Miller Forty-fives Wins Forest Park 'No Glove'

Champions Go 5-0 To Win The 39th Annual Invitational Tournament

2007 Forest Park 'No Glove' Champions - Miller Firty-fives

Photo By Mr. Jack Stout

FOREST PARK: The Miller Forty-fives ran the table against a field of twenty four teams going a perfect 5-0 to win the 39th Annual Forest Park 'No Glove' National Tournament held at the Forest Park District fields on July 26th through 29th. Windy City Softball (4-2) finished in second place with Mudville (4-2) taking home third place and Maxim (3-2) was fourth. Rounding out the top ten finishers were; in a tie for fifth place were both Entourage (4-2) and Punch (5-2) with both the Longshots (4-2) and Universal Iron (2-2) finishing in a tie for seventh place. With a four-way tie for ninth place being earned by Hype (1-2), Tilt (2-2), Impact (1-2) and Wallace (2-2).
The 39th Annual Forest Park 'No Glove' National Tournament was dedicated to the memory of Lorraine Popelka who had volunteered her time many times over the years making this tournament a great success that teams and players look forward to having the opportunity to in year after year.
The Miller Forty-fives received one of the eight first round byes for placing in the top eight teams from the previous year so their first game played was on Friday night against the Dogg Pound. The Miller Forty-fives looked sharp right out of the gate winning 17-3 to advance into Saturday afternoon's round of eight. The Dogg Pound had opened play on Thursday evening with a first round game against Traffic and posted a narrow 10-9 victory onto the bracket board to advance into this second round contest against the Miller Forty-fives.
The Miller Forty-fives won their third round game on Saturday afternoon when they upended Impact in a close game 9-8 to advance into Saturday evening's semifinal round of the winner's bracket. Impact made it to the third round of play undefeated by opening with a first round bye before stopping Monsoon 14-2 in the second round of play to earn the right to oppose the Miller Forty-fives in the third round of play in the winner's bracket.
With only four team still alive in the winner's bracket the Miller Forty-fives and Mudville took the field to play with the Miller Forty-fives getting the better of it winning 11-2 to advance into Sunday afternoon's game between the last two remaining unbeaten teams left in this tournament. Mudville made it to this semifinal game by opening with a first round bye before stopping the Longshots 4-3 in the second round on Friday night. On Saturday afternoon it was Mudville over Universal Iron 13-1 to put the Mudville ball club into this semifinal game of the winner's bracket playing against the Miller Forty-fives.
On Sunday afternoon with the last two remaining unbeaten teams taking the field to challenge one another the Miller Forty-fives looked into the other dugout and saw the Windy City Softball club. The Miller Forty-fives were all business in this game winning 14-6 over Windy City Softball to become the lone unbeaten team left in the bracket.
Now the Miller Forty-fives ball club had to sit and wait until all the loser's bracket games had been played to their conclusion before knowing which team would survive to be their challenger in the 39th Annual Forest Park 'No Glove' National Invitational Tournament. And when the dust settled back down on the field of play a rematch of the undefeated game played earlier in that day was on tap for the Miller Forty-fives as they would be playing Windy City Softball for the second time o this Sunday.

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