By Tim Parry

The Wiffle Ball Field of Dreams in the Riverside section of Greenwich is no more.

The Greenwich Time reports today that the infamous Field of Dreams was demolished this morning by the Greenwich Department of Public Works.

As you can see on Facebook, this is a story that made headlines across the world. It wasn’t for the fact that neighbors were complaining about Wiffle Ball being played in their back yards, but because it was in a $1.2-million plot of land surrounded by houses in a residential neighborhood.

And there were some other aspects, too:

• You had the NIMBYs, who didn’t want this Green Monstrosity in their back yards.
• You had the fact that you can’t just go an build something on someone else’s property (even public property) without permission.
• You had liability issues: Who gets sued if a kid gets hurt playing there?
• You had childhood creativity and work-ethic: Even without permission, the kids worked together to clear out brush and make it a place kids could play.
• You have childhood obesity rates soaring, and kids partaking in some good, clean activity instead of spending their summers on the Web.
• And you had kids standing up for what they believed in, civilly. They refused to leave the field, but they also didn’t chain themselves to the trees.
• And you had parents supporting what their kids were doing, even if what they were doing was - technically - not legal.

And that’s where the most fun from this story came from. It was good vs. evil, but which side was which?

If I didn’t have a place to live, and I saw a house that was empty and for sale, could I just jimmy the lock and use the home as shelter? If I wanted to knock down my house and build a McMansion in its place, would I have to go through my city hall?

And that’s where I’m going with this. If the kids cleared the field, put down the rubber bases and pitching slab, and played ball, it wouldn’t be the story of the summer. But the plywood wall - that’s where the Wifflers crossed over the fun line into legal territory.

There is a consolation though: The town has offered Wifflers the use of a field at International School at Dundee, and will pay for wire mesh fencing. And they’re looking to get it put up a small scale version of Yankee Stadium within a week.

So while the kids lose one Field of Dreams, another is being built for them. It may not be a do-it-yourself deal, but at least they’ll still have a place to play ball.

By Tim Parry

This is a controversy?

You drive down Riverside Lane in the Riverside section of Greenwich, and you hope to get a look at the infamous Wiffle Ball field that was built by a bunch of local kids.

Blink, and you’ll miss it. The Wiffle Ball field is nestled behind a home being built at 96, and an angry neighbor at 100. From the road, you can’t hear much activity. And you can barely see the Wiffle Ball field, which is accessed by a small strip of land behind 96 and 100.

But it didn’t stop me from dropping by after work today.

The kids on the field stopped when they saw me walk up.

“Press,” I said. “Where you from?” one asked me matter-of-factly, since just about every media outlet imaginable had stopped by.

“Eyewitness News was here today,” said another kid, not even fazed by the media attention to the little piece of town-owned land in Greenwich.

It’s a makeshift stadium, to say the least. The kids playing told me they cleared out the brush, built the walls, and have taken ownership. They say the neighbors claim they are drinking and doing drugs at the field, but there’s no evidence of that. At least at 7 p.m. on July 14.

Just kids wanting to go out and play. Just like their parents did to pass their summers away.

There’s evidence that the kids are picking up after themselves. The “K” board is propped up by a 32-gallon garbage can, and the trash is removed nightly.

And the neighbor at 100 must know that. The kids say he keeps looking out, he even calls the cops a few times a day. While I was there, he was having a security camera installed - one that points right at the field.

Maybe he’s a closet fan?

“He was all for it, he wanted to play with us when we started off,” one kid said. “His wife wasn’t a fan though. That’s probably why he doesn’t want us here.”

This is a story that has caught national attention, pretty much for the silliness. NIMBYs keeping kids off public property because they’re having some harmless fun. Sure, they should have asked for permission to build the field first, but it’s not like they’re using it as a crack den.

And they seem to have the support of random strangers, too. One woman came out with her two young kids, just to check it out before she and her family moved away from Greenwich.

Other residents stopped by just to check out the action. National media attention will do that.

The kids aren’t doing any harm. Let them play Wiffle Ball, Greenwich.

How many adults did this kind of stuff as a kid: Find a vacant lot, claim it as your turf, and play ball all day. Or, worse - like me, they just played ball in an elderly widow’s neighbor’s yard until she threatened to call the cops.

Some teens in Greenwich did just that - they recently converted a town-owned plot of land and made it their own Wiffle Ball sandlot. They built it, and the kids are coming to play.

But the Riverside Lane neighbord aren’t too thrilled. They want their field of dreams, complete with a 12-foot high Fenway-esque Green Monster in left field, taken down, and the kids to scram.

And the neighbors have the right to do that. The plot of land is not designated as a park, and it’s not not the kids’ property to build on. Back in the days of The Little Rascals, or even Fat Albert, kids could get away with building club houses on public property and get away with it.

So now we have the question: Should the kids have to rip down something that they built on someone else’s property? Well, if I added on to my house without going to Planning and Zoning, the City of Bridgeport would make me tear my work down.

And if the Town of Greenwich lets the field stand, will it spawn a town on regional Wiffle league with stadiums build on vacant lots all around? Who knows?

I can understand the neighbors being upset - you have a quiet neighborhood, and suddenly it’s swarmed with kids and cars. But these kids could be doing a lot worse things this summer, don;t you think?

Creativity and exercise has been replaced by the X-box and the Wii (OK, you get some fitness with the Wii). So I think it’s great that these kids are doing what they are doing. Nut I also think they’re learning an important civics lesson through all this: Get permission and go through the proper channels before you start a project.

And the civics lessons have begun. One of the teens involved, recent Greenwich graduate John Agostino tells me there’s a meeting Tuesday night at the Cos Cob Fire Department. The public may attend the 7 p.m. meeting.