2015 WWBA World Championship: Leaderboard | All-Tournament Team

As I reflect back on my first ever trip to Jupiter for the WWBA World Championships, this event exceeded all of my expectations and then some. Jupiter, as it is commonly known, is a baseball bonanza.

Here are my four main takeaways and I'll detail these in the paragraphs ahead: there are things that make the Jupiter experience unique; the tools of certain individual players here were extreme; some of the player vs. player showdowns were captivating; and Jupiter reminds us what the game of baseball is all about.

First, Jupiter is unlike any other baseball event I've attended.

Jupiter's core principle is "six and six," meaning you are going to see six games per day and get six hours of sleep per night. This is certainly a grind but it creates the same kind of fatigue that a six-year old child would experience from a trip to Disney World. One must caffeinate early and often or else risk missing a great baseball moment.

The hundreds of golf carts that envelop the fields are now the iconic visual for what this event has become. The golf carts' purpose is counter-intuitive as they serve more as stadium seats than transportation. The golf carts also reinforce the small-town feel of our game since you are sure to be offered a seat by someone in a random golf cart on more than one occaison. Six games in one day is a long time to be on your feet. Now do that for four days.

As Jupiter heads into the playoff round and only 17 of the original 85 teams remain, the unique "overtime" rules kick into play for tie games. After seven innings of play, or the allotted time limit has been reached, the subsequent innings are begun with the bases loaded and one out until a winner emerges. This is penalty kicks on steroids and the tension reaches meteoric levels.

Second, and as I mentioned on Twitter throughout the weekend, some of these elite players possess carrying tools that make your trip to Jupiter worth it all on their own.

Catchers M.J. Melendez (Mets Scout Team/Scorpions) and Cooper Johnson (Reds Midwest Scout Team) threw frozen ropes all over the place and their defensive chops are exceptional. In fact, we certainly appreciated their opponents' fearlessness in trying to run on these two despite the fact that this is a lower percentage strategy than playing the lottery. Alabama State and Mississippi are their respective commitments, but both receivers feel like longshots to see a college campus.

Cole Turney