Wiffle ball rules and how to keep score

What are the official WIFFLE Ball rules?

The Wiffle Ball, Inc., the Connecticut company that makes the ball, publishes a short set of official rules. They keep baseball's structure and drop the running:

Scoring is baseball's: every run is worth 1, and the side with more runs after the last inning wins.

How do runs score without base running?

With ghost runners, also called invisible runners. A hit puts an imaginary runner on the base it earns, and later hits move the ghosts along. A ghost who reaches home scores a run, just like a real runner.

The official rules do not settle how far ghosts move, so agree before the first pitch. The two common versions:

• Move with the batter: every ghost runner advances as many bases as the batter. A single scores a ghost from third; a double scores ghosts from second and third.
• Move only when forced: a ghost advances only if the batter or another ghost needs its base. A single with a ghost on third alone scores nobody.

Either way, a home run clears the bases: the batter and every ghost score, so a grand slam is 4 runs.

Common backyard and league variants

• Shorter games. Nine innings takes a while in the yard, so many groups and leagues play 5 or 6 innings instead.
• No called balls or strikes. The World Wiffle Ball Championship has no called pitches and no unintentional walks: batters strike out swinging, and each team may intentionally walk one batter per game.
• A mercy rule. The same tournament ends a game when a team leads by 15 runs after the 3rd inning or any later inning.
• Smaller teams. Teams in that tournament have four or five players and may never play with fewer than four. Backyard games play with whoever turns up.

House rules vary most on ghost runners, the strike zone and where each hit area starts and ends, so settle those three before you start.

How do you keep score in wiffle ball?

Keep the runs exactly as in baseball: a box for each side and inning, and extra innings for a tie. What wiffle ball adds is the ghost runners, who exist only in your head:

1. Agree how ghosts move before the first pitch, along with the number of innings and which side bats first.
2. Call the situation out loud after every play: "two outs, ghosts on first and third".
3. Count a run each time a ghost reaches home, and write the inning's total when the side is out.

Here is a 5-inning backyard game with ghost runners that move with the batter.

The Parents trailed 4-2 going into the bottom of the 5th, loaded the bases and won it with a grand slam. As in baseball, a game-ending home run counts in full.