The biggest weekend in Victoria has come and gone once again and it seemed everyone was having a ball.  With 61 different ball teams playing on six differ-ent Victoria ball fields, plus two baseball fields also seeing action with the town league, balls were flying everywhere. 
(Yes, the little ol' village has eight ball fields!)
Most balls were flying at Lions Park, but some were also at Diethelm Park.  That's how it has come to be every July with the Victoria Lions Tournament Weekend.
If there are nine players plus a coach on each team, that amounts to at least 600 people eating burgers and drinking beer.  If each ballplayer brings a spouse and a couple kids, you can add 1,800 more people.  If each ballplayer has a couple friends show up, add 1,200 to that.  Then there are the Victoria Lions and their spouses and family members, plus all kinds of other friendly people inside and outside of Victoria.
Pretty soon you're talking 3,000 to 4,000 people buying burgers and drinking beer, on and off, over a three-day week-end.  No wonder it's the Lions biggest fundraiser of the year.  "I would guess we set a record this year," said Victoria Lion Dennis Bjorklund, one of the tournament coordinators.  "We set a record three years ago too.  I think we net around $20,000."
"The weather was a lot nicer this year," Dennis acknowledged.  "The last two years it was almost too hot to drink beer.  People ate a lot this year too.  Sunday morning we had to pick up 480 more hamburgers."
According to Tournament Coordina-tor and Victoria Lion LeRoy Worm, the crowd consumed 3,000 hamburgers, 500 brats, and 900 hotdogs.  Add several gallons of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, onions, cheese, lettuce, sauer-kraut, and tomatoes and you know that nobody went home hungry.
So who was playing ball this year?  Lion LeRoy had the hard facts.  There were 32 teams playing Men's Slow Pitch.  These teams had names like Schmitty's Mama's Boys and Heartbreakers.  Cham-pions of the four divisions were Chaska Legion ($300), Snack Trays from St. Louis Park ($175), Christians Incorpor-ated from Waconia (150), and OK Corral from Jordan ($125). 
The 16 Women's Slow Pitch teams had two divisions and therefore two champions:  CarX from Chaska ($275) and BC Slammers from NYA ($200).
There were 6 Men's Modified Fast Pitch teams and the championship was won by Donahue Harley Davidson ($150).  What does modified fast pitch mean?  "They throw underhand as fast as they can," explained Dennis.  "They can't use a windmill.  They use a slingshot."
There were 7 Co-Rec Mixed teams, composed of men and women.  "They use a 16-inch ball instead of a 12-inch ball.  It's like a kitten ball," said Dennis.  Championship team was Stumbling Home ($180).
LeRoy said the Victoria Lions gave away $3,450 in prize money this year to the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd placers in each division of each category.  Nice chunk of change.
Lots of people were having a ball at the 2007 Victoria Lions Tournament Weekend.  Click here to see what else was going on during that Victoria Lions Tournament Weekend.