I didn't make it down to Marcus Hook last night. But, thankfully, the Daily Times did.
I'm not talking about the newspaper. We always deliver the goods to the Hook, which is in the heart of our circulation area.
I'm talking about softball.
For the last quarter century, it has been one of the unshakable signs that summer was drawing to an end.
That's when the boys - and girls - of summer would arrive in the Hook to settle the burning question of just who the best softball teams in the county were.
Or, as we used to call it, "The Best by Test."
For the 31st consecutive year, we delivered the Champs 'N' Charity Classic. This year we were joined by Sunoco Logistics. They're the people who are trying to breathe new life into the old Sunoco refinery which now sits as forlorn in the borough it once defined. Sunoco Logistics is looking to bring a number of offshoots from the state's Marcellus Shale boom to the old refinery.
Along the way they managed to breathe new life into our charity softball tournament as well. The key word in that sentence is charity.
That's been the heart of our endeavors since we started this little shindig more than 25 years ago.
It almost didn't happen.
In fact, we announced earlier this summer that the tournament would be taking a sabbatical. There were a lot of reasons for that decision. Let's just say these are challenging times for the newspaper industry and leave it at that.
To say the news was not well received would be an understatement.
It wasn't that people were upset that there would be no tournament. They could live with that. They were ticked that a charity close to their heart - the battle against cancer - would miss out.
As one reader informed me in a Facebook post: The battle against cancer doesn't take a year off.
He was right. That same sentiment was echoed for several days.
That's when a lot of people put their heads together and managed to salvage a very important event in this county.
It's one of the rites of summer.
And even though a family commitment kept me from my annual trek to the Hook, I'm glad the Daily Times - and the Champs 'N' Charity Classic - made it one more time.
By the way, kudos to E.J. Hosbach/UBBIBC, which pulled off a sweep of Dolan's to rise from the loser's bracket to take the men's crown. You can read all about it here.
And also to the ladies from Guaranteed Plumbing, which took the women's title.
I promise to be back next summer.
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