I had the pleasure of watching some exciting baseball the past few days at both Firemen’s Park and Pepper Martin Park.

Brandywine Cal Ripken and Howard Township Baseball played host to the 11- and 8-year-old Ohio Valley Regionals respectively and it took quite an effort to keep these tournaments on track thanks to the weather.

Hot and humid conditions greeted baseball teams from Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan.

The heat and humidity kept building and finally erupted into powerful thunderstorms that roared through the area both Friday night and Saturday morning.

The storms flooded the fields at the two parks and it took the work of a lot of volunteers to make those fields playable.

Because of the work of those people, the tournaments kept pretty much on schedule, although the 11-year-old regional ended up being extended a day because teams are not allowed to play three games in a day.

Still, Brandywine and Howard Township can be proud of the work that was put into these tournaments.

They were well run and the teams that competed seemed to enjoy their stay in southwest Michigan.

I heard nothing but compliments from fans about how they were treated during their nearly weeklong stay.

That says a lot about the people involved with the planning and running of these tournaments.

Those people reflect well on the people who were in charge of running the events.

I know there are a lot of people who should be thanked for their contributions to the success of the Ohio Valley Regionals, but I don’t have that much space available to me.

Two people I would like to mention for their efforts in helping me keep track of all the changes and the results of the tournaments are Jamie Stover at Brandywine and Dave Landon at Howard Township.

Those two fielded so many phone calls from me as we tried to keep abreast of the changing schedules thanks to the weather.

They were more than helpful and I appreciated their efforts.

If you didn’t take in a game or two, you missed something special.

There were some outstanding teams at both sites and some remarkable players on those teams.

Congratulation to not only those who won championships — Harris Black out at Howard and Southeastern Lexington, Ky. at Brandywine — but to all the teams that participated.

You provided us with some memorable moments that we will cherish for years to come.

I enjoyed every moment of these tournaments and look forward to our area hosting more in the years to come.

Scott Novak is sports editor of Leader Publications. He can be reached at scott.novak@leaderpub.com