Miller Forty-fives Wins Forest Park

Double Dip Maxim At 38th Annual 'No Glove Nationals'

Photo by Jack Stout

FOREST PARK: The Miller Forty-fives (6-1) won the title at the 38th Annual Forest Park 'No Glove National' Tournament played at the Forest Park diamonds on July 27th through 30th. The champions were upended in the winner's bracket finals by Maxim (4-2) before rebounded to win three straight games including a double dipping of Maxim to take the title away from Maxim. Maxim finished in second place with the Bucketheads (4-2) finished in third place with Mudville (5-2) taking home fourth place. Finishing in a fifth place tie were both the Lemonheads (4-2) and Binge (2-2) with the final two first round byes in the 2007 39th Annual 'No Gloves National Tournament' going to both Outsiders (3-2) and Impact (2-2).
The Miller Forty-fives received a first round bye before taking on and defeating the Longshots 8-0 in the second round played on Friday evening. The Longshots had posted a 5-3 win over the Lemonheads on Thursday night to advance into this second round game with the Miller Forty-fives on Friday evening.
On Saturday evening the Miller Forty-fives and stopped Steel Gold 11-2 to advance into a semifinal game that was played later that evening on Saturday. Steel Gold made it to this third round game against the Miller Forty-fives by opening with a first round bye before taking on and defeating Jelly 10-8 in the second round of play on Friday night. Jelly had beaten Monsoon from Iowa 13-12 on Thursday evening to move into their second round game with Steel Gold.
In the last game on Saturday nigh the Miller Forty-fives and Binge tangled with one another and it was all the Miller Forty-fives as they won big posting an 14-1 win onto the bracket board to move into Sunday's afternoon's undefeated game in the winner's bracket. Binge had received a first round bye before stopping Hype 7-1. Hype had beaten March Manufacturing 13-9 on Thursday evening to advance into this game with Binge. In the second round it was Binge over Traffic 9-1 to put Binge into the semifinal of the winner's bracket and setting up their game with the Miller Forty-fives on Saturday evening. Traffic had stopped the Young Guns 16-4 in the second round after receiving a first round bye to get to their game against Binge at the 38th Annual Forest Park 'No Glove National Tournament'.
On Saturday afternoon the Miller Forty-fives ball club dug themselves a hole early in the game against Maxim and could not recover in time as they lost to Maxim 7-5 to drop them into the loser's bracket finals where they met the Bucketheads. The Miller Forty-fives found themselves trailing the Bucketheads 2-1 entering the seventh inning of play when they reached down inside to find that something extra that all champions have as the scored three time to pull out an improbable 4-2 win to earn the right to oppose Maxim in the finals of the 2006 'Forest Park No Glove National Tournament'.
The Miller Forty-fives squad took advantage of their second chance and turned the table on Maxim winning 6-3 to force the playing of the 'if necessary game' between these two ball club in order to determine which of them would be the king of the hill at the '38th Annual Forest Park No Gloves National 16" Softball Tournament'.

Continued: