All-American Weekend

This past weekend I got to experience the much anticipated annual Rotan Fourth of July softball tournament. As long as I've been intertwined with the Rotan clan, I've heard much build up about this event. The tournament started many moons ago as a church softball tournament.



The rules have changed every year. As it grew, it went from Rotanians only, to Rotanians and their family, to at least one person on your team had to be from Rotan, to one Rotanian and a person with a barbwire tatoo, to open to anyone.

Family, friends, food, fireworks and softball - that's what this weekend is all about.


It certainly lived up to the legend.


The Nanny Goats' first game was at 8am Saturday morning. It was a beautiful, sunny 4th of July morning.


Our team, made up of Kennedys, Rotan natives and Byron's friends from college who have made it their yearly ritual to play in this tournament, won our first game with ease, 22-3.


We were supposed to play again that day at 6pm. That left us with plenty of time to hit the pool and eat ourselves silly...which I did.

When game time rolled around, so did these clouds.

About two innings into our second game in the tournament, it came a flood. We thought it was a normal summer West Texas thunderstorm, but what it turned out to be was a monsoon.


We ran onto the field to start the third inning just in time to race back into the dugout to seek shelter from pounding rain and crazy lightening. We stayed put in the dugout trying to wait it out until finally there was no end in sight for the rain.


So, the only natural thing to do is to go eat a ton of BBQ. And that's what we did. "Big Donnie" and Sheila Gruben host a BBQ at their house every 4th of July. It's likely the best food I've ever put in my stomach.


It rained the rest of the afternoon and most of the night leaving about 4 inches of water on the ground and rearranging the tournament's schedule. The "coaches" from all 16 teams in the tourney met and agreed upon a new schedule that would involve a "hurry up" style of game to get caught up on the games canceled due to the monsoon. People come from all over the place to play in this tournament and they take it very seriously, so there was no way this thing was going to be canceled completely.


The next day, we played the rest of our second game at 10:30 after another heavy shower.



The field, surprisingly, held up well. We won our second game, but lost our third game in the double elimination tournament. The hurry-up style meant you went to the plate with a full count. A foul was an automatic out.


Our fourth game was going to be a 4pm. But another ridiculously heavy rain sat in and finally saturated the field past its limits. Teams played in the standing water and thick mud.


The rain and mud made it a whole new game. But it was fun.



We even had some scrapes from slides and hustle plays.


We played three straight games, including the championship game. One team we beat to get to the title game was the usual team that Team Kennedy, aka the Nanny Goats, finds itself dualing it out for the championship. We beat them 9-4, and let me tell you, that's saying something, because these people play softball practically every hour of their lives. I'm sure of it. They're hard core.


By the time the championship game rolled around, the skies were beginning to clear and the field was attempting to dry out, but with little success.


The championship game was a tight one. We lost to the team that handed us our first loss in the tournament by a mere run. We were awarded t-shirts that say "First Place Losers". They're bright pink and somewhat insulting, but we had a blast.


This is likely the greatest group of people you could ever ask to have on a team. Everyone played hard and had fun doing it.


The only thing that was missing was Ray Charles singing "America, The Beautiful". It was truly an all American experience.