Amazing Grays: Flyers Field Inaugural Wiffleball Tournament

"Flyers Field", our backyard wiffleball field, was inspired by the baseball classic, The Sandlot, which follows the story of 'Smalls' as he remembers the summer of 1962 when he moved into a new town and was able to finally make friends through backyard baseball.

It was a childhood hope of Sean's to have his own field one day. Although the players in our backyard are no longer boys, but men, the premise remains the same: Building bonds and memories fueled by friendly competition, new adventures, and challenges.

All for the love of the game.

A game that hasn't changed since the first time they played. A game they've spent a lifetime learning and perfecting, always trying to push past that personal best.

Hit better.

Do better.

Be better.

It's America's favorite past-time and we've brought the game home.

The field features a semi-circle of trees shading the outfield, a PF Flyers park bench reminding you to always strive to be better, and even the neighborhood "Hercules" on the other side of the fence!

Sean had four teams for the "Inaugural Tournament at Flyers Field."

We chose yellow for the tournament t-shirts, which his dad made with the movie tag-line from "The Sandlot."

He constructed the fencing, foul poles, backstop and strike zone himself and asked the local parks and recreation for old bases. He just gave them a fresh coat of white paint.

In one grove of trees, sits this vintage ad-inspired bus stop bench that Sean fixed up. He used an old metal bench frame his Dad had in the backyard, added new planks and a large board back with an ad for "PF Flyers."

The shoes, dating back to 1937, were popular in the 50s and 60s and later bought out by Converse (our wedding shoe of choice :)

In the movie, they were the shoes "guaranteed to make a kid run faster and jump higher." Benny was able to retrieve the baseball from Hercules' yard and narrowly escape "The Beast" while wearing them.

Sean did the painting himself using the projector and contact paper to create a stencil. I only gave a few final touch-ups!

We cleaned up a 6-seater stadium bench, obtained from the local dog track, painted F, L, Y, E, R, and S on each seat back, and added a Coca~Cola drink table to replace the missing middle seat.

" Remember kid, there's heroes and there's legends. Heroes get remembered but legends never die.

~The Babe, The Sandlot

" Let me tell you something kid; Everybody gets one chance to do something great. Most people never take the chance, either because they're too scared, or they don't recognize it when it spits on their shoes. "

~The Babe, The Sandlot