At Thursday’s Helper City Council meeting a very exciting event coming to Carbon County was announced.
Erica Alford, manager of a Helper baseball team, presented the council members with information about a baseball tournament in mid-August.
The tournament will have 70 baseball teams coming to the area August 11-13. Alford spoke with a man in Richfield that runs the Father’s Day tournament. The man stated that his tournament brings in $500,000 in sales and that tournament has less teams than what will be coming in August.
This will be the first time a tournament has been brought to Carbon County in a couple of years. The last tournament did not have as many teams traveling to play in the area. The hope is that this tournament will become an annual affair. Alford would like to make a good impression on the visiting teams to ensure that this happens. There are seven different age brackets that will be playing. It is Alford’s belief that this will open up relationships with a lot of different people.
“I think this will be good for our kids,” Alford said. “There needs to be positive things for the kids.”
Alford requested permission from the council to use the three fields available in Helper. Carbon High School won’t be using the fields, as will nobody else because the regular season will be over. Council members thought it was a very exciting thing, and it would be wonderful for them to use the fields.
Alford has called hotels, restaurants and local businesses as well as worked with Price City Council member Kathy Hanna-Smith about what needs to be completed. Wellington City still has a lot of work to do on their fields and Carbon’s are not quite done. Carbon County is, however, allowing access to the fairgrounds. Alford also spoke with Emery County about people using Huntington Lake for camping.
With all of the hotels and motels in the area, there are about 750 rooms altogether, and Alford believes that will be sufficient for the people coming in. This tournament will bring a lot of business to restaurants and local businesses. Mayor Ed Chavez simply requested a schedule to know when games would be played.
Concessions will be provided and local cheerleaders are going to volunteer. Money would be donated to their organizations from the tournament in return. Council member Amanda Wheeler stated that the people involved with the tournament are organized and want to make an impression.
The council members urged Alford to contact them if there were any other needs. The use of the fields was unanimously allowed.