For Colonial Heights youth baseball players there is no
single event in the city that captures their imaginations more than playing in
the Colonial Heights Optimist Club’s Boys Invitational Baseball tournament. Winning
the thing is another matter.
“The BIB tournament is probably one of the biggest events
the city has each year. It takes a lot of people from the community to put this
tournament on, not only all the Optimist Members but also the C.H. recreation
dept. with support from Craig Skalak and Matt Spruill and there staff. The
Colonial Heights Police Department and Fire and EMS crews also come out each
night,” Tournament Director David Wells said.
Certainly, the city has other big events, Fort Clifton comes
to mind. But running for 10 straight days, there is very little that compares
with the amount of effort people from the community put into the tournament.
“We have grown over the years with sponsorships in the BIB
program from local business. Places like Martin's and Vincenzo’s also give us
gift cards for door prizes that we hand out during the games,” Wells said.
Fifty-six years ago, the Optimist Club started what has
evolved to become one of the toughest summer baseball tournaments for
12-year-olds. The honor is just getting to play in the tournament, and many
people in the Tri-Cities can remember having played in the tournament over the
years.
It is one thing that the entire community gets involved in,
one way or another, and is a source of pride. As an invitational tournament,
local teams from the surrounding area are always represented. The Optimist
hosts teams from Chesterfield, Colonial Heights, Dinwiddie, Hopewell, Matoaca,
Petersburg, and Prince George every year. In addition, outside of the area
teams from Williamsburg, Newport News, Sussex, and Stanton are regular visitors
along with other teams.
As a single-elimination tournament, it can be very difficult
to win. One misstep, one costly error and a team can be headed home. In fact,
two teams from tonight’s tournament openers won’t be playing in the BIB when
the night is finished. To win the tournament, the teams have to be good and to
some extent lucky.
Most of the coaches and teams understand how difficult the
tournament can be. Several years ago, one of the coaches said he knew it was a
hard tournament to win, but they were aware of the demands before they signed
on to play in it.
Perhaps no team is more aware of how hard it is to win the
tournament than the host team is. Over its 55-years, the home team has only
hoisted the winning trophy twice. It took 11 years for them to get their first
win, in 1969. The next championship took an additional 31 years, winning again
in 2000.
None of the teams scheduled to play can say that the
tournament is slanted in favor of the hosts. The statistics just don’t support
the claim; Colonial Heights has won the tournament at a mind boggling 3.6
percent of the time.
But it doesn’t keep the teams from trying. Over the past
several years, the Optimist team has had a few chances to win. They have
finished second several times, losing in the finals.
But in the end, it’s not really about winning and losing.
It’s about the chance for these kids to play in an event that has some history
to it. In many cases, the kids are playing in a tournament their father’s
played in. And really, how much better a thing can it be than that?
“The citizens of Colonial Heights have supported this
tournament for 56 years now and my goal is to keep it going and trying to make
it a little better each year. With the support of the citizens of Colonial
Heights and surrounding cities and counties, I believe this tournament has a
great future ahead of it,” Wells said.
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