BELOIT — To the inner old schooler in Beloit Youth Baseball Association president Matt Huffman, it doesn’t get much better than hearing the noise that a wooden bat creates on a hot summer day.
“For the older people, myself included, there’s a little bit of nostalgia with it,” Huffman said. “And when a kid squares one up and you hear that crack, there’s lots of ‘ooos’ or ‘wows.’ There’s just something special about it.”
It will be like a sweet-sounding symphony at the Stateline YMCA Youth Sports Complex as the BYBA, whose youth level teams are known as the Bombers, will host its traditional Wood Bat Classic on Saturday and Sunday.
“It’s something that was going on before Beloit youth baseball formed, and we’ve continued to do it throughout the years,” Huffman said. “I want to say we’re only one of a couple in the area. I believe Elkhorn does one, and I think Milwaukee does one for older kids, but it’s probably been going on in Beloit for the last 10 to 15 years.”
The tournament’s divisions this summer are 9U through 14U and it is a round-robin style of play with each team playing each other at least once on Saturday. The teams are then seeded based on the first day’s results, the top squad gets an automatic spot in the semifinal round, before a championship game is held.
And of course, the special part of it all is that in a world of pricey metal bats, all of the batters are swinging traditional wooden sticks instead.
“Over the years we’ve purchased a ton of wood bats, so we supply a ton of them,” Huffman said. “This will be our third year with a company called Keep Swinging Stix out of (Palatine, Ill.). A guy named Pete Miller reached out and asked if he could work with us. So, he gives us a sponsorship fee every year, sends out a form, and they do custom bats. It’s kind of like a garage type setting. They come on site, sell bats in different colors and all sorts of stuff. So, kids can certainly buy their own. It’s something different.”
Kids are also welcome to bring their own, and to help get ready for the tournament all of the Bombers teams bust out the wood bats from the storage shed to practice with them.
“We pray for good weather and hope we have some exciting games,” Huffman said. “Last year, we actually had a couple kids in 12U hit three or four home runs with them, so that was kind of neat. And we also say if you break them, you get to take them home as a souvenir.”
While some lower numbers in 9U may force it to go from a tournament to a triangular or doubleheader, Huffman said the other divisions sport nice numbers with 21 out of town teams coming in to combine with the Bombers’ nine teams participating to make it 30 total squads.
“Lake Geneva and Monroe are coming,” he added. “Monroe always treats us well. They do tournaments that we go to. Lake in the Hills must think we do a pretty good job, this is the third or fourth time I remember seeing a team from their program.
“I haven’t seen Lodi in a while, but they’re back. Oregon’s coming back. We have some teams from the Roscoe area. Belvidere’s coming this year and we haven’t had them before. Clinton’s coming and there’s a couple of Edgerton teams. So that’s about 12 to 14 different cities that are coming.”
The tournament also provides the BYBA with the opportunity to attract more teams to its youth sports complex, a goal that Huffman has for future tournaments they host.
“We always send out a survey at the end of each tournament that says ‘Hey, what did you like? What did you dislike?’ And honestly, we’ll send it out to 35 teams and get 3 or 4 responses. But I get it. In most cases the pros are great facilities, the parking is spread out, you don’t have to park in a giant lot and walk forever. Facility wise, everything’s great.
“One team was at our first tournament (the Bombers’ season-opening bash) and asked ‘Hey, you got a spot in your wood bat? We’d love to come back.’”
Huffman also expressed gratitude for the volunteers who come out to make sure all of the fields are ready for play, a rarity in a world where many tournaments would just cancel due to wet conditions.
“This May at our season opening bash, we had rain and all of the afternoons on dirt fields were canceled,” he continued. “We played our turf games. And while those were going we had 20 volunteers out there with vacuums and and working through one in the morning. With the volunteers being able to donate their time and do things like that, it’s been outstanding.”
The 13U and 11U Bombers won titles at the event last season, and while Huffman said that parents and kids love winning on their home turf, especially when it comes with a slick engraved wooden bat trophy made by Jason DeZwarte of Brody Trophy in Janesville, he just loves to see the progress that the young are making.
“As an organization, you just pride yourselves on the kids getting better throughout the year. Being able to have a few champions certainly is fantastic. And it’s great for the program. There’s always a sense of pride when you’re able to, to take that picture at the end of the tournament.
“But, our goal is to get better and better, and we’ve been seeing it. Our 10U won one game last year in an entire 30-something game season, and they’ve already gotten a second place and 3 or 4 wins.”
The president of the BYBA added that the growth that the organization is seeing since the pitfalls of the pandemic has been steadily increasing.
“Beloit baseball has always had a rich tradition for many years,” Huffman said. “When the legion program combined with Janesville after Covid while we got ourselves back on our feet, we made it a goal to to get together and try and get boys baseball back on top and our summer program, like it used to be. We’re getting there. We’re building a strong program, and that’s our ultimate goal is to get more and more kids involved and doing tournaments like this.
“One of the things we battle is we say we’re traveling baseball, and a lot of people, when they hear that, think thousands of dollars. We’re as cheap as they get anywhere in the state because we fundraise well. We want to make this sport in our area affordable for everybody.”
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