Fastpitch softball is once again finding a place in the busy Quad-Cities summer sports schedule.
The area will host the International Softball Congress Men's World Fastpitch Tournament starting Saturday at the Green Valley Sports Complex in Moline.
This will be the third time in five years the biggest event in the sport has been held in the area.
"The Quad-Cities is a great location in the Midwest," ISC executive director Larry Fisher said. "They have a great organization in the Quad-Cities' Convention and Visitor's Bureau. They're used to running this kind of event and they make it very easy for us do our thing."
The tournament used to be a staple in the area, held in Rock Island from 1961 to 1969, and again in 1973. It wasn't held here again until fan support brought it back to the area in 2009, and then again in 2011.
"There was renewed interest from the local fastpitch community," tournament director Lynn Hunt said. "There were people in Walcott who wanted to see the tournament come back and the Quad-Cities' Convention and Visitor's Bureau and Sports Commission really ramped up our efforts in identifying large tournaments that could provide a positive economic impact on the community."
The bureau knows that the ISC expects new things every year, and hopes to grow from its previous experiences. In addition to the world tournament, the area will once again host the 50-plus Legends tournament, as well as its first U-21 tournament.
The logistics of hosting three separate tournaments at the same site in the same week is simplified due to the layout of the sports complex, which has six softball fields.
"Their sports complex is kind of unique," Fisher said. "With the size of our tournament, sometimes we'll have a couple miles between facilities. In the Quad-Cities, everything's right there."
In addition to the extra tournament, the bureau also hopes to add to the overall experience of the tournament.
"In our preliminary meetings with the ISC commissioners, the thing they charged us with was to step up the wow factor," event coordinator Amie Stahler said. "One thing that we did was to expand our opening ceremonies. We're incorporating every flag that's represented by a player in the tournament and we have players represented from nine different countries so our theme this year is 'The Quad-Cities Welcomes the World.'"
The tournament will also feature live music and amenities such as a beer garden and a Taste of the Quad-Cities booth, which will provide food from a variety of Quad-City restaurants.
The tournament itself should provide fans with great fastpitch softball. The three-time defending champion Hallman Twins — last year known as the Jarvis Travelers — from Jarvis, Ont., return, bringing back their star Donny Hale. Hale won tournament MVP honors last year by winning the tournament triple crown with a .579 batting average, six home runs and a tournament record 17 runs batted in.
Also returning are the Hill United Chiefs from Six Nations, Ont. The Chiefs lost to the Travelers 8-6 in eight innings in the championship game.
The 48-team field includes additional teams from Canada, two from Venezuela and several from around the country, including three area teams — the American Family Insurance/Subway Titans of Eldridge and the Walcott Merchants and Lampliter Inn teams of Walcott, Iowa.
The Quad-Cities hasn't had an area team win the tournament since Harrelson Motors of Moline in 1967, and hasn't had a team finish higher than third since 1972.
"We're hoping that our host teams perform well," Stahler said. "It is some hard competition with such a strong following and such a strong feeder program in Canada and some of the other areas, but to have one of the host teams win would put the Quad-Cities on the map in terms of fastpitch."
