PAGE 6 I THE MEREDITH HERALD | FEBRUARY 25, 2009
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THE GREAT CHAGRIN FALLS
DUNG BALL CHAMPIONSHIPS
Herb Score
Staff Writer
The joy of sports seems inherent in childhood. It requires
no more than the innate urge to run around, the natural
impulse to throw and kick and, especially for boys, some
sort of balls or projectiles to focus the activity. For kids
growing up on E55 and Fleet Street in Cleveland, this joy
found expression in the Great Chagrin Falls Dung Ball
Championships. To echo Dave Barry, I AM NOT MAK
ING THIS UP...
My father and his buddies at the Serbo-Croatian
Hall had bought a dilapidated 25 acre farm about 30
miles from towTi, which they together repaired, painted,
plumbed, wired and fenced. Their plan was to board the
horses of the well-heeled and use the profit to keep a few
steeds of their own.
The cost of hay and straw for a winter would have bro
ken the whole deal, so we grew 15 acres of alfalfa. When
alfalfa ripens, it sours quickly, so in July we had about
ten days to cut, dry, bale and stash the crop. Our fathers
conscripted us for the job {free labor, it seemed, was the
whole point of having children), and we would set out
on two old tractors, towing a bailing machine and a hay
wagon and a shared determination to make the best of
those long days. The place wasn’t far from Chagrin Falls
It would prove a fitting name for the game we invented.
The playing field formed naturally in a three-sectioned
compound wired with sufficient voltage to keep the
amorous stallions away from any unwilling mare. One
paddock in particular housed a large pile of horse plops
(named for the sound they made wherfthey hit the ground)
and cow pies {named for their shape) for spreading on the
fields after the. hay was in. Both of these deposits would
serve a useful function in the Great Chagrin Falls Dung
Ball Championship.
We adapted the rules from dodge ball. Two teams
would form; shaped by the affections, animosities and
judgments of the week as well as long standing allianc
es and grudges. Kinship loomed large: Gaiy and Dale
Planicka with their cousin Andy Paluf; Oleh and Omelan
Korenewycz and their deranged sister Slawka (a waifish
sociopath feared by all); Matthew, Mark, Luke and Bela
Hriczo, but four of the 12 offspring from an odd marriage
between a Mormon and a Hungarian Catholic undertaker;
the twins, Terry and Jerry Wolanski. Loners like me. Dale
Dranchak and A1 Zahuronak (later to play music with Joe
Walsh) did our best to seem appealing to the pre-formed
core groups.
The object was to drive the other team to ruin and
surrender through inflicting a combination, of insult and
injury from behind the center line. No one could wear
gloves or leave the paddock. The right choice of projec
tiles was essential to success. A pie or a plop too recently
deposited would melt into the attacker’s hand, with noth
ing left to hurl, an insulting kind of “own goal.” Too diy,
and the object would throw well and could inflict injury
but had nothing degrading to add upon impact. Ideal was
the perfectly cured item: a shell hard enough to throw
without risk but also thin enough to shatter on impact,
leaving its rich interior all over the stricken enemy. Such
a find was a rare treasure, usually hoarded for just the
right moment.
A good cow pie offered many of the advantages of an
off-center Frisbee (then called a Pluto Platter): it could be
spun through the air sidearm with great angular momen
tum, smattering everyone below its long, unpredictable-
flight path. Thrown up at a steep angle, it could boo
merang. Saucer-like shear tendencies often released the
moist interior before actual impact. Enlightened self in
terest eventually produced one inviolable rule: the person
choosing such a weapon had to shout “Cow pie!” before
each launch. More popular and predictable were the
baseball-sized horse plops. , .
And so — armed, motivated and loosely organized — we
would engage in battle, seeking to force our opponents
from the field. A high lob of a very large cow pie would
force the other team to look upward in hopes of avoid
ing its descent, thus making them vulnerable to massed
fire from the horse plop throwers. Feigning serious injury
could have the same result, momentarily freezing targets
on the duped team for directed horse plop fire. An uncon
vinced enemy, however, would punish the flopper with
out mercy. A team truly desperate could often release one
or more of the stallions onto the field, hoping to exploit
the chaos to their own end and decimate their opponents,
but this, too, could backfire: sometimes all had no choice
but to flee the field of play and accept a draw.
But most players and all spectators wanted the game to
end conventionally. Sooner or later attrition would take
a greater toll on one team than the other. Players would
stop from exhaustion, injury or in sudden disgust with the
entire process., As soon as the active duty roster reached
one, the endgame ensued. The leading team could then
cross the center line and close in for the kill. From this
close range, the remaining few would drive their sole
opponent backwards with dung barrages of all densi
ties and shapes, hoping to force him into contact with
the fence and, in particular, with the bovine voltage
electrical wire.
Imagine a charge designed to deter a beast of 1200 to
1500 pounds released upon a kid less than a tenth that
size. The shock was an assault upon body and mind that
would send the player dazed into the air and finally crash
him to the ground, there to become ground zero for a ju
bilant victory dance by the winning team.
Crazy Slawka brought her own variant to this end
game. Determined to keep her destiny in her own hands
and shrieking like a banshee, she would grab one very
rich dung ball in each hand, hold both aloft and back her
self so quickly into the fence that her assailants had no
time to flee before her launch - a glassy-eyed, grimacing
human projectile with two very powerful warheads fro
zen in her grip by the tremendous electrical forces cours
ing through her body. She often succeeded in blasting
her tormentors with warheads and electrical charge in her
final, diabolical gesture of contempt. A testament to the
deeper reaches of the human spirit.
Such is the true story of the Great Chagrin Falls Dung
Ball Championships. Sport is in us all. But, as Dave Bar
ry would also say: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. ■
UPCOMING
EVENTS
Thursday, Feb. 26
TN vs. PEACE @ 3:30 p.m.
Saturday, Feb. 28
SB @Sweet Briar, 12:30p.m.
and 2:30 p.m.
Sunday, Mar. 1
TN vs. York @ Hilton Head Spring
Break, 12 p.m.
Monday, Mar. 2
TN vs. Bloomburg @ Hilton Headf
Spring Break, 6 a.m.
Tuesday, Mar. 3
TN vs. Vincent @ Hilton Head Spring
Break, 9 a.m.
SB @ Randolpli, 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
TN vs. Warlburg @ Hilton Head Spring
Break, 6 p.m.