St. Michael Highlands Teen Creates End of Summer Sensation

With the summer baseball season now history, and weeks to go before the start of school, some 13-year-old boys start getting up to no good. Not Jack Kelly and his friends, however. This past weekend, the boys, with the help of their parents and even their little sisters, put on their second annual Wiffle ball tournament.

Years back, St. Michael neighbors, John and Becky Kelly and their neighbors Dan and Lori Rankila went in together and bought the empty lot between their homes in the Highlands development.

“We turned it into a baseball field that the boys all use,” Becky explains.

Last summer, a St. Michael Middle School West seventh-grader, Jack, decided it’d be fun to invite some friends over for a Wiffle ball tourney. A year later, it's now at 32 friends.

All of the coordinating and planning took place over e-mail, text and a website Jack, brother Cody and his neighbors Brandon and Jacob put together.

“There are eight teams with four to a team, and we tried making it fair,” Jack explains, “All the teams pick their own names, and there are 15 games throughout the tourney.”

This is no child’s play. Before games began, the boys lined up for the Star Spangled Banner. Jack also has the rules spelled out clearly right next to the brackets. Parents take turns umpiring, and Becky continues to restock the food.

“These boys can eat,” she said, laughing. “I keep having to run to the store, get more of this, make more of that.”

“I think it’s great,” mom Amy Crandall said Friday. “Of all the things these boys could be doing, they are putting together a tournament.”

It’s clear all the parents feel the same. The boys, too, are having fun, being silly, and most of all playing for this year’s traveling trophy.

“This year we got a traveling trophy to pass around to the winner,” Jack shares, “Each player needed to pay $3 to play and that fee goes towards playing, the trophy and their food.”

“It’s so great to see the kids out their having fun together, doing this,” dad John Kelly explains, “I really love watching. And it's also good getting to spend time with our friends.”

The boys lucked out with fantastic weather this year. And the young Fiji Warriors went home with the traveling trophy. Until next summer, that is.