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Which window level of the Duomo should be a triple?

Posted on January 27th, 2008 by Lango.
Categories: pienza, tuscany, wiffleball.

You ever get the feeling you’re doing something you’re certain no one else has ever done before?

Tonight I was out enjoying some good vino bianco with a friend and teammate when the discussion turned to our trip to Pienza, Tuscany in November and our unique experience one night in its main piazza. I was on writer’s strike at that time, let’s say, and therefore you won’t find nary a mention of it here before this. Fortunately, though, our blackleg friend Fango was amongst the traveling codognesi and documented the four-day waist-expanding trip rather well over at Bici Vecchia.

Fango alluded briefly in that post to wiffleball, referencing our midnight game played in Pienza’s main square, an event surely without precedence in the 550-year existence of Piazza Pio II. Oddly, though, for someone like me who evaluates peoples’ backyards on wiffleball potential, it was impossible not to note immediately how well the piazza is designed for this popular game.

Fango, after perhaps one too many glasses of vin santo, relays another theory, noting that Pope Pius II’s ideal Renaissance redesign of Pienza was certainly undertaken with plastic yellow bat and perforated white ball in mind:

Centuries later, a group of us made good on Pius’ promise to Wiffle athletes. On our recent trip to Tuscany, we played Wiffle Ball in Pienza’s historic central piazza. Crazy, yes, but true. We found many pieces of Pius II’s grand Wiffle Ball stadium still in place and were frequently surprised by the overarching beauty of his plan. The locker room/dugout along the wall of one abutting palace, replete with hooks for jackets. The batting practice cage alongside the ancient well. Infield/outfield practice from the lip of the central door. A perfectly placed circle bricked into the very pattern of the piazza from which the pitcher could serve up Wiffle junk.

He continues:

The lights shone bright on our field. Tickets were scalped to disbelieving neophyte fans for free – we were putting on a show and inviting all of Tuscany, even the papal ghosts, to join us. Except for when the municipal police rolled by: some of us scattered like high schoolers caught loitering in a midnight parking lot; one of us waddled off with the Wiffle Ball bat running the length of his leg. Our official photographer documented the scene. We laughed at the spettacolo and improbability of it all: Wiffle Ball in the House that Piccolomini Built for Wiffle Ball.

An aerial view of the piazza by day can be found here, with our mound clearly visible in its center.

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