Competition, Weather, Beauty, and Champions.

7/20/2021

The Competition, the Weather, the Beauty, and the Champions. That sums up this weekend up perfectly.
Competition
The competition was unbelievable in all age groups with 186 total teams from 12 states. There were a lot of really competitive, close baseball games. I wandered around the ball park in awe at the high level teams that made the Journey from all over. It was really a sight to see. Wednesday and Thursday were excellent days of pool play, then Friday hit.
Weather
Friday the baseball Gods decided to throw a curve ball. What do we always tell our players? Make Adjustments. The lightning came at 2:20PM, delayed for a half hour, then again, then again. By 3:50PM there appeared to be a lot of red on the radar from Dayton to St. Louis with more continuing to pop up, and lightning still in the area. At this point, we made the very difficult decision to cancel for the rest of the evening and re-group.
When the next round of showers hit, it rained an excessive amount overnight. Saturday, I got to the park around 6:00AM and field 7(turf) was under water. My wife, myself, daughter and the action crew worked hard for two hours to get it ready and everyone of us were drenched. In a moment of levity, an Action Sports crew member cracked the Joke. “Jesse your having as much luck as Harbaugh in Ohio”. We had to delay that field, but had 7 of 8 fields running.
The changes did not seem to impact teams and players. Top level teams do not make excuses and just compete. You can tell most of these of teams have been there before and just wanted to play. Best way I can describe most of the teams from 8u-18u, is business-like. They were unbelievable with the schedule changes and made it happen. I cannot say enough about how much appreciate them.
The Beauty
By 11:00AM on Saturday the sun started shining. This was the only thing that could get field 7 playable. The baseball Gods were on our side again. It shined from 11:00 AM all the way to the Championship games Sunday night. The crack of the bat and all the cheers seemed to make most of the teams forget about the weather. After the 13u finished their nail-biter of a championship game, I walked back toward the quad and saw a 3-4 year old boy in the outfield throwing a ball to himself and doing bat flips, seemingly emulating what he witnessed over weekend. It was another moment of perspective and clarity I will never forget.
Congrats to the champions and runner-ups in all the age groups. TBR looks forward to hosting everyone again in 2022 for the TBR World Series and other tournaments. The schedule will be out in August.
The Champions and Runner-Ups:
(Please send champion and runner-up photos to [email protected])