Publix Sports Park is Hosting their 3rd Consecutive Summer Tournament, While Also Proving it was Built for Panhandle Summers

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) – This morning we got some nice, mid-summer showers. Normally, that would cause a baseball tournament, such as the Grand Slam World Series currently in session, that features 129 teams, to reschedule and cancel games. But not when they’re held at the Publix Sports Park.

With 8 available, all turf field, the Park only experienced an hour delay today, and that was just do to lightning. You can see here the puddles that are surrounding the field, but in the background, games are in full swing.

“It’s been great. You know we had lightning, we had rain this morning, it didn’t hold us back. We played through the rain, we just keep going man. It’s been awesome to be out here”, said Grand Slam Tournament Director, Eddie Peyton.

“The turf keeps us going. We had some lightning, a little delay with that, but you know we lost no games, had a little delay but kept going. We’re on schedule, and that’s the key. With 129 teams, if you lose a few rounds, lose a few games, you have to send some people home or they miss games, with the turf we can keep it going”, said Director of Sports Tourism with Visit Panama City Beach, Chris O’Brien, “You know it’s going to rain in the summer. June and July, it’s going to rain in the afternoons, so when we built it, we thought, not only does the turf let you turn sports around, where you go from soccer, to softball, to baseball really quick. But also, you can get the games in. It keeps the families here, it’s key for the teams, and the directors, to give them the securities of knowing we’re going to keep games on time.”

The ability of Publix Sports Park to continue today means the kids that traveled to participate in the tournament weren’t rob of the experience the tournament brings.

“Yeah that’s probably the best thing when we talk to parents, just the overall experience the kids have is awesome. They get to be at the beach, we have a skills competition we run earlier in the week, homerun derby, golden arm, all these different events. So, the kids definitely remember it for a long time”, said Peyton.

“Yeah, it’s great. We’re in the middle of our season, I think at this count, we’ve had 499 teams so far in the last 5 weeks. We got 500 more coming in the next 4 weeks. So, a thousand teams, baseball and softball. We love it, the teams are here and they’re pretty much all different teams so every week it’s new players, new families coming in”, said O’Brien.

Chris mentioning they expect the collective reward of all the week long, summer tournaments should be multiple millions brought into the Panama City economy.

Frank Brown is also a venue apart of this tournament, they did have to have some games rescheduled and moved over to Publix however, the tournament is still on track to to wrap up this Sunday.