Living the Cinderella Dream in Cooperstown

The 12u South Farmington Blues travel baseball team recently returned from Cooperstown, NY after participating in what has become for the Blues, an annual tradition.

This is the 20th year Cooperstown Dreams Park has run the highly competitive summer tournaments for 12u baseball. They draw 104 teams from around the country each week for 13 weeks during the summer. The tournament structure has an opening ceremony which includes a skills competition, six games of pool play after which teams are seeded for a single elimination tournament.

The Blues had a good showing in the skills competition where each team had players participate in the Road Runner, Golden Arm, Around the Horn Plus and the King of Swat. They barely missed going into the finals in the Road Runner, Golden Arm and the King of Swat. The Blues finished in second place in the Around the Horn plus competition by .19 of a second. Next up for the Blues, six games of pool play.

The six games were scheduled as 3 double headers. In their pool, the Blues faced teams from Pennsylvania, Indiana, Nevada, Florida and California. After some inconsistent but spirited play and a long rain delay, the boys finished with a 3 and 3 record. They were seeded 56th out of 104th. Cinderella was heading to the ball.

The Blues played their first game at 11am against a lower seed. After a slow start, they beat the Green Mountain Rams from Colorado, 16-3. This would be the last time they would be the higher seed in the tournament.

The Blues next opponent was against the slightly higher seeded Pure Baseball Titans from Nevada, in which they were victorious 15-13, in a raucous affair. Next up was the Orinda California Thunder, the 20th seed.

This was the Blues third game and the Thunder’s first on this 85 degree summer day. The Blues trailed from the start and found themselves, in their last at bat, down 5-1. Two outs later, with a runner on, the boys were still losing 5-1 and were facing elimination when they had five consecutive hits, the last being a 3 run homer to give them the lead 7-5. The Thunder scored once more and had the tying runner on base before the Blues closed it out for a 7-6 victory! Cinderella was still dancing and it wasn’t midnight yet.

The Blues had one more game to play that day and it was against the Kansas City Blues, a highly ranked team from Missouri. The KC Blues had held the #1 spot on day two of pool play and the 13th seed for tournament play. The Blues, South Farmington that is, came out swinging. Playing on pure adrenaline and with a nothing to lose mentality, the boys took the lead in the first and never looked back. The score was 7-6 in the fourth inning when the SF Blues scored 6 runs on route to a 16-7 trouncing of their namesakes from Kansas City. The 56th seeded South Farmington Blues were going to the final day of the tournament, outlasting 88 other teams. Geoff Davis, a member of the Dreams Park baseball operations, said although there have been a few lower seeded teams who have won four games in a row to get to the final day, the Blues were very possibly the first from Michigan. Also, this is the first Blues team since 1999 to make it to the sweet sixteen.

Alas the clock finally struck midnight for Cinderella. The boys lost the next game against the East Michigan Muskies, 13-1 and the Blues were eliminated. However, for the rest of their stay, the South Farmington Blues had gained the respect and congratulations of many players and coaches for their run which took them up 40 spots from 56th to sweet 16th. The South Farmington Blues lived the dream at Cooperstown and Cinderella had a grand time at the ball.

For more info on the Blues and next season's 13u tryout info, please check out our link from SFBI or at http://www.sfbluesbaseball.com/