STARKVILLE — Despite it being a cold Saturday morning at Cornerstone Sports Complex, Starkville Mayor Lynn Spruill and the contingency of representatives from the Babe Ruth League were smiling bright.
A recent partnership between the city and national baseball and softball organization was finalized on Saturday as a large-scale regional and international Babe Ruth tournament is set to take place at the complex in mid-late July.
“This is our first year to be open, so we were looking for something that would really put us on the map,” Spruill said. “To have enough fields and to be able to service the Babe Ruth event is just so important to us. I couldn’t be more excited about it.”
Babe Ruth League baseball and softball has eight different regions split between the United States and Canada, and this summer’s tournament, held between July 17-21, will house the Southwest Regional tournament for teams and players ages 6-14.
Teams participating will be competing for a chance to reach the Babe Ruth or Cal Ripken League World Series in August, set to take place in a number of locations across the country including Branson, Missouri.
Because Babe Ruth is a non-profit organization, money generated from the tournament will be used to help send teams to play in the various World Series events nationwide.
“We knew the community craves baseball, so we thought it would be a great fit,” Babe Ruth League commissioner Michael Solanik said. “The real major factor for us is that it’s a very centrally located area. The bonus is having that baseball culture here.”
Besides the teams from the Southwest region who will be competing for a spot in a national tournament, the organization will be introducing an international tournament, the ‘T-Ball World Classic’, held in the town where t-ball first originated.
“From that history, we started to lean more into that t-ball aspect,” Solanik said. “The Southwest Region is the only one for us that has a regional t-ball tournament, so we decided to add the T-Ball World Classic to invite those state champions to play here. We also have reached out to our international partners and around six countries are all interested in being here.”
It’s an opportunity to bring more events and more economic development to the area as teams will be staying at different hotels within Starkville and the greater Golden Triangle region.
It’s also the opportunity for Babe Ruth to expand into North Mississippi as the large majority of its teams in the state are near the coast.
There might not be a place in the state that’s more baseball-hungry than Starkville, and look no further than the largest on-campus baseball stadium in college baseball, along with two highly competitive high school programs across the street from each other.
This only furthers that love of the game as more people from across the country and world will get the opportunity to witness that first-hand.
“We couldn’t be more excited,” Spruill said. “This is why we built this, in large part, to have this kind of involvement and engagement within the community. Bringing people into Starkville. Filling our hotels and our restaurants, and just making the community aware of the opportunities for their kids and our kids to be here and enjoy playing on high-quality fields.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 29 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
