Oskaloosa “B” All Stars Tournament Plays Out In The Heat

Osky Yellow Jackets take a break between games on Saturday.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – With the late summer heat beating down with full intensity, one would not expect to see little league baseball. Even with football dreams and practice on everyone’s minds, these youngsters made use of their skills one more time for the season.

So 9U (9 and under) and 10U (10 and under) teams from Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Fairfield and Des Moines battled it out in the heat one more time.

“Getting more experience on the ball field” is a major reason for today’s tournament says John Visser. He went on to explain that many of these kids wanted to continue with baseball, and that was a big reason for having such a late season tournament.

The first year tournament helped to raise funds for next years little league, with 8 teams having signed up for the day. 4 teams signed up for 9U and then 4 more for the 10U.

Visser said he would like to make this an annual event, with it growing next year to 3 different tournaments, after the end of regular little league and Babe Ruth is done. The first week would be a 9U, then the following would be a 10U and ending up with a 12U.

Visser said his desire in helping to form this tournament stems from a lack of opportunity when he was younger, and he wanted to provide a way for those that might not be part of the regular all star teams a way to continue to develop. “That’s what my kids are about, kids that didn’t really get to play on the all star team that much, those that didn’t get to go to all stars.” Visser said of the team he was helping to coach that day.

Visser said he would like to thank Kathy Butler and Jeremy Haines for their work in helping to make the day possible.