Best of the West tournament Director David Blackburn has been at the helm of the longest running Men’s Open tournament in California for 13 of its 20 years, seeing it through some of its leaner years, and back, including last year’s largest field of teams ever. The tournament has been hosted in several different cities over its twenty year run.
(Best of the West tournament director David Blackburn shown at right, also brought streaming audio and video broadcasts to men’s fastpitch)
The tournament was established by longtime fastpitch booster Al Ruegsegger, whose Culver City teams hosted the fabled Long Beach Nitehawks in their heyday. Ruegsegger was in the business of manufacturing baseball uniforms, and also providing them as wardrobe to Hollywood for the string of baseball movies that we have all seen — Field of Dreams, The Natural Bull Durham, A League of their Own. A perfect match for a men’s fastpitch team.
When the Long Beach Nitehawks finally shuttered their operations in the 1980’s after decades of play, it was Ruegsegger and Long Beach sports booster Al Savala who came along and established a top level open team, the Long Beach Painters. (taking its name from the painting business run by Savala). The Painters kept Long Beach on the fastpitch map, competing against the best teams of its day.
The image above is from my old T-shirt from the 2nd Best of the West in 1992
Ruegsegger saw the the Best of the West tournament as a “win-win-win”. First and foremost, it was a way to bring the best teams from the western region to Long Beach for the fans to see play. When the number of open level teams began to dwindle, teams found themselves traveling greater distances to compete, and hosting fewer and fewer home games. Local Long Beach fans would read about players like pitching legend Peter Meredith, of Utah’s Larry Miller Toyota, but didn’t get the opportunity to see them play in person.
Best of the West changed that. Meredith was the headliner on the marquee in those first few years of Best of the West. Meredith was truly larger than life, both in stature and in the pitching circle. Local players — even those not playing in the tournament came out to see him pitch, and to watch teams like his Larry Miller Toyota squad from Salt Lake City, Utah compete. After the games on Saturday, a good portion of that crowd wandered down to a local watering hole, with Meredith standing head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd, piquing the curiosity of locals who knew little about men’s fastpitch. Top flite fastpitch had returned to Long Beach.
The other parts of Ruegsegger’s “win-win-win” formula for Best of the West were focused on the players. For his own team, it was a chance to host some great competition in their own backyard, and do it for the entire weekend, to allow the families and friends to see the team without going on the road with them. And finally, it opened a window on fastpitch’s past, for players to compete on hallowed ground on which the Long Beach Nitehawks had played for decades, enroute to their record 10 ISC World titles. Joe Rodgers Field was “old school”, the way Wrigley Field or Fenway Park are to baseball. There were, of course, shinier, fancier places to play, but none could boast the history of Joe Rodgers Field.
Tournaments come and tournaments go, so when the Long Beach Painters team closed up shop, the future of the Best of the West was uncertain. David Blackburn — a pitcher on Ruegsegger’s Painter team for a number of year stepped forward to keep the tournament alive. It was about the same time that Blackburn was making his mark on the fastpitch world, in bringing streaming audio broadcasts to the International Softball Congress World tournament. Blackburn grew up playing fastpitch – something he continues to do to this day, and gave back to the game by helping to promote it. After seven years, Ruegsegger handed the baton to David Blackburn, who has extended its run for nearly twice that long, taking it to its 20th anniversary this year.
Joe Rodgers Field underwent renovation, and then became more expensive a venue, used more for movie shoots than ballgames.
To keep things rolling along, David Blackburn took the Best of the West tournament on the road. Among its homes were Burbank, CA (1999), Palmdale, CA (2000, 2001, including the first ever streaming audio broadcasts), the new fields built on the Soboba Indian reservation in San Jacinto CA (2002, 2003), and, then later the fields of a remote little town in the California desert called Winchester (2004, 2005)
(Photographer Bob Otto)
A bit of my personal history is intertwined with the Best of the West tournament. I was privileged to play in the first few, as a member of the Vista Bombers. (A remnant of a souvenir T-shirt of mine from ’92 is shown above.) In 2001, tournament director David Blackburn invited me to Palmdale to help with “something new” – streaming audio broadcasts that he had been experimenting with. Dave’s work with streaming audio would soon become known to all of the fastpitch world, just months later, at the 2001 ISC World Tournament. After helping Dave that day with the Best of the West broadcasts, I drove back to El Segundo, California, to pitch in a Saturday night doubleheader for the El Segundo Rounders. My teammate and friend, pitcher Kevin Tantlinger was battling cancer at the time and was unable to make it to the games, so I wound up throwing both ends of the doubleheader. A bit fatigued late in the second game, I caught a cleat and landed on my wrist, breaking it. A week later, cast on my arm, I was relegated to the announcer’s booth at the Rounders’ own tournament, sitting with the girl I had invited to the tournament. Her name? Maddy. Yes, that Maddy. She brought her camera that day, took a few shots. The rest, as they say, is history.
The earlier years of the Best of the West tournament were preserved through the work of ISC photographer Bob Otto, (shown above).
Since 2006, the tournament has been hosted in Santa Barbara, an beautiful, upscale resort city in sunny Southern California, where it seems to have found a more permanent home, one very popular with players, their families and fans. (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010)
Beautiful Elings Park ballfields overlooking the Pacific ocean at Santa Barbara, home to the Best of the West tournament
A former teammate of David Blackburn, pitcher Mark Bennett and his father Clyde serve as a “host family” of sorts, reveling in an opportunity to share their little piece of paradise with the fastpitch world once a year. One need go no further than Facebook to see the chatter amongst players and fans, to know that they are looking forward to the weekend in Santa Barbara.
Canadian Sean Whitten (shown in photo above) is among them. He’ll be escaping less hospitable weather up north, and enjoying his moment in the sun, in more ways than one. Whitten is one of the hardest throwers in the game today. Last year, he pitched for team Canada in the ISF World Championships, coming away with a bronze medal.
Later in summer, he pitched his Midwest Stampede team to a fourth place finish in a dog-fight of an ISC World tournament last year, earning All World honors for his efforts. As New Zealander Jeremy Manley was at last year’s tournament, Whitten will likely be the guy to watch. He is the guy who can “bring it”, the one that the top hitters want to face, to see if they are up to the challenge of facing one of the world’s best — the way they did in the early days of the Best of the West tournament, when New Zealander Peter Meredith was in town.
Whitten will be in the circle for the defending Best of the West champions, the California Athletics, ranked # 5 in the ISC World pre-season rankings.
2010 will mark the sixth consecutive year that photographer Maddy Flanagan (shown in photo above) will be on on hand to capture all the action. (Click links to her galleries: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009)
Best of the West founder Allan Ruegsegger is pleased to see the tournament he founded twenty years ago still thriving. As he has for so many years, Ruegsegger is once again providing the awards and “gear” to award winners that will be given out on Sunday afternoon, when the Best of the West crowns it’s 2010 champion – its’ 20th.
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Past Best of the West Champions
2009 – California Athletics (Taylor Farms sponsor), Salinas, CA
2008 – Italian Athletic Club/Team Rainey, Stockton, CA
2007 – Innovative Communications, Salt Lake City, UT
2006 – Hi Desert Dawgs, Salt Lake City, UT
2005 – So Cal Bombers, Yucaipa, CA
2004 – Team Rainey, Whittier, CA
2003 – Team Rainey, Whittier, CA
2002 – Team Rainey, Whittier, CA
2001 – Larry Miller Toyota, Salt Lake City, UT
2000 – Larry Miller Toyota, Salt Lake City, UT
1999-1991 – Researching….
The list of teams and schedule of games for the 2010 Best of the West Tournament is below.
Saturday June 5 Schedule
Game 1 9:00 AM Field #1 Liberty Fastpitch Vs Caribbean Fastpitch
Game 2 9:00 AM Field #2 Bakersfield SilverHawks Vs Rude Pac
Game 3 11:00 AM Field #1 Maccabi USA Vs Santa Cecelia / Mexicali
Game 4 11:00 PM Field #3 Cal State Builders Vs Caribbean fastpitch
Game 5 11:00 AM Field #2 California Atletics Vs Italian Athletic Club
Game 6 1:00 PM Field #1 Liberty Fastpitch Vs Maccabi USA
Game 7 1:00 PM Field #1 Santa Cecelia / Mexicali Vs Cal State Builders
Game 8 1:00 PM Field #2 Bakersfield SilverHawks Vs Italian Athletic Club
Game 9 3:00 PM Field #1 Liberty Fastpitch Vs Cal State Builders
Game 10 3:00 PM Field #3 Caribbean Fastpitch Vs Santa Cecelia / Mexicali
Game 11 3:00 PM Field #2 Rude Pac Vs California Athletics
Game 12 5:00 PM Field #1 Caribbean Fastpitch Vs Maccabi USA
Game 13 5:00 PM Field #2 Bakersfield SilverHawks Vs California Athletics
Game 14 5:00 PM Field #3 Rude Pac Vs Italian Athletic Club
Sunday June 6 Schedule
Game 15 8:00 AM Field #1 9th Place Vs 6th Place
Game 16 8:00 AM Field #2 8th Place Vs 7th Place
Game 17 10:00 AM Field #1 1st Place Vs Winner of Game 15
Game 18 10:00 AM Field #2 2nd Place Vs 5th Place
Game 19 10:00 AM Field #3 3rd Place Vs 4th Place
Game 20 Noon Field #1 Winner of Game #16 Vs Winner of Game #17
Game 21 Noon Field #2 Winner of Game #18 Vs Winner of Game #19
Game 22 2:00 PM Field #1 Championship Game – Winner of Game 20 vs Winner of G21
Game 23 2:00 PM Field #2 Only if necessary to determine 2nd ISC Berth