Demopolis mayor Mike Grayson announced Friday that the city has been awarded the right to host the 2010 13U Babe Ruth Baseball State Tournament. The awarding of the event will mark the third straight year the city has played host to a state baseball tournament.

“From what the state commissioner has seen us do for two years running, he was ready to award us another tournament,” Demopolis Youth Baseball League president Art Evans said.

“I think it is a compliment to our program, to the hospitality of everybody who works so hard to put their best foot forward for Demopolis,” District 10 Commissioner Rob Pearson said of the honor. Demopolis hosted the 14U Babe Ruth tournament in 2008 before serving as the site for the 10U Cal Ripken bracket last weekend. Evans believes Demopolis’ strong showing during those events helped it to secure future opportunities to host.

“Apparently the league is impressed with the facilities, the maintenance on the facilities and just the entire town,” Grayson said. “With all of that, we are able to compete — and compete very favorably — with much larger markets.”

“Our facilities don’t take a back seat to anybody and now we have the hotel accommodations to go with them,” Evans said. “It says a lot about our community that we were able to have a state tournament for three years running.”

While a number of factors played into Demopolis’ ability to obtain the confidence of state commissioner Eugene Reynolds, Pearson credits community-wide effort that goes into conducting such events.

“The city is such a big part of what we’re able to do. Every tournament we host, people leave with a different impression of Demopolis. It is always a positive impression. We’ll get another opportunity to show (what we have to offer) against next July,” Pearson said before turning his attention to Evans’ efforts in serving as the 10U tournament director last weekend. “Arthur Evans, his organization and the way he orchestrated the 10-year-old tournament certainly played a part in (getting the tournament.)”