David J. Mullany was like
many boys growing up in the early 1950s. A love for baseball often lured
him into his backyard in Fairfield to take some swings and hurl a few
fastballs with friends.
But when the games ended
all too often with a lost ball or broken window, Mullany grabbed a
broomstick handle and a perforated golf ball to keep the contests under
control. He was lucky that his father, David M. Mullany, was watching.
"He came home from
work one day and saw me messing around with this plastic ball full of
holes," said Mullany, 58. "He figured there might be something
to it. Dad was a pitcher with UConn and played in a few semi-pro
leagues. We got some plastic parts from a nearby factory and sat around
the kitchen table cutting out some holes."
The Mullanys didn't
realize that their final product would become a piece of American
culture that has probably found a home in every sandlot, park and Little
League field in the country — the Wiffle ball.
 The
Wiffle Ball Inc. factory is hard to miss
as you cruise off Route 8's Bridgeport Avenue exit in Shelton. A large
wooden replica of the ball is proudly displayed on the building's front
wall, and this former two-bay garage is where millions of the company's
junior-sized, baseball and softball Wiffles have been produced for 40
years.
A quick look at the
license plates in the parking lot shows that this truly is a family
business. There are vehicle registrations with WIFL, WIFFL, WIFLE and a
WIFFL1, which belongs to a Jeep that has a Wiffle ball illustration on
its spare tire cover.
The Wiffle design, a
plastic white orb with eight elongated holes on one half, has remained
the same since the Mullanys perfected it in 1952. They developed ways to
throw the ball straight, a curveball and a slider toward the batter.
The ball dances through
the air and is sure to give batters fits. As a result, the name came
quite easy to the Mullanys. The word Wiffle was born from the term
"whiff," a baseball expression for a strikeout.
For about a year, the
Mullanys kept the Wiffle ball a family secret. But when the elder
Mullany saw how much fun his sons and their friends were having, he
decided it was time to share it with others.
"The little plastic
golf ball that I played with was made by a factory in Minnesota,"
said David J. Mullany. "The owner agreed to sell us machinery to
make our ball, and we got started in a rental facility in Woodbridge.
The first one we made was the junior-sized ball."
Mullany's father
mortgaged the house to get the ball rolling, so to speak, and sales in
the beginning were limited to stores in Connecticut. Not to be
discouraged, the Mullanys hired a sales representative in New York, who
established an account with F.W. Woolworth.
"That really gave us
some good distribution," Mullany said. "That's when things
really got going."
The next step was to
create a better bat. When the company started off, it packaged the balls
with sawed-off broom handles, but they stopped doing that around the
time that Wiffle Ball Inc. moved to its current home in Shelton.
Lumber supplies became
costly, so the Mullanys stuck with plastic to create the familiar
banana-colored bats that are still sold today. The bats are made in a
Hartford factory and have a higher-density plastic than the balls.
The country's passion for
the game of baseball undoubtedly has fueled its affection for Wiffle
balls. In the company's early days, Boston Red Sox superstars Ted
Williams and Jackie Jensen briefly endorsed the product, but that was
the beginning and end of the Mullanys' advertising efforts.
"That got a little
expensive," Mullany said. "When you think about it, it doesn't
seem to have made a difference. Once somebody buys it and finds out how
it works, I don't think they care who is using it."
Wiffle balls are formed
with granular plastic, or small beads of the material. Some of the beads
are tinted white to give the ball its pale appearance, and they are
dropped into a pre-heated loading chamber and formed into halves —
some with holes, and some without.
The ball halves are held
by metal chucks and closed together onto a hot plate that heats the
edges. The finished product is sent upstairs at the factory for
packaging. Mullany won't reveal how many are sold or made each year, but
it's safe to say that production has been in the millions over more than
40 years.
And in a world where
Furby dolls and Teletubbies are the latest craze, the Wiffle ball has
quietly maintained a presence on toy and department store shelves.
"They move very well
in the spring and summer," said Tom Grego, assistant manager at KB
Toys at the Brass Mill Center mall in Waterbury. "We sell the bat
and ball sets and the individual balls. It's very inexpensive and kids
of all ages love it."
At KB Toys, a bat and
ball set retails for $2.99, and a replacement Wiffle ball goes for
$1.29. Inflation hasn't exactly had an effect on pricing — in 1955, a
Wiffle ball retailed for 59 cents, Mullany said.
Outside investors
repeatedly have tried to get a piece of the Wiffle ball empire, but
Mullany politely tells them he's not interested. His sons, Steve Mullany,
32, and David J. Mullany Jr., 34, are next in line and already handle a
good portion of management duties at the factory.
In fact, a fourth
generation of Wiffle ball enthusiasts is on the horizon. David J.
Mullany Jr. has a 4-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter who are
"already getting into it," he said.
Most important, according
to David J. Mullany Jr., is that players don't have to be 10 years old
to enjoy Wiffle ball and you don't need nine people on each side to play
a good game.
"I'll be driving by
the park, or somebody's front yard, and there's always somebody playing
Wiffle ball out there," he. said. "It's always neat to
see."
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