleball instead of a whiffle ball, Roberts said.
Admission to the games is free, and there should be about four food trucks present, she said.
While each of those communities also has men’s whiffle ball leagues, the men so far have not scheduled a cross-community championship game.
Photo by Jon Anderson
2019 Hoover Wiffle Crown All-Star Game
The Bluff Park women's all-star whiffle ball team (in light green) defeated the Ross Bridge women's all-stars (in pink and black) 24-23 in the 2019 Hoover Wiffle Crown All-Star Game at Hoover Sports Central in Hoover, Alabama, on Sunday, Aug. 18, 2019.