{"id":690,"date":"2007-09-05T20:44:32","date_gmt":"2007-09-05T20:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/166.62.41.2\/~holaamericanews\/2007\/09\/05\/different-generations-meet-for-a-unique-softball-tournament\/"},"modified":"2022-07-17T15:14:37","modified_gmt":"2022-07-17T20:14:37","slug":"different-generations-meet-for-a-unique-softball-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/different-generations-meet-for-a-unique-softball-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"Different Generations Meet for a Unique Softball Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jovenes_viejitos_tournament\"<\/a>What started out as a \u201cdare-type thing\u201d for John Alonzo has now become a large gathering of different generations of ball players that tests the experienced \u2018old guys\u2019 against the energetic \u2018young guys\u2019 in a softball tradition that has been growing year after year.\u00a0 John decided to hold a Jovenes vs. Viejitos (Young Guys vs. Old Guys) Softball Tournament in 2002 in an effort to show the young guys that the \u2018viejitos\u2019 still have it.
\n\u201cI was watching my nephews and son [playing] in East Moline and they weren\u2019t playing well,\u201d said John Alonzo.\u00a0 \u201cSo I said I could get some of my old friends together and we could beat them.\u201d
\nThe first year they only had two teams and
\n the young guys won the first game ever but then the old guys came back and won the second and last game that year.\u00a0 Today the tournament, which took place on a hot Sunday, September 2nd at Illiniwick Park in Hampton, Ill., has 4 different teams divided into guys in their 20s, 30s, 40s and a 50 and over team.\u00a0 Their rules include a 5 run limit per half-inning and they don\u2019t allow players to slide into base to avoid injuries.\u00a0 The tournament also recognizes 3 MVPs, one from the guys in their 20s and 30s, another one for those 40 and older, and one for best performance in the Championship Game.\u00a0 This year Alex Sandoval took the MVP for the \u2018jovenes\u2019, Mike Otis Ortiz received the \u2018viejitos\u2019 MVP and Doug Cortez won the Championship Game MVP when his 20s team defeated the 40s team with a final score of 12-7.
\nThis year they also added a homerun derby \u2013 which Doug Cortez also won with 11 homeruns \u2013 and a breakfast where the older generations shared their baseball and softball stories with the younger players.
\n\u201cA lot of us traveled and always played ball.\u00a0 During the breakfast with the old timers we talk and reminisce,\u201d said Mr. Alonzo.
\nThat is one of the benefits that have come out of that \u201cdare\u201d, the whole community has come together and young and old are sharing stories while creating new memories and traditions that will be passed along to future generations. Alonzo says that there were 7 guys in their 80s and 90s that were talking about baseball at the breakfast, which makes many people \u201cgrateful because we came out and we are starting to remember the old fellows.\u201d
\nSome that some of those stories tell of how baseball was the only thing that some of the first Mexican immigrants could do for fun when they worked for the railroad.\u00a0 That is what they played in Holy City and the Cook\u2019s Point area in Davenport, Iowa.
\nWith kids everywhere, the cumbia music in the background, the enchiladas, tostadas and brownies, one might feel as though they are walking into a large family reunion, which in a way it is.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s kind of an end of summer fiesta for us,\u201d says Mr. Alonzo.
\nThe ultimate goal for Mr. Alonzo \u2013 who is also an organizer for the Mexican Basketball League \u2013 is to create a Hall of Fame for all Quad City sports.\u00a0 He also plans to have a fiesta for the 10th anniversary of the softball tournament.<\/p>\n

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What started out as a \u201cdare-type thing\u201d for John Alonzo has now become a large gathering of different generations of ball players that tests the experienced \u2018old guys\u2019 against the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":689,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/holaamericanews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}