Pitching, defense and timely hitting prove vital for Deerfield teams in annual DYBA Wooden Bat Tournament (by Josh Rosenblat)

Baseball is a game of senses: the smell of the freshly cut grass, the feel of the dirt beneath your cleats, the pop of the catcher’s glove after the pitcher hurls a fastball towards home plate.  It is a universal game.  From the small diamonds where pre-schoolers struggle to make contact off a rubber tee to the packed stadiums of Major League teams, the sounds and smells are all roughly the same.

There is one different sound, though, and it lies in one particular and essential piece of equipment: the bat.  While youth baseball fields are often filled with the “ping” of aluminum bats, for one weekend in June these metallic noises are replaced with the traditional crack of a wooden baseball bat.  For the past 11 years, the Deerfield Youth Baseball Association has dialed back the clock on Father’s Day weekend for its annual Wooden Bat Tournament.

“I think it’s important for the kids to play baseball closer to the way it was invented and the way it was played back when their parents were kids,” Paul Chanan, the DYBA’s co-director of travel baseball and Wooden Bat Tournament director, said.  “It brings back a lot of nostalgia for the parents [of the players] and it’s just something that’s fun and interesting for the kids.”

The use of wood bats, as opposed to aluminum or other metallic materials, can put a damper on high-scoring slugfests as hitting for power becomes more difficult.   According to Chanan, this puts a premium on “small-ball” and placing a higher priority on pitching and defense.

In the 10-and-under division, the Deerfield Warriors 10 Red team relied on their defense as they rolled through the tournament.  According to manager Terry Platt’s post on the DYBA website, the Warriors gave up 14 hits over the five-game tournament while committing only 4 errors.  In the championship game against the Northwest Nationals, the Warriors surrendered only two hits in their 7-2 victory.  Tyler Nagelbach, Chris Dawson, Justin Fine and Don Nagle each pitched in the win.

For the Deerfield Warriors 11 Red team, the lack of runs was not an issue as the team, coach Todd Rubin says, is built on pitching depth and defense.  In their second game of the tournament, pitchers Billy Agins and Matthew Dawson tossed a combined perfect game in an 8-0 win over Elk Grove.

In preparation for the tournament, Rubin said that most coaches would prepare using wood bats in practice, but he didn’t want to place too much emphasis on the equipment change.

“In essence we never picked up a wood bat or used a wood bat prior to our first game in the tournament,” Rubin, who coached in his eighth Wooden Bat Tournament this season, said.  “Part of the reason I don’t spend a lot of time with the wood bats is because this is a special weekend in which we use wood bats and we don’t do it the rest of the year and I don’t want the players thinking that it is that much different.  I don’t want them taking a different approach at the plate. I kind of want them approaching like every other at bat and not using the wood bat as an excuse.”

The event included teams competing in brackets from ages eight to 14 and according to Chanan it is the only wooden bat tournament of its kind in the area.

Along with the Deerfield Warriors 11 and 10 Red teams, a third Deerfield team won the nine-and-under division.

Over the course of the tournament, coaches are constantly figuring out ways for their teams to generate runs without the aid of an aluminum bat. One of the ways this is done is through timely hitting.

In the Deerfield Warriors 9 Red team’s opener against Highland Park Black, the two teams headed into the fifth inning in a scoreless tie. In the top half of the inning, the Warriors, led by manager Gregg Orloff, exploded for five runs driven in by Andrew Colman, Benny Skolnik, Ben Bernstein, Corey Cozza and Jordon Goodhart en route to their Wooden Bat Tournament title.

Along with the three winning teams from Deerfield, the Horner Park Highlanders won the eight-and-under division, Select Baseball won the 12-and-under division, the Lake County Lightning Gold won the 13-and-under division and the Palatine Red Demons won the 14-and-under division.