Sports

I am pleased to announce the second annual Wetzel Chronicle Relay For Life Benefit Softball Tournament will get underway at 6 p.m., June 12 with the host team taking on the Wetzel County Hospital Varsity at Bruce Park.
Each team that enters this have-fun slowpitch event may send 15 batters to the plate every inning and can send up to two additional batters for $5 each. Fans in attendance can get involved by coming to bat once an inning, also for $5 each. Each team can play 10 in the field and may substitute freely. To keep the game moving, batters come to the plate with three balls and two strikes.
The team scoring the most runs after a 1:15 time limit per game is the winner.
There are two pool brackets with the top two teams with the most wins moving on to the championship playoffs on Sunday. This is a fun tournament and rules to keep it fun will be applied, as needed. There will be a Home Run Derby set for 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 14, with a $5 entry fee per batter.
Each batter in the derby picks his own pitcher and gets 10 pitches. The top five batters with the most home runs will go to the next round in which all participants get 10 pitches with the top two hitters competing in a championship.
I became involved in Relay For Life because I am one of the people whose life has been touched by the deadly disease. My father died from cancer. My grandmother lost both breasts to the disease and a couple of my uncles passed away because of it. My step-father had cancer and died from it, as have many members of my church family.
Relay For Life remembers them and recognizes cancer survivors who have endured the fear, pain, and often the indignities that the disease brings with it.
The softball tournament is just one of many fund raising events all over the country that will help fight cancer.
In addition, the Wetzel Chronicle is selling DVDs containing images of the past several years of Relay events in New Martinsville. The discs will be available June 19 at this year’s Relay. The newspaper also is sponsoring a scavenger hunt on June 18, which will be detailed in this issue’s Judy’s Views, page 9A.