All but one of the teams are set for the 2011 Little League Softball World Series! Tonight, the Canadian championship will be played, with the winner heading to Portland, Oregon, to claim the final berth in this year's championship.
The Canada region final is an all-Windsor, Ontario, affair: Turtle Club LL vs. Windsor South.
Tomorrow, the teams will begin arriving at PDX and will be driven by limo to Alpenrose Dairy. Yes, on the grounds of working dairy facility, within Portland city limits, the world's attention will be focused for about 10 days!
Here is a sky view of Alpenrose, with the main diamond/stadium, two side fields, a quarter-midget car race track, a bicycle velodrome and an old fashioned ice cream parlor (as Alpenrose is the local producer for Baskin Robbins).
Alpenrose sits in the middle of Southwest Portland Little League, and Oregon District 4. All of the local leagues are able to use the fields for baseball and softball during the regular and tournament season.
As soon as the last out is made in the final summer tournament, Mike Hebrard of Athletic Field Design, takes over. Mike and his crew skin the grass from the infield and begin greening the outfield and applying the spray-paint logos from templates he has built.
Staff and volunteers begin touch-up painting and the bleachers are all cleaned. Two years ago, a new and permanent set of bleachers was placed above the first-base side. Those bleachers were from a dealer who salvaged them from the old Seattle Kingdome.
Soon, all the barbeques, trailers and souvenirs will arrive, the noise will pick up, the computers and free onsite wi-fi get fired up and finally, the girls arrive via limo from PDX. It is the moment we all wait for! So much promise and excitement! Hello world ... welcome to Portland and the Little League Softball World Series!
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