Opening ceremonies for NABF tournament tonight

By Ted Allen
Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: July 23, 2008

Wooden bats are the standard equipment used at City Stadium, home of the Lynchburg Hillcats. But most high school-aged baseball hitters are unaccustomed to wielding anything but aluminum when they step up to the plate.

That has changed this summer as area players from Amherst to Rustburg and Appomattox to Bedford prepared for this week’s National Amateur Baseball Federation high school World Series, which starts with opening ceremonies tonight at 6 prior to the Hillcats’ game against Wilmington at 7:05.

Bedford coach Stewart Grant, who also coaches Liberty High’s team, noted that pitching is key in a wooden bat league, where games often go faster with fewer hits and runs scored. But as Liberty Christian Academy coach Ronnie McGuire pointed out, teams’ slugging percentages can outweigh a pitching staff’s ERA in tournaments such as this.

“Some of the teams coming in with high-powered offenses who have played with wooden bats longer and are more experienced with it (may score a lot of runs),” he said.

Established in 1914, and now in its 94th year, the NABF is the oldest continually operated national baseball organization in America. Pete Rose played in the league, as did Barry Larkin, Marquis Grissom, Paul O’Neill, Mark Teixiera and a host of other future Major Leaguers.

This is the first year the NABF has held one of its eight annual national tournaments in Virginia.

Thirty-three 17-under teams — a total of more than 750 players — from as far away as Canada, Georgia, Michigan and New York will participate in the event. Games will take place at City Stadium, Liberty University, Lynchburg College and five high school fields — tournament host Heritage, E.C. Glass, Liberty Christian Academy, Rustburg and William Campbell, as well as Forest Middle.

A total of 40 teams were expected to attend, but several have pulled out due to travel costs and injuries which opened the door for seven teams to enter from the Lynchburg area Commonwealth Division, rather than the original three.

Teams have been divided into eight four-team pools (one pool has five) for round-robin play on Thursday and Friday, with three games guaranteed. The top two teams out of each pool advance to Saturday’s start of single-elimination play.

Joining Heritage, which received an automatic bid, are teams from Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford, Brookville, LCA and Rustburg, the division’s overall leader at 10-0. There will also be four teams from the Roanoke area and one from Bassett, which draws players from Danville, bringing the Virginia total to 12.

“They’re real excited,” said G.R. Wiley, commissioner of Virginia Amateur Baseball, Inc., who has recovered from a minor stroke suffered on his way to last week’s 14-under NABF World Series in Kentucky. “They get to play at Liberty University, City Stadium and Lynchburg College and get to play against teams from New York, Canada, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri.”

The seven local teams are guaranteed at least 21 games, at all 10 locations, giving area fans plenty of opportunities to support them.

Though they have home-field advantage, the area teams could be at a competitive disadvantage against many of their out-of-state guests.

“We’re basically from seven different high schools whereas teams from New York and Georgia are more like all-star teams geared toward traveling,” Grant said. “We don’t have the number of pitchers that they do.”

Wiley is confident at least a few of the Virginia teams, including Rustburg, Roanoke and Bassett, stand a strong chance of advancing to Saturday’s bracket play.

“They’re talented,” Wiley said. “I think we can stack up.”

Tickets will be $4 per day at each site, where fans can watch up to four games per day. Fans 15-under get in for free. City Stadium will host four games per day three hours apart on Thursday, Friday and Saturday before hosting Sunday’s championship at approximately 2 p.m.

For tonight’s opening ceremonies, former Texas Rangers and Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher and Hillcats pitching coach Jim Bibby, who lives in Madison Heights, will be the guest speaker before a skydiving team dressed in military uniform and carrying an American flag will land on Calvin Falwell Field at 6:48 p.m. The paratroopers will present a baseball to Lynchburg Mayor Joan Foster, who will throw out the first pitch of the Hillcats game after the Campbell County Sheriff’s Department sends its new color guard out for the playing of the National Anthem.