Last July the Pacific Southwest Regional Babe Ruth Tournament brought over 1100 people to the area for a week of fun and baseball in Carbon County. It was such a huge success that at the conclusion, Jill Emerson was asked if she would be willing to host again this year, and after some time to recover she said yes. Emerson was recently a guest on Drive Time Sports and when asked what her initial answer was she replied, “I told them to give me a month.”
Emerson who is now the Southern Utah Commissioner for both Cal Ripken and Babe Ruth felt that between their board they could get everything completed, “It is a lot of work but, we’re happy to have it here again”, said Emerson.
Once again teams from all over the west will be coming to Price. There will be three Utah teams, including the host Price team, three from California and then teams from Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii. Over 600 people will come to the area, and last year it was a huge boom for the entire county. Last year alone there was an 86% increase in hotel occupancy during the same period the year before, “Even grocery stores, Hibbet and Big 5, everyone was busy,” said Nicole Steeele tournament co-chair.
All the fun will begin on Sunday the 21, teams will start arriving and they will have check-in at the Carbon County Events Center. After registration they will have a team dinner and then they will head to the softball fields at the county complex to have a skills challenge, including a home run derby and base running.
Also during the week they will get a visit by three former Major League Baseball players. Dave Howard, Doug Howard and Dave Carnahan will stop by and talk with the players, as well as one of them will throw out the first pitch.
Monday the 22 will be the opening ceremonies at 10:00 a.m., and games will start at noon. The Championship game is scheduled for Saturday the 27 at noon as well.
As it was last year all games will be free admission for everyone to attend so come out and enjoy a great week of baseball.
For any questions associated with the tournament you can check out their website:
carbon-pswregionals.com
You can listen to the entire interview by using the player below: