As a busy "softball mom" and small business owner I have little time to sit back and reflect on the little things in life.  But I was so moved this past weekend after attending a USFA Fastpitch Softball Tournament at Victoria Park, hosted by RCSA/Jacksonville Limit, that I had to take the time to write about our experience.

Victoria Park is located in Jacksonville, Florida and is home to the Jacksonville Limit 14U softball team.  The park has 4 softball fields and is adjacent to Lovelace Park which is a tranquil, woodsy park loaded with cool shady areas to rest in between games.

The first thing you notice when you attend a tournament at  Victoria Park is that you don't usually need to run for cover when someone shouts "HEADS!".  That's because someone thought it important enough to install nets to cover all of the bleacher areas between the fields.  While that's a great comfort to me I can only imagine how much it means to the families that have little ones running around the area.

The second thing you notice is the great variety of food that's offered.  Aside from the usual burgers and dogs, these folks took the time to cook up some delicious Pulled Pork sandwiches, Sausage with Peppers and Onions (my personal favorite), Chicken Nuggets, Fries and even Mozzarella Sticks accompanied with salsa or ranch dressing if you desired.

Perhaps one of my biggest pet peeves when attending tournaments is the state of the rest room facilities.  Well they had that covered too!  Almost every time I visited the rest room I found a parent or player re-stocking bath tissue, sweeping and/or wiping own the counter.  Considering there were a few hundred people attending and only 4 stalls I found this amazingly well kept and CLEAN!

I was so moved to the efficiency of this tournament I struck up a chat with a Limit player who was keeping score on our field (Yes, they even kept the electronic scoreboards going on every field!).  I asked when her next game was and she informed me their team wasn't playing as they had decided to instead help out with the work. These girls and parents also made sure to rake and re-line the fields between EVERY game!  How oddly refreshing!

All in all our weekend was extremely enjoyable and there's a bunch of people to thank for that, the players and parents of the Jacksonville Limit!

By the way, the icing on the cake for us was my daughter's team, Brevard Stealers Blue, went undefeated and won the Championship in 14U.  Yup, we'll be coming back to Jacksonville again real soon!

Michelle Masso-Buckelew