AUBURN — Eric Hall experienced every kid’s baseball fantasy Sunday afternoon.

He cranked a hanging curve ball over the Green Monster for a game-winning, two-run blast.

Hall had barely enough space to finish his trot between third base and home plate before his four teammates — the aptly named Walk Off Warriors — pummeled him with chest bumps, back slaps and head butts.

Behind them, vanquished Team 40 exhaled and endured the short walk of shame, heads mostly down, toward their makeshift, lawn chair dugout.

“Tennis player,” outfielder Mekae Hyde muttered with a half-smile.

Just another wacky weekend in the Twin Cities Wiffleball League.

The association — midway through its first official season — has staked out territory on the lawn adjacent to the Arnold family home, a block away from Minot Avenue.

Think it’s tough to get college students committed to anything that doesn’t involve beverage money or an electronic device? Think again.

Eight teams have reported for battle at freshly minted Jay Arnold Hall of Fame Field every Sunday since Memorial Day weekend.

They take the field with all the trappings of a major league production.

The national anthem is played. Jock jams blare from speakers connected to a computer’s hard drive throughout each game. Advertising banners line the wall.

“Opening day there were 60 guys here,” Arnold said. “They had opening ceremonies with me throwing out the first pitch. They did it right. Then I ended up being the cook and making hot dogs for 60 people.”

Arnold’s son, Ryan, a former Edward Little High School baseball player currently attending Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Fla., organized the league with fellow Red Eddies.

Rosters are primarily a who’s-who of recent athletes from EL and Lewiston.

Having played host to impromptu games for years, the elder Arnold set out to create a more authentic and nostalgic experience this spring.

Without disturbing the trees at the edge of his lawn, he built and reinforced a replica of Fenway Park’s storied left field wall. Etched in chalk on the panels of the Mini Monster: The inning-by-inning linescore from a memorable EL-Lewiston game during Ryan’s career, and a list of fictitious out-of-town scores.

“By the time Ryan and a couple of his buddies got home from college, they said, ‘Can we line the whole field with that?’ So I went over to Home Depot and got cheap, old, $6 wood and painted it green,” Arnold said. “They took it from there.”

Jay Arnold consulted a national Wiffleball federation site before completing the wall.

The natural lay of the land fit almost perfectly into the prescribed tournament dimensions: 77 feet down the left field line; 88 to right field; 99 to straightaway center.

“It’s pretty close,” he said. “If you look at their diagram, the field is just like a piece of pie.”

Sunday games are merely the main event.

Fourth of July means all-star weekend. After many players spent Saturday morning and afternoon playing in doubleheaders for their American Legion teams, it was off to the Arnolds’ for a home run derby (complete with a golden bat to the winner) and the midseason showcase.

“They were here until 10 o’clock, playing under floodlights,” Jay Arnold said.

Informal games break out from morning until after dusk almost every day of the week.

Home plate is anchored a few feet from the home. Foul balls and errant pitches rattle off the tan siding and the window screens.

“That’s what wakes me up every morning,” said Ashlee Arnold, Ryan’s younger sister and a multi-sport standout at EL.

The league is best characterized as serious fun.

Among the team names: Honey Nut Ichiros (after the Seattle Mariners’ Japanese-born star), Brokebat Mountain and Mostly Black.

Jokes and good-natured ribbing fly freely throughout the game. And the laughter is good medicine, because when the little ball with the trademark holes is in the hand of an experienced pitcher, it’s almost impossible to hit.

On this day, on behalf of the top two teams in the league, former Lewiston teammates Alex Wong (a lefty now playing at Wentworth Institute of Technology) and Conroy LeBlond combined for more than 40 strikeouts in a 10-inning marathon.

“I struck out more today than I do in an entire season,” said Hyde, a 2011 Lewiston grad who will continue playing baseball at Bates College.

He’s right, and you can look it up. Standings and statistics are published on a league web page.

Players have shown major-league ingenuity.

Ryan Arnold recalled taking apart another player’s bats and finding rolled-up rubber bands beneath the duct tape — Wiffleball’s answer to cork, apparently.

“He ought to be suspended,” Arnold joked.

Tape also holds together an old movie theater cup. It sits on the scorer’s table. Players drop in enough spare change each week to maintain a healthy supply of Wiffle balls.

The founding father enjoys knowing where his son and his unofficially adopted sons spend much of their spare time.

“I’m fortunate that I have understanding neighbors. The cars go through here a lot slower since we started the league,” said Jay Arnold, who sees another happy side effect of the club.

“I never have to worry about mowing the lawn, because there is none,” he added. “And (Ryan) is out here every Saturday, anyway, getting it ready for the next day.”

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