By Kenton Brooks
Johnny Teehee was upset.
He was on his way to play with his Muskogee Police Department team in an adult men’s softball tournament, yet again on the other side of the state.
He figured he had enough — enough with the travel.
“I got mad because we have a nice complex (Love-Hatbox Field) here,” the deputy chief of police said. “All of the state tournaments are on the western side of the state. It didn’t make sense to me for someone not to take advantage of the kind of facilities we have.”
Teehee contacted the Oklahoma chapter of the American Softball Association and it awarded him an adult men’s and co-ed tournament classifiers over two weekends later this month.
A classifier is a tournament that determines what classification a team will be in for the state tournaments later this summer. The Muskogee Police Department team played in a Class B tournament at Lawton last summer.
“This is the first time for a tournament like this to be in Muskogee in 15 years or maybe as long as 20,” Teehee said.
The men’s tournament will be July 10-12 and the co-ed tourney is July 19-21.
Entry fee for both is $150. Money paid for entering will be used to buy trophies, pay the umpires and the tournament staff. Any money remaining will be divided in half between the local chapter of Crime Stoppers and the police department’s softball team. Private donations fund Crime Stoppers.
“No one individual will be making money from the tournaments,” Teehee said, adding a $300 fee had to be paid to the OASA to have the classifiers in Muskogee.
“Not only will the tournaments bring people to town, they will help the local economy by spending the night and eating here,” he said. “We have four adult-sized fields on the south end of Love-Hatbox. It should be pretty neat. Muskogee is also centrally located and that should help draw teams.”
Teehee said he’s already heard from teams in Hugo that want to participate in the men’s tournament.
“If these (classifiers) go well, we’re going to put in for a state tournament next year,” he said.
Entry deadlines are July 8 and July 15 for the men’s and co-ed tourneys, respectively. For information, contact Teehee at 681-0668.
