WESTFIELD – When I joined the Westfield News as a staff reporter in the first week of June, I was quickly reminded that week of an event later in the summer that would take over the Whip City.
The 2016 14-year-old Babe Ruth World Series was going to be hosted by the city of Westfield at Bullens Field from August 10 through August 19.
As I love covering sports and have always had a strong interest in baseball, this sort of stage and this level of play in the Babe Ruth World Series was something I certainly looking forward to experiencing.
The experience overall was undoubtedly enjoyable, but interesting to say the least. With our sports editor, Chris Putz splitting up the majority of the games at Bullens Field with me, I was assigned to do the morning games into the afternoon while he covered the games in the afternoon that would go until later in the night.
Having a summer like we already have, the heat and humidity did not let up, even at 9 a.m. when the first game started.
For most of the games at Bullens Field, I was paired with one of our photographers, Kellie Adam. Due to the extreme heat, we both adjusted to the circumstances.
I fully credit Kellie to creating our own office for the week. When I arrived for the opening game of the World Series on Thursday morning, Kellie had our office set up. It consisted of umbrellas covering us over our chairs as we parked ourselves in the very top left corner of the stadium seats that are behind home plate.
At first, I didn’t know what to think of it, “This isn’t going to be good”. Man, was I wrong, we had a blast with it. Packing more than enough waters and ice packs, we were able to keep ourselves cool as well as laugh about how some people might actually be jealous of the office we were able to call our own.
While there was plenty of laughter between the numerous hours of working together, we were able to create quite the dynamic team when it came to providing coverage of the games.
As I covered game to game and wrote my game stories as well as interviewed players and coaches with video interviews, Kellie worked hard on shooting photos.
The thing that I was impressed the most about what Kellie did, was her ability to promote our work to the many parents and families of the players on the teams. She could have been spotted numerous times in the stands talking to families and assuring them they could see photos of their son, brother, grandson, etc, on our Facebook page.
Let’s not forget to mention that every game I covered was a complete pleasure to be a part of. Many volunteers worked so hard to help put this together. All of the players and coaches that I was able to speak with were great to talk to.
A unique part to the World Series is that every game was different. I covered a few games that were shortened by the mercy rule, ones down to the wire, and also a couple games that were delayed because of the weather.
To mention one game in particular, a contest between Tri County (ME) and Sarasota (Fla) at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, August 13 was stopped in the bottom of the second inning due to storms. The weather was awfully deceiving as heavy downpours ensued which were quickly followed by stoppage and with a hint of the sun.
But, the downpours would eventually continue and this game didn’t continue until around 4 p.m.
We had a couple more storms throughout this tournament that resulted in multiple teams playing double headers, and Jachym Field and Westfield State University being added as venues for games.
Along with Chris and Kellie, my fellow colleague and staff writer, Dan Desrochers, had to battle through the circumstances as well as our other photographers Lynn Boscher and Marc St. Onge.
Our President, Patrick Berry, could have been seen in the press box, broadcasting a game and working hard on helping the Westfield News coverage for this tournament become as solid as possible.
Whether it was the scorching hot days at 11 a.m. with our umbrellas and ice packs in our “office” or the several downpours that delayed games, I wouldn’t have wanted to have experienced this event any other way. It truly was a wonderful experience to not only be a part of it as a reporter, but as a working member in the city of Westfield.
Thank you, Westfield.
