Wolfe Construction wins again. This tournament was a rain fest.

Weaverville-Jacob Kadle and Dan Nored hit back to back home runs in the 6th inning leading Ray Wolfe Construction of Arcata to a 19-8 victory over TMSA of Redding in the Championship game of the Weaverville Memorial Weekend Softball Invitational. Richard McKinnon went 2-3 with a home run for TMSA. The Nugget Restaurant from Weaverville placed 3rd and Unagi of Yreka finished 4th.

Mike Dobrec of Wolfe was named the Most Valuable Player and teammate Jacob Kadle was chosen Most Valuable Pitcher. Other all tournaments picks were, Dan Nored and David Ferres from Wolfe, Mike Taylor, Hank Penland and George Robertson of team TMSA, Todd Canfield and Jeff Malloy from the Nugget Restaurant and Justin Gerding of Unagi.

The next Weaverville men’s softball tournament will be July 4th, 5th and 6th at Lowden Park. Contact Richard Marks at 707-445-3432 or check out SoftballTournaments.com.

A few months ago Weaverville/Douglas City Parks and Recreation director Kelly Jackson contacted me with some bad/good news. Lowden park in Weaverville would not be available for tournaments in 2008 due to field renovations. I considered other venues in Trinity County and had pretty much decided to let teams know there would not be any tournaments there this year.

I probably should have left it at that, but Kelly called me back and informed me that the Chamber of Commerce was up in arms and wanted the field in working order so they could retain the revenue the tournament generates for Trinity County merchants. (Motels, restaurants, stores etc.) So I went ahead and called teams back and on was the Memorial Weekend softball.

Now the obstacles started to mount.......I had one full day off of work between May 1st and May 24th. Almost all of my shifts were 12 hours or more, and lo and behold I was scheduled for the 24th and 25th also! I was able to force my way into those days off, but then the weather reports that I had been checking out and said clear weather all week all the sudden were showing chances of rain! I went to pick up softballs from Sport and Cycle and they were out! So they had to order more from Fortuna. The awards that I ordered from Sports World were ordered at last minute and Robin had to pick them up since I had to work all days. People from here gave me reports that renovation at Lowden Park in Weaverville had left the field almost unplayable. I told teams it is what it is, and I would not be there until Friday night to evaluate. When I arrived, they were right. It was in terrible shape. Kelly and her husband Jack said they would be there in the morning with the tractor to drag the infield. Robin and I put the snack bar stuff in the snack shack, and Kelly wanted to show me how to work the new Field light and electrical system. When she went to turn the lights off after she had turned them on, it went POOF! The main breaker bit the dust. All power at the ball field was knocked out. So no lights, no refrigerator, no power for food preparation, no score board. Not good. So we canceled the snack bar and the Home Run contest to make sure to not play in the lights. Then we went to our motel room and sure enough, it started raining. I had checked out ACCUWEATHER for an hourly update and it showed only a few hours of rain. Well, they were wrong. It poured. I went to the ball park early in the morning and the field was soaked and muddy. No way to drag it with a tractor, so I did it with help from Billy Sines and Sam Jasker by hand. Lots of Kitty Litter was used to soak puddles. I had to alter the field dimensions to safely play the third base area and fend off the teams wanting to relocate the tournament to the high school, whose fields were wet also. My stress level was tested, but I have held enough of these events to stick to my intuition.

In the end, all had fun playing a highly competitive tournament. I may have actually break even money wise. Some of the snack bar items will be used at the 4th of July Tournament. Oh well, the drama and challenge of directing the event sometimes is the reason I even do this to myself. I do know all that were there will be talking about this for years.