We'll bet every player in the World Series got his start with Wiffle ball. Never mind that, as a proxy for a baseball, the Wiffle really whiffs. So eight years ago, a former minor-league pitcher named Chris Mackie started tinkering with "a plastic ball that played like a real baseball - one that didn't curve at random and flew straight when you hit it," he says. Mackie's invention, the Quickball, has all of the 50-year-old Wiffle's virtues and better aerodynamics. The Quickball's trajectory is far more predictable but still allows for tricky throws. Fun? You bet, and if you hit it hard enough, it'll break a window just like the real thing.
1. SIZE AND WEIGHT
Mackie wanted the Quickball to play like a baseball, yet work for games in a small backyard. So he made it lighter and slower. The Quickball weighs just under 20 grams (a baseball is about 145 grams). And while a Wiffle ball is the same diameter as a baseball, the Quickball is about a half-inch smaller. According to Robert Adair, author of The Physics of Baseball, that means it takes less force to throw a curve.
2. AERODYNAMICS
It would take a Pentagon-sized budget to fully study the aerodynamics of a perforated sphere spinning through the air. Mackie didn't have the cash, so he took a drill press into his garage and started experimenting. Prototypes of the Quickball had symmetrical, uniform holes: more predictable and less curvy than the Wiffle, which has perforations on only one hemisphere. The final Quickball's holes are asymmetrical, so a pitcher can vary and control the throw.
3. FIELD TESTS
Mackie says he's thrown a million Quickball pitches without any elbow or shoulder damage. Before selling the ball to kids, he wanted to be sure it wouldn't place undue stress on their developing arms. He took his handiwork to the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Alabama, where doc Glenn Fleisig recorded pitchers' motion at 200 fps. Fleisig rewound the windups and found that launching a Quickball appears no riskier than rifling a baseball.
4. MATERIALS
The Wiffle and the Quickball are both plastic, made from raw pellets of polyethylene. But the Quickball is twice as thick - it doesn't deform when squeezed, and hits yield satisfying thunks. Mackie and his engineer, Jack Van Kuiken, worked with the manufacturer to ensure plastic of uniform thickness and density. Result: a balanced ball that won't wobble on a pitch.
5. RULE BOOK
Customs vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, but official Wiffle rules call for no bases or running. Quickball is more like baseball: Four-person teams get two outs per inning; the field is a fourth the size. When a batter doesn't swing at a perfect pitch, all runners are out. A four-inning game takes 45 minutes. "Baseball has taken so much abuse for being boring," Mackie says. "We tried to make a game that's entertaining." Batter up.
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