Moses Lake parade welcomes teams to the diamond
Ryan Doumit throws out the ceremonial first pitch at the Dick Kelly Memorial Youth Day Parade Saturday. Doumit is a former major league baseball player who now coaches baseball at Big Bend Community College.
JOEL MARTIN/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
The Ephrata Peaches prepare for the Dick Kelly Memorial Youth Day Parade Saturday. From left: Jordan Yurian, Paisleigh Rippet, Lorraine Mayer and Priscilla Sypert.
Players brave the cold to share their team spirit at the Dick Kelly Memorial Youth Day opening ceremony Saturday at Larson Playfield in Moses Lake. Twenty-five boys baseball and 25 girls softball teams held banners and signs at the event.
Esther Roeber, front, sings the National Anthem at the Dick Kelly Memorial Youth Day opening ceremony Saturday. Accompanying her are (from left) Lydia Jensen, Emma Fulkerson and McKenna Meise.
The MLYBA’s Angels wait in the pickup bed for the Dick Kelly Memorial Youth Day Parade to begin Saturday. The Angels won pizza from Domino’s for their spirit and pickup decorations.
MOSES LAKE — It didn’t really look much like baseball weather, with temperatures around 40 degrees and a chilly breeze making cheeks sting and eyes water. But there was no way to cool the enthusiasm of the young athletes at the 63rd annual Dick Kelly Memorial Youth Day Parade Saturday morning in Moses Lake.
Parade participants gathered at McCosh Park, Columbia Basin Girls Softball teams in the Surf ‘n Slide parking lot and Moses Lake Boys Baseball in the parking lot by the tennis courts, and piled into pickup trucks decorated in team colors and logos. At 10 a.m. they headed down Fourth Avenue to Ash Street, then back up Third Avenue to Dogwood, where the parade ended. Then it was out to Larson Playfield, where all the teams and coaches gathered on the field for a ceremonial opening to the season.
“They’re amazing,” said coach Brittany Sybert of her softball team, the Ephrata Peaches. “They came to play. Only about half of them have been on a field before, and they really came together.”
Once the players assembled on the field, the crowd stood and doffed their hats for an invocation by Dennis Fountain, pastor of Moses Lake Baptist Church. The colors were presented by local Boy Scouts, and the Distinguished Young Woman of Washington, Esther Roeber, sang the National Anthem accompanied by Moses Lake Distinguished Young Woman Emma Fulkerson and runners-up McKenna Meise and Lydia Jensen.
Tiffany Vehrs introduced the 25 teams of the Columbia Basin Girls Softball Association, followed by Jason Avila introducing the 25 teams that make up the Moses Lake Youth Baseball Association. The CBGSA’s Venom and the MLYBA’s Angels won pizza gift cards for their team spirit and pickup decorations.
The parade’s grand marshal, introduced by Deputy Mayor Don Myers, was Moses Lake native Ryan Doumit, who played baseball for Moses Lake High School before being drafted to the majors in 1999. After playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves, Doumit returned to his hometown where he’s an assistant baseball coach at Big Bend Community College and has recently opened The Six, an athletic training facility in Moses Lake. The festivities concluded with Doumit throwing out the ceremonial first pitch, caught by Brian Skaug.
Doumit reminisced on his love of baseball growing up.
“This day and Christmas were my two biggest days,” he said. “I remember sleeping in my uniform the night before.”
Joel Martin can be reached via email at jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com.
