STEELE SPORTS

During Blooming Prairie’s Old-Fashioned Fourth of July weekend, I learned a whole new kind of dunk when I was signed up by the newspaper to be the dunk tank volunteer.

Donning my favorite flamingo pattern swim trunks, I set out for the festival from my apartment in the cities with a child-like feeling of anxiousness, not quite sure what to expect of the day.

When I arrived at the park, I quickly began to realize the reality of my situation: I was definitely going to get soaked.

Not only was there already a crowd of people attending the festival, but the allure of pressing the button by hand to send me into the barrel of water below was far too hard for my coworkers and friends in the community to resist.

Not five minutes into the event – and three hand-pressed dunks later – did I finally meet the first real challenger who paid a small toll to earn the right to throw three softballs at the circular target next to me.

As the young girl stretched her arm back to begin her throwing motion, I locked onto the softball in her hand with hopes that the festival-game gods would spare me the trip back into the water.

The next thing I remember, I was surfacing from the barrel below to the sound of claps and cheering.

Not only did she absolutely snipe the target, she did so with two remaining throws… a true dream for the sinker, and a total nightmare for the sunk.

Without boring you all with the repetitive details of how many times I was put in the water that day, I will leave you with this: the future of Blooming Prairie baseball and softball seems to be bright.