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.