Homemade wiffle ball park is magnet for friends, family and strangers

Field pays tribute to iconic Major League ballparks

As the ball cleared the Green Monster, whistling through the sky, one thought came to mind: Eat your heart out, J.D. Martinez.

OK, maybe my “Fenway Park moment’’ wasn’t the real deal. The green fence was just 74 feet away and is only around 14 feet high. And the ball I hit was of the Wiffle variety.

But man, did that feel good.

“I estimate that it went about just shy of 400 feet, if we prorated it by scale,’’ Kevin Masters told me later, after he fetched the ball from his neighbor’s property. “More than a modest shot.’’

Welcome to one man’s field of dreams on Whalen Road in Penfield.

What happens when you combine a lifelong dream, a love of baseball, imagination, determination, Peter Pan syndrome, nice neighbors and a very, very — did we say very? — understanding wife.

Masters, 47, a Long Island native, a devout Yankees fan and a self-employed doer of many things, began building his Wiffle Ball park eight years ago, right after he and wife Mindy bought their neat ranch home with the big backyard.

As Mindy, the former Mindy Bellanca of Fairport, tells it, her husband could not have cared less about the kitchen cabinets, the condition of the roof or how many bedrooms there were.

It was all about the backyard.

“Kevin is a big kid,’’ she said as the couple’s own two kids, Brooklyn, 7, and Joey, 3, scurried about. “I knew from the beginning that’s why we bought the house, so he could build a Wiffle Ball field. I went, ‘Yeah, OK honey, whatever.’ But that’s exactly what he did. Days, nights, making signs.’’

It began modestly in 2010. Some lines painted on the grass. A little scoreboard in the outfield.

“My friends came over, we played, had a barbecue, then the next year, we got a little more ambitious,’’ Kevin Masters said.

A little ambitious? Ray Kinsella has nothing on him.

This is what greets visitors who walk past the Wiffle Ball Drive sign on the side of the garage and through the gates of Masters Park:

Outfield fences that pay tribute to iconic ballparks and baseball movies. There’s the replica Green Monster with the W.B. Mason ad for Fenway in left; the Fine Schaefer Beer scoreboard for Ebbets Field in right; and a Harvey Bar 5-cent sign inspired by the movie A League of Their Own in center.

Commercial ads, all hand-painted by Masters, on the outfield walls including Coca-Cola, Gem Razor, Light up a Lucky, Wise Potato Chips, Wendy’s and the winged horse of Mobil gas fame.

Foul poles, dugouts, lights, an outfield bar area with bleacher seating, and a wire-mesh backstop (if a pitcher hits the metal Coastal Motor Oils sign, it’s a called strike).

Base paths cut into the grass and a raised pitcher’s mound of dirt and clay. The grass infield and outfield are fertilized, cut, watered and weeded to perfection. The Frontier Field grounds crew would be impressed.

“It’s a love of labor,’’ quipped Masters, who quickly added, “or a loss of self-control.’’

We should all be so whimsical.

“I really don’t know if it was a dream or a compulsion,’’ Masters said. “I played Wiffle Ball every day as a kid and loved it. I used to say, ‘If I ever have the opportunity, I’m building a Wiffle Ball stadium somewhere.’ It’s therapeutic. You get outside, cook some hot dogs and burgers and play Wiffle Ball. People see it and it’s ‘Oh, my God.’ I like the looks when they come through the gate. People really derive enjoyment from it and that’s what it’s all about.’’

But what’s a Yankees fan doing with a Fenway Park Green Monster in his yard?

“I just have a love of baseball and love of nostalgia,’’ Masters said. “And the Green Monster serves two purposes: It’s iconic and we don’t have to keep chasing too many balls hit over into the next-door neighbor’s yard. Anything old I try to replicate and draw.’’

Masters didn’t hear voices (maybe he did). But like Kevin Costner’s character in Field of Dreams, he has discovered that if you build it, they will come.

Twice a year, friends from Long Island come up to resume the ongoing Rochester vs. Long Island Series. A jersey No. 20 is painted on the center field fence to honor Pat Tierney, a close friend from home who was killed in a car crash.

Masters also hosts regular home run derbies — it takes a good poke with a skinny, 32-inch, official yellow plastic Wiffle Ball bat to clear the fences. It’s 101 feet to deep center.

Family and neighborhood picnics are centered on Wiffle Ball.

Meanwhile, complete strangers both young and old regularly knock on the Masters’ door to ask whether they can see the field and maybe take a few swings — Kevin never says no to pitching batting practice.

“It brings out the kid in everybody,’’ Mindy Masters said. “People come or stop over here from all over. A lot of people have become friends, their kids. It really is a field of dreams, and Kevin gets more enjoyment out of people enjoying it.’’

And the secret to a happy marriage, perhaps? The Masters’ agreement is simple.

“She keeps the indoors and I get the outdoors, sometimes involuntarily, but mostly voluntarily,’’ Kevin said. “Patient is the word for her. She’ll probably say I should go to therapy more, but don’t let her fake you. She bought me the bases. She denies all culpability, but she’s an enabler.’’

With another World Series underway, the Red Sox eliminated his Yankees in the ALDS, Masters will soon begin storing his outfield signs and putting away the bases for winter.

“It’s very melancholy,’’ he said.

Peter Pan won’t feel melancholy for long. Another Opening Day awaits. And in the meantime, Masters is toying with the idea of flooding his Wiffle Ball field and making a hockey rink.

“It’d be like the NHL Winter Classic at a baseball field,’’ he said.

If you freeze it, they will come.

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