By MARK MAYNARD - The Independent
ASHLAND — The sound of music won’t be the only thing emanating from Central Park this week.
Baseball will also be in the air as the annual Cliff Webb Memorial Fourth of July Tournament takes the stage at shined up Ernie Chattin Field beginning Thursday.
Concert-goers won’t have to worry about wearing hardhats to the shows Thursday and Friday for fear a foul ball might strike them. Baseball games will be finished by 8:30 each night.
The Webb tournament is actually a 2-in-1 event. Six senior teams and six junior teams will be vying for tournament crowns.
Teams will be in pool play Thursday and Friday, setting up a single-elimination tournament on Saturday and Sunday.
The championship games will be played at 5 p.m. (juniors) and 7:30 p.m. (seniors) on Sunday.
Games will be played at Central Park and at Boyd County High School’s Larry Addington Field on Thursday and Friday. All games on Saturday and Sunday will be at the park.
Since Ashland Post 76 coach Paul Lewis has been in charge of the Legion team, the Webb tournament has been for the junior teams only. But a refurbished park field has helped draw the senior teams back.
“In the last six years we’ve not had enough teams wanting to come and play,” he said. “There are so many tournaments to choose from they didn’t want to come this far.”
But this year was different and Lewis credits the new-look field with making the difference. Chattin field got a facelift through a generous donation. It has new dugouts and a new two-story press box. The infield and mound have been redone and the field has an overall cleaner look to it.
“We finally have the reputation built up that they know they can come and compete,” Lewis said. “They’re not going to get bad hops everywhere because of all the work done on the infield. I’ve used that (the field) as a point to try and get them to come in.”
Post 76 comes into the tournament with a 16-4-1 record and just won the Pat Bays Memorial, which was also played in the park. The tournament is played in memory of the former Kenova Post 93 coach. When that Legion team folded, the tournament looked like it was gone, too.
But Lewis invited them to have the tournament in the park.
“We were going to play in it anyway,” he said. “Pat was a friend of mine. I actually talked to him three days before he died (of a massive heart attack). He loved the park. If they had the night off and we were playing in the park, he was there.”
The Sixers will be in a pool with Gallipolis and Paintsville. The other pool has Pikeville, Fairmont Post 17 and Frankfort.
Post 76’s junior team, the Athletics, will be playing with Louisa, Johnson Central, Boyd County, Portsmouth Post 23 and the Huntington Hounds.
Six games are scheduled for Saturday, starting at 9 a.m. and four games will be played Sunday, beginning at noon.
Games begin at 4 p.m. on Thursday and 11 a.m. on Friday.
Post 76, whose 19-player roster has players from Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia, is off to a good start.
“When we started out with Eric Craft, Peyton Martin, Corey Adams and Josh Wilson, I got to thinking, we’ve got the nucleus. Now if we can put some guys around it,” Lewis said.
Robbie Easterling and Tyler Thackston, both from Fairland, Ohio, have been big additions from the junior team. They have added power to the lineup. Last year, Easterling and Thackston both finished in the top five in a home run hitting contest at UK. Easterling actually won the competition. “They were the two youngest kids in the competition,” Lewis said.
Navarrone Alleshouse has been a pleasant addition and Chase Adkins has pitched well in four starts. Wilson, a left-hander from Raceland, has a string of 22 consecutive scoreless innings with 38 strikeouts.
When Kenova Post 93 folded, the Sixers grabbed four players from that roster, including Cody Smith, who has been playing center field. He was a shortstop with Post 93.
“He plays center field like he’s played it forever,” Lewis said. “He’s a beast out there. He’s just an athlete who is going to be good wherever you put him.”
Corey Miller and Loren Huffman have also made contributions, Lewis said.
There have been more college coaches hanging around than ever before, Lewis said. He attributes that to the park’s “cleaner look” and the Sixers’ “growing reputation for producing good baseball players.”
Assistant coaches Gregg Martin and Keith Adams have allowed Lewis more freedom. “They’ve done so much to make things easier for me,” he said.
Steve Darby is the head coach of Post 76’s junior team this summer.
MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.
