By Greater Westfield Babe Ruth League President Dan Welch
Special to The Westfield News
The final pitch for the 2016 Fourteen Year Old Babe Ruth World Series was thrown on Thursday, August 18th with Tri-Valley, CA beating Bismarck, ND 9 – 6 in the championship game. The stands at Bullens Field were rocking with a crowd estimated at more than 750 in attendance to cheer on the visiting teams.
The final teams were two of the 12 teams in Westfield to play in the first ever World Series hosted by the Greater Westfield Babe Ruth League. Teams from Sarasota, FL; Bismarck, ND; Mountain Home, AR; Atlantic Shore, NJ; Tri- Valley, CA; Portland, and Tri-County, ME; Pittsfield, Westfield and Arlington, MA; West Linn, OR and Janesville, WI arrived in Western MA on August 9th to play in the World Series.
The first event for the teams was the Banquet of Champions held at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. More than 450 players, families and guests were hosted by Westfield Babe Ruth to kick things off. William Decker, Head Baseball Coach from Harvard University was the keynote speaker. The players enjoyed this great venue with most visiting it for the first time.
Pool play games began on Wednesday under the threat of storms and extremely hot weather conditions with temperatures in the high nineties and a heat index in excess of one hundred. The heroic Bullens volunteer field crew worked tirelessly through the heat and storms to keep Bullens Field playable. Even after having to postpone three games on Friday, crews were able to get the fields at Bullens and Westfield State University playable for extra games on Saturday to get back on schedule.
Based on the positive comments from the participating teams and Babe Ruth League officials in attendance the World Series in Westfield was a huge success. The support from the community was tremendous with 100’s of volunteers signed up to support our efforts.
The improvements supported by the city not only made Bullens Field a show place for the World Series, it is now set up for more great baseball for many, many years to come. Huge thanks to the management and staff from the Westfield G&E, Westfield Public Works and the Westfield Police Department for their support. Everyone in the community stepped up to help support our efforts to showcase the City of Westfield for the World Series. We would not been successful without this support.
The crowds came out to watch some great baseball played by these 14-year-old players, which will provide them with a lifetime of memories of Westfield and Western Massachusetts.
A huge thank you to all the corporate sponsors for the World Series for their support. Funds raised by the World Series will be used to continue to keep Bullens Field a premier place to host baseball events for many years.
When Westfield was selected to host the World Series more than 18 months ago it was hard to imagine how much it could showcase our great city. Westfield, always known as a baseball town, came through with tremendous community effort to help make this a memorable event.
It was tiring and a huge commitment by the World Series Planning committee but it was worth it. It was a community support that made it a success!
