Last weekend’s Mum Festival weekend was capped by the 2nd Annual Tippecanoe Base Ball Cup Championship, held Sunday from 10 am to 4:30 pm at the City Park baseball diamonds, just north of the Aquatic Center.  Hosted by the Tippecanoe Canal Jumpers, the event featured eight ball clubs from Dayton, Springfield, Columbus, and Cincinnati playing vintage base ball using the rules of 1860.  The championship used a competitive single elimination format, guaranteeing each club a minimum of two matches.

The Cup!

Setup started at 9am as club founder Reed Spencer and other members of the committee arrived to prepare the fields and set up the tables and tents for the scorekeepers, along with greeting members of the visiting teams.

Eight teams played for the Cup: the Tippecanoe Canal Jumpers, Columbus Capitals, Kettering Clodbusters, Mansfield Independents, Ohio Muffins, Champion City Reapers, Columbus Buckeyes, and the Norwood Highlanders. Games began at 10am proceeded all afternoon, with the following results:

• 10:00 am        Muffins vs. Capitals (Capitals won 16-5)
• 10:00 am        Highlanders vs. Reapers (Reapers won 10-9)
• 11:15 am        Jumpers vs. Independents (Independents won 9-7)
• 11:15 am        Clodbusters vs. Buckeyes (Clodbusters won 20-6)
• 12:30 pm        Capitals vs. Reapers (Capitals won 17-2)
• 12:30 pm        Muffins vs. Highlanders (Highlanders won 7-3)
• 1:45 pm           Independents vs. Clodbusters (Clodbusters won 3-1)
• 1:45 pm           Jumpers vs. Buckeyes (Jumpers won 5-4)
• 3:00 pm         CHAMPIONSHIP:  Capitals vs. Clodbusters (Capitals won 4-0)

In the last match of the day, the Capitals played a low-scoring championship match against the Clodbusters.  In the end, the Capitals were victorious, scoring 4 aces to the Clodbusters’ zero.

After the match, Spencer presented the Tippecanoe Cup, an oversized spittoon emblazoned with the names of the previous winners, to the Capitals.  Sadly, they didn’t get to take it home—the cup remains safely ensconced in the Downtown Tipp City Partnership offices in Tipp City.  But the Capitals players took many pictures with the cup, hoisting it over their heads to celebrate a hard-one win.  Congratulations, Capitals!

Spencer plans to hold the Cup event every year during Mum Festival weekend, so go ahead and put it on your calendar for next year!

Thanks, and Two Questions Answered

With the Canal Jumpers’ season over, Spencer and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the supporters, players, and sponsors that make the Jumpers such a great team and an important part of our community.

One minor complaint I’ve heard about the Canal Jumpers is that they’re not a good use of Downtown Tipp City Partnership funds.  To set the record straight, the Canal Jumpers are self-funded and do not receive any funds from the DTCP—in fact, last year we donated $200 to the group and plan to donate about the same this year. Reed Spencer and I started the team in 2009 and pay all team expenses out of pocket, including team equipment, clothing, and promotion. In addition, individual players pay $100 to play each year, and team caller Logan Rogers donates his design services to create the promotional materials.  Reed handles the team side of things, and I run the website and help with promotion.

Another concern I’ve heard about the Canal Jumpers is that they don’t play in the downtown.  This was an issue from the beginning because … well … there are no baseball fields in the immediate downtown.  Our hope is that, in the future, a baseball field could be created somewhere near the downtown for the Canal Jumpers to use as their “home field”—if anyone has a good idea about where we could play, please let me know.  Until then, we’ll continue to play in locations as close to the downtown as possible.