Babe Ruth Tourney Returning To County

Purcellville Getting 2007 World Series

By Angela Watts

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Sam Plank vividly remembers the summer of 2004, when the host Greater Loudoun 16-year-old Babe Ruth team shocked its guests by advancing to the championship game of the Babe Ruth World Series at Fireman's Field in Purcellville.

"It's definitely one of the highlights of my baseball coaching career and, I know, of the careers of the kids who played," said Plank, who managed the team. "Just to have been a part of that was amazing."

Now a new crop of Loudoun County baseball players will have that same rare opportunity.

The Greater Loudoun Babe Ruth League announced Monday that it's been selected by the Babe Ruth League to host the series for the fourth time in 10 years. Games in the 13-year-old division will be played at Fireman's Field in Purcellville in August 2007. Purcellville previously hosted the 16-year-old division in 1998 and 2004 and the 16-to-18-year-old section in 2001.

"Fireman's Field was built with the idea that we would be hosting our first World Series, and when you look now and see the state-of-the-art facility that it has become, that's been a direct result of using the proceeds of each World Series to continue its improvement," said Dale Polen Myers, chairman of the league's board of directors. "They keep telling us that one of the things they look for when choosing to come back to an area is the commitment made by the board and the community to keep up the facility.

"Plus, with teams coming in from all across the U.S., they also like our proximity to the nation's capital and the fact that our visitors can easily do tours down there."

As the host league, Greater Loudoun will again automatically get one of the tournament's 10 slots. The other nine teams will qualify by winning regional tournaments across the country. And while hosts have not traditionally fared well -- only four in the 163 Babe Ruth World Series events, spread over seven age brackets, have won a championship -- the 2004 version of the Greater Loudoun Lions enjoyed much success.

The Lions, spurred by a partisan hometown crowd that sometimes numbered more than 3,000, won its first four games by one run each to become only the second host team in the history of the 16-year-old bracket to reach the championship game. Syracuse defeated Greater Loudoun in that final, 10-3.

Greater Loudoun finished fourth in 1998 and was winless in four games in 2001.

"To have played in front of that many people and to have seen that kind of support from the community is something I'll always remember," said Plank, who also heads Stone Bridge High School's baseball team. "And I think it definitely helped promote baseball in Loudoun County. I've been doing a lot of seminars and stuff for the youth leagues, and I can tell you that baseball is now booming in this area."

Loudoun County High School Coach Tom Lucero, who managed the first host team in 1998, agrees that the exposure to such top-quality competition has indeed paid dividends for the area's prep programs.

"For these kids to get the chance to play teams from North Carolina and Georgia and Florida and New York and California and Alabama . . . there is no substitute for that," Lucero said. "It brings great exposure and allows these kids to see who they're competitive against when it comes to going to college or maybe even the pros. And it helps me as a baseball coach, because when kids get a taste of being a part of something like that, they're that much more likely to go out for their high school teams."

Myers said a coach probably will not be named until next spring, and tryouts for the Greater Loudoun team will follow. The tournament is set to begin Aug. 17, 2007.

Extra Points

By Paul Tenorio and Matt Brooks