Midlothian team excited to play in national wiffle ball tournament in its hometown

Ed Novick jumped at the opportunity to join the World Wiffle Ball Championship Tournament last year.

As someone who had been playing wiffle ball for nearly 50 years, he relished the chance to participate in one of the oldest and largest wiffle ball tournaments in the world.

When Novick, 53, found out that the tournament was moving from Skokie to his hometown of Midlothian in July 2018, he eagerly reached out to a few of his friends to form a team.

They named the team the Midlothian Marauders — Hometown Legends. They’ll compete in the tournament again Saturday at Midlothian’s Memorial Park.

The name pays homage to a baseball team with local ties.

“That team has a long history since I was 9, and now I’m 53,” Novick said. “It’s gone from Little League, locally, to a travel team. A lot of people from Midlothian know the Marauders name from kids playing baseball for years growing up. They just have a great long-standing tradition, and I’m proud to represent the Marauders and represent us as a hometown team.”

Novick will play alongside his son, Canyon, 17. Mike Cline, 46, Nolan Dreher, 19, and David Leonhardt Jr., 19, return from last year’s Marauders team.

The tournament, which originated in Mishawaka, Indiana, in 1980, consists of 60 teams from 12 states, ranging from Florida to Pennsylvania to California.

Each team has five players and plays four round-robin games Saturday, with the opportunity to qualify for the single-elimination tournament Sunday.

Mike Baniak, one of three World Wiffle Ball Championship commissioners, said the group moved the tournament to accommodate its growth and make traveling easier for teams from Indiana.

“Skokie was reaching its capacity with the number of fields we could have, and we wanted to grow the tournament,” Baniak said. “We needed a bigger space.”

“We got to the point where entries had to be capped in Skokie at a certain level. Our tournament can double whatever the capacity at Skokie was.”

The World Wiffle Ball Championship signed an agreement with the Midlothian Park District to keep the tournament in the southwest suburb for five years.

“Everyone here at the visitors bureau is really excited that they are in our Chicago Southland,” said Katie Arvia, the communications manager for the Chicago Southland Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We love to have local teams and teams from out of towns, as well. So it’s really exciting to have a good mix of people.”

Baniak said his group wanted the tournament to have a charitable aspect. Proceeds will benefit the South Suburban Humane Society in Chicago Heights.

“I give the organizers a lot of credit for doing what they could be doing to make a profit but they’re doing it for a good cause,” Ed Novick said. “People are coming from all over the country. [I’d] probably get involved either way, but you feel good about it knowing it’s for a bigger cause.”

Novick is hoping the Marauders have a better showing this year. Last year, they failed to win a game and didn’t score a run.

While he tries to keep his goals for the team small, Novick said he’s focused on hoisting the World Wiffle Ball Championship trophy Sunday.

“I wanna score some runs this year,” he said. “It would be great to win. If we were to somehow win it all, it would be the greatest Cinderella story ever.”