August 10, 2026 | By: Jennifer Stitt in For Love of the Game
At Field of Dreams Baseball Camp, one of the most common questions we get, especially from people seeing our social media or looking at our weekly schedule, is: why do you play wiffle ball at camp?
On the surface, it might look like we’ve simply swapped baseball for something smaller and faster. But the truth is, wiffle ball has become one of the most intentional, powerful, and impactful parts of what we do at camp. It goes far beyond fun. It’s built into the heart of how we teach, connect, and help kids grow.
Before we even get into wiffle ball, it’s important to understand what our mornings look like.
Every single day starts with real baseball. On a regulation field, with hard balls, gloves, metal bats, and helmets, campers go through structured skill development and drills.
We work on hitting, fielding, throwing, base running, and game situations just like they would experience in house league, select, or rep baseball. This is serious development time. It’s focused, it’s intentional, and it’s where real growth happens.
Wiffle ball doesn’t replace that—it comes after it.
It’s the “earned” part of the day. After a morning of hard work, learning, and training, campers shift into the afternoon where they get to apply what they’ve learned in a fast-paced, high-energy game environment.
And this is where wiffle ball comes in.
First and foremost, it’s the campers’ favourite part of the day. Hands down.
Even campers who have been coming for years still show up every morning asking the same question: “When is wiffle ball?”—knowing full well exactly when it’s happening. They’re excited for the draft. They want to see where they’re picked, who their coach is and who they will end up playing with. They talk about it at lunch, they strategize with friends, and they wait for trades like it’s a professional league. For them, it feels real. It feels important. And that feeling is something we work hard to create.
Every week, we build a full mini-league experience. Campers are drafted onto teams, we track standings, and we post daily updates on individual and team performance. The leaderboard becomes something everyone checks: hits, RBIs, home runs, wins and losses. By the end of the week, everyone knows exactly where they stand, and the energy around it is incredible. Friday playoffs and our championship “World Series” games bring everything together in a way that is competitive, exciting, and unforgettable.
But the reason we use wiffle ball goes so much deeper than excitement and competition.
From a practical standpoint, it allows us to run camp at a scale that simply wouldn’t be possible with traditional baseball. With 60 to 80 kids, we can have four or five games happening at the same time. In regular baseball, that number of kids would mean long wait times, limited touches, and a lot of standing around. With wiffle ball, everyone is involved. Everyone is playing. Everyone is engaged.
Safety is another major reason. In a camp environment where our number one priority is always the well-being of the kids, wiffle ball allows us to create a high-energy, competitive atmosphere while minimizing risk. It gives us the ability to keep things moving quickly and safely, without compromising the experience.
The pace of the game is also a huge advantage. Wiffle ball is fast. Plays happen quickly, decisions need to be made instantly, and there’s very little downtime. That keeps kids locked in. In an environment with so many campers, engagement is everything, and wiffle ball delivers that consistently.
Even more importantly, it becomes one of our best teaching tools.
Because the field is smaller and the game moves faster, our coaches are constantly able to teach situational baseball in real time. When to throw, when to hold, how to position yourself, what the next play should be, these decisions happen over and over again in a single game. Kids don’t even realize how much they’re learning because they’re having so much fun, but the improvement is undeniable. It helps slow the real game of baseball down for them. When they go back to their house league, select, or rep teams, the game feels more familiar. They see it better. They understand it better.
And then there’s something even more important than skill development: culture.
Wiffle ball creates connection. It creates camaraderie. You’ll see older campers cheering for younger ones, high-fiving great plays, and celebrating kids who might have just learned the game that week. You’ll see confidence grow in real time—especially in younger players who feel supported and included. At the same time, older campers learn leadership without even realizing it. They learn how to encourage others, how to lead a team, and how to compete the right way.
At the end of every week, there is only one team that wins the championship. But in wiffle ball, everyone walks away a winner in their own way.
Because beyond the standings, beyond the stats, and beyond the scoreboard, what we’re really building is confidence, connection, and a love for the game.
That’s why we play wiffle ball at camp.
Not because it replaces baseball…but because it teaches it better, faster, and in a way that kids will never forget.