The votes are in and we have ourselves an All-Tournament Team. Votes this year were cast by the captains and the tournament committee and here are the 13 winners.

Congratulations to all the members of this year's All-Tournament Team and this year's Tourney MVP, Dustin Toland. Dustin will be receiving a new Easton Stealth bat for his prize. All other winners will be receiving a Swinging Bunt hat and I will contact them about their prizes.

I had many people come up to me last weekend and send me emails this week asking about ordering additional items. We are going to re-open the ordering process as of right now.

If you are wanting to order a hat, pullover, or sweatshirt please visit the Shirt Order page and follow the directions there.

Three days until this thing happens and everything seems to be falling into place. There are a few odds and ends that I need to make everyone aware of though.

RULES
Please take the time to visit the Tourney Info page and familiarize yourself with some of the rules we use in this tourney. I want to take this opportunity to highlight a few of them.

"Going Middle" - this is a charity tournament for fun with no real substantial prize going to the winning team so let's try to not injure any of our pitchers. If you seem to be a player that is going through the box maliciously, you can be removed from the tournament. I haven't had to do this yet, don't make me start this year.

Doctored Bats - again, this is for fun and not a place for you to boost your ego so leave the shaved bats at home. I know some of you have them so DON'T BRING THEM HERE. Everyone signs a waiver and on the back there is a provision regarding doctored bats so if you hurt someone using a doctored bat, I would imagine the legal ramifications would be more than you want to know. If you're known to be using one, you'll be tossed out and not allowed to play in any future Bunt events.

Alcohol - this is a city park next to a school. There is NO ALCOHOL. And that also includes those of you who try to sneak it in the complex in other containers. You will get tossed this year.

Home Runs - 5 and 1-up...home team cannot go 1-up in the bottom of the 7th.

Pitch Height - we have a lot of ASA umpires coming to help this year so we're going to keep the height at the new ASA 6-10 limit.

WEATHER
There is a chance of rain in the forecast, but when isn't there a chance of rain in Illinois in the early spring. These fields are the best around and they absorb water like crazy so I'm not worried about rain at all this weekend. We do have a Hotline that will be updated Saturday morning if we are delayed at all. The number is 309-433-3434 (Category 4). We also have alternate schedules written up if we're delayed at all so everything is covered.

SCOREKEEPERS
We are trying something new this year with keeping an Official Book on each field for every game. We do have some people volunteering to score games but not enough to cover them all. If you're sitting around watching a game and want to help out, take the book and score the games for us. You don't have to be perfect with it. Just keep track of the hits and type (2B, 3B, etc), runs, walks, and RBIs. We'll take care of the rest.

We're getting close! If you have any last minute questions, email me and let me know.

Dusty

A couple odds and ends...

Tournament Rosters
The draft for this year's tournament is being held this Friday night. After the draft is completed, I will post the rosters on the Tournament Rosters page.

You should expect them to be up some time Friday night. The draft will take a couple hours and then it will take me some time to get the rosters typed in so don't send me emails every 5 minutes asking where they are. I would say 9:30 would be a good estimate.

Home Run Derby
Here are the details of this year's Home Run Derby. The entry fee will be $10 with the winner taking home half of the total with the other half being donated. There will be a signup sheet at the fields on Saturday and you can sign up then.You don't have to pay until Sunday before you take your turn. The Derby will take place once a field opens up on Sunday.

As I mentioned earlier, in order to speed up everything and keep everything even, we're using the pitching machine again this year. Here is how it will work. You will get to see one pitch from the batter's box. You can then choose to make an adjustment to the machine (in, out, up, back, whatever). You will then get to see one more pitch. Then it is on. Each participant will get seven pitches. At the end of seven pitches, you will get ONE Moneyball that will count as 2 if you hit it over. Any tie will be settled by Sudden Death

Party
Don't forget the party this year will be on Saturday night. The party is at Hawthorn Suites and starts at 7pm. The way we've drawn up the schedule this year, all the games on Saturday should be ending around 6pm so that would allow everyone ample time to migrate over to the party. There will be food, drinks, and the raffles will all be drawn.

So far the extended forecast looks real good with rain early in the week and sunshine to close out the week. That should give us nice green grass and a soft infield.

See you all next week!

We are officially one week away from the opening of registration for the 2010 Swinging Bunt. As a reminder...registration opens next Monday (February 22nd). I will be opening up the registration early in the morning, likely around 7am.

This is the fourth year for the Bunt and we have reached our max number of participants every single year. This year will be different with the addition of a second day but we will be capping the pool at some point. Right now I don't know what that number would be, although I do know it will not be anything under 220 players. Once we get to that number, some decisions will have to be made and registration could be closed. In other words, I wouldn't wait too long if I were interested in playing.

I had a few people ask me about some items so I'm going to try to address them here:

Home Run Derby - Yes there will be a Home Run Derby this year. We've had one every year except last year and we will definitely be bringing that back this year. The timing of the Derby could depend on the total number of teams we have...meaning it could be Saturday or Sunday. Once we have a better idea of the number of teams and our schedule, I will announce when the Derby will be held.

All-Tourney Team - The All-Tournament Team will be back in 2010. There was some confusion in the voting the last time we had this so I'm going to run it differently this year. This year, the team of 12 will be chosen based on the actual stats from the tournament. Each field will have a volunteer scorekeeper for each game and then the books will be collected at the end of the tournament and the stats will be calculated and the 12 players will be chosen and will receive a prize.

Tournament Format - Really, this is going to ultimately be decided by the number of teams we have as registration nears closing. As of now, it is looking more like teams will get 4 Round Robin games on Saturday and then will be seeded in the Single Elimination Bracket for Sunday. That would be 5 guaranteed games. It is possible for the number of teams to force us to drop the Round Robin games to 3 on Saturday, which is why we're being safe and just advertising it as 4 guaranteed games.

Demo Day - Last year we were able to get a sales rep from Worth to show up on Friday with a number of Worth bats and let participants try some of Worth's new bats. I don't know if we will be able to pull that off again this year but I will try my hardest to be able to get that done.

As always, if there are any other questions just let me know.

If you haven't seen or heard by now, the website (www.swingingbunt.org) is back up and running with the 2010 information.

Please take some time to go to the site and make sure that you know your User Name and Password. Once you get logged in, please go in and make sure your email address and all other information is correct. This information will be used when registration opens on the 22nd so it is in your best interest to make sure it is accurate.

If you cannot remember your User Name or Password you can email me (dusty@swingingbunt.org) and I will send you the information.