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If there is one thing that I get asked year after
year with the Swinging Bunt, it is this:
“There
is rain in the forecast late in the week, is this going to be
cancelled?”
My standard answer for that question is that you
will not find better softball fields in the state of Illinois than
Champion Fields. They are the best draining fields I have ever seen
and everyone got to witness that first hand at the 2009 edition of
Swinging Bunt.
Everyone woke up Saturday morning to gray skies
and as we drove to the complex the sporadic rain drops turned into a
downpour. The rain was hard and steady for about two hours while
everyone hung out in the complex’s parking lot. Many players came up
to me and asked if they should just go home and I assured them all
that we would play, just be patient. Sure enough, the rain stopped
and the sun peeked out. Ninety minutes later the puddles on the
fields were gone and the fields were playable.
After some scrambling to adjust the bracket to fit
in with our delayed starting time, the games took off with
accelerated rules (starting with 2-2 count, 45 minute game times).
Instead of doing our regular Round Robin format leading into a
Single Elimination Bracket, all teams were placed into a 3 Game
Guarantee Bracket.
It didn’t take long for everyone to get into the
swing of things and the competition level ramped up. Donny Skelton’s
team started out on fire and was putting up monster offensive
numbers and looked like the team to beat in the beginning until
running into a couple games where the bats couldn’t get going and
they bowed out.
The team captained by Vic Wogen and featuring Tony
Brucker, Kevin Spartz, Matt Habegger, and others lost a game early
and dropped down to the loser’s bracket. After that, they caught
fire and became completely unbeatable. If any team took advantage of
the ”two home run per inning per team” rule, it was this one. We
don’t hand out a Tournament MVP award but if we did, you would have
to put up a very convincing argument for me not to hand it to Vic
Wogen. I’m pretty sure their team played 8 games and he hit at least
13 homers.
As time was running out, there was only one team
left undefeated out of the Winner’s Bracket and that was Scott
Duckworth’s team. With probably the most balanced team in the field,
they were able to put up runs and most importantly, they were one of
the teams that was able to play defense and keep runs off the board.
With time running out, we made the very tough call
of not playing the Championship Round between Duckworth and Wogen’s
teams. Team Duckworth was declared the winner and Team Wogen took
second place. While both teams were eager to play each other, both
understood that the delayed start just put us in a tough spot with
the time creeping close to 10:30.
Thank you to all the
participants who came out and made the 3rd
Annual Swinging Bunt and huge success. Everyone hung in there with
the morning rain and even though there was some scrambling, I think
everyone was very happy with the day and had a good time raising
money for a great cause.
Dustin Wilson
President - Swinging Bunt Charities, Inc
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