The town's own game: the Wiffle Ball championship, Migley Field, and the Wiffle Kingdom

Every other team in this section was assigned to the town; this one the town founded: in 2005, as part of the newly formed Hometown Days festival (Fairs & Civic carries the festival whole), New Carlisle held a Wiffle Ball tournament — the idea, the library's account records on the word of the society's director, of Koby Keck, sixteen years old. Fifteen teams played, double-elimination, and the first champions were the Late Arrivers, Jared Colanese's team. In 2006 the tournament's men built their ground: Migley Field, raised, the New Carlisle Newts' own history says, from scrap fencing and spray-painted plywood — and the second championship game was played on it, at Tim Bacon Sr.'s suggestion, the Sultans of Swing beating the 4 Amigos 14–3. In 2007 the game organized: Jared Emmons and Koby Keck founded the Old Republic Wiffle Ball League (ORWBL), and Keck and Garrett Curless formed the New Carlisle Newts, who played their first game on 3 June 2007 against the Lil' Saints at Migley. The institution grew the way real ones do — by accretion and memorial: Brandon Hora Field was dedicated on 28 July 2012, the first of what are now six memorial fields; the fields multiplied across the Memorial Park ground until, in 2025, the complex took a name of its own — the Wiffle Kingdom, its sections Hometown Square, Memorial Park, Tiger Canyon, Tent City and Bourissa Hills, its quadrants feeding Migley Field for the Hometown Cup finals. The scale, at the strengths the record gives: ninety-six teams in 2024, on the society director's count; more than 1,300 players since 2005, as counted in 2020; teams from Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Canada; the 2025 playing was the twenty-first annual tournament — the tournament played through 2020, the year the festival around it was cancelled. The game's memory is kept formally: the New Carlisle Wiffle Ball Hall of FameAnd the game has its folklore, printed as folklore in the Specialty file's terms: the 2007 "Jacobs Field" prank, and the Curse of Chief Wahoo, laid on the fields in the game's early years and broken, the league's own telling says, in 2013. The league also revived a Snow Football League at Migley in the fall of 2006, with its Christmas in New Carlisle Classic — the ground works all year. No franchise was ever bought, no affiliation ever signed: the whole institution — tournament, league, team, grounds, hall — is the town's own manufacture, and it is, at documented size, the largest sporting institution New Carlisle has ever held.

Sources:

1. New Carlisle Newts, the club's own history (ncnewts.com) — Migley Field built 2006 from scrap fencing and plywood; the 2006 championship game; the Newts' founding and first game, 3 June 2007; Brandon Hora Field, 28 July 2012; the Snow Football League revival, fall 2006.
2. Old Republic Wiffle Ball League records and the Hometown Cup's own site (hometowncup.com) — the league's 2007 founding by Jared Emmons and Koby Keck; the tournament's course and the 2025 Wiffle Kingdom grounds.
3. New Carlisle Public Library posting, 24 June 2025 — the 2005 founding as Koby Keck's idea at sixteen, on Director Dana Groves's account; the Late Arrivers and the fifteen teams.
4. Historic New Carlisle / South Bend Tribune accounts — ninety-six teams in 2024 (Groves); 1,300 players since 2005 (2020 count); the Hall of Fame's establishment in 2020 and its inaugural class of fifteen, honored at Migley Field 26 July 2020.