It takes a village

HARTINGTON - The old adage, “it takes a village to raise a child” can easily be applied to hosting a state baseball tournament as was the case with Hartington hosting its first-ever Nebraska Class C Junior American Legion Tournament at Felber Park.

The “Dad” of this village effort was arguably, Don Whitmire, the Post 4 baseball skipper, and the motivator for getting the tournament here, but he was far from the only person that needs a pat on the back.

“This was the entire community and there are so many entities involved, I can’t believe we pulled it off and the amount of people who came to help.”

If not the “Dad” Whitmire was the “chief of delegation” which made everything from the first “National Anthem” to the last pitch a thing the community and the area can hang their collective hats on.

Now, I’m not going to include everyone in what I saw, but believe me, I saw you.

When I asked Whitmire how he had the time to do everything and coach his team, his answer was short and to the point — which is kind of his nature.

“I have great people in charge of every aspect of putting this on,” he said. “And they all did a great job.”

As did Whitmire in his main duty, coaching the Post 4 Juniors to a State runnerup finish, but there was no runner-up in putting on the show. Whitmire’s charges took the proverbial pitch and hit it out of the ball park. Most importantly, the local Legion Post 4 and the VFW were visible with the Colors and at the gate entering the tournament.

American Legion member Bill Christensen, was in every Color Guard during the tournament and gave his two cents on why.

“It is important for us as a Post to stay active, this was a perfect opportunity to do just that,” he said. “The community has always supported us and we wanted to support them back, it just made sense, and we love to help out.”

Post 4 Commander Dean Mc-Gregor, who spent a lot of time at Felber Park over the five-day event, had a more humorous take on the weekend.

“I just think would you rather have your kids stealing second base or stealing a car,” he said. “That’s really not a problem around here but this is a great thing for our kids and for the community to host something like this.”

Corey Uldrich and Kyle Stevens were in charge of the press box.

Uldrich was the official scorekeeper and Stevens was the official voice of the tournament as the PA guy.

“I love baseball and I wanted to help do this the right way,” Uldrich said. “It’s very hard to get a tournament like this but it’s very easy to not get another one, hopefully I helped so we can do this all again.”

Stevens was the “golden” voice for the entire five days.

“I’ll echo what Corey said, I really like baseball and it gives me a chance to give back to the community,” Stevens said. “There’s so many people involved and we all love baseball and we love our community.”

The tournament director, Doug Morrison, played off his roll, saying he had little to do with the tourney’s success.

“I’m just here watching baseball,” he said. “I just kind of dot the “i’s” and cross the “t’s”, it’s been great.”

He did try to take credit for the weather, which despite a 4-inch rain the night before the tournament started, was wonderful.

“That’s right. I was in charge of the weather,” he said. “No, I really enjoy baseball, I enjoy watching baseball, and anything I can do to help these kids have a great experience, I’m all for it.”

Probably one of the busiest people I witnessed during the tournament, maybe THE busiest, was Jennifer Heine.

Heine and her husband Scott have boys playing Legion Baseball and a couple more on the way.

She was in charge of the concession stand and the gate and she was at the park every second I was there...and then some.

Jennifer is the treasurer of the Hartington Baseball Association and was instrumental in the hamburgers and hot dogs I wolfed down during my extended stay in Hartington.

“I want to see baseball stay in the forefront here in Hartington,” she said. “Our family has a passion for baseball and I want to see that flourish for a long time. Don (Whitmire) put the passion in the program and we just want to keep it going.”

In my role as a sports writer, and as just a fan, I’ve been to a lot of state tournaments over the years. I don’t want to discount all of the hard work at the sites I have attended.

Syracuse is a site I recall, Palmer, hard to beat Wakefield (which will host the Class C Seniors later this week), Rushville had a beautiful park, Bennington was nice...but I’ll come back to Hartington and Felber Park tomorrow and every day after if asked.

It’s a gorgeous park and the people of Hartington work hard to keep it that way.