Montana Insurance

The boys in the city of Kirkland Bombers give everyone a nickname.

It is Christian “Rocket” Pekich at the first base of Dean “Little D” Buchanan in a few seconds, and most recent teams: 40 feet long known as the ship countries “Da Bus”.

Today team members were lots of Buffalo in 1978 GMC, which was converted into a residence on wheels, a trip for two piers road with the team Manager Rick Ockerman, or “Captain Rick. ” He’ll pilot money from bus across the country on a barnstorming Odyssey of Baseball. The team visited sites such as the cornfield featured “Field of Dreams” and the Baseball Hall of Fame in New York, pick-up-and-Play games with other Little Leaguers.

The 11 boys, all of whose launchers High School during the next year, she said, exalted, to see the country and devote long hours drive to play video games. Ockerman hopes they remember the passage of a celebration of their friendship. His son, Steve “Ock-Man” has played with the team for three years.

“Next year, they were all friends, they are driving cars and they have jobs,” said Rick Ockerman. “This is the only time they get to do.”

Until a few weeks ago, members of the team and their parents were skeptical that the trip might even happen. Ockerman, a lawyer at Kirkland, bought the bus on a whim by eBay last Thanksgiving. Over the past two decades, 1.1 million kilometers logged as part of Sun Valley in Idaho Stage Lines.

As bus Ockerman registered in a horse barn in the town, as he and another parent, Bob The Builder “Wilson, began nailing bunk beds and buildings.

“My wife was at the beginning however, is - she thought I was crazy,” said Ockerman. “With the exception of boys, all thought I was crazy.”

Players have begun planning. They started in the Little League Senior Division, but if Little League would not be an insurance for the draft 6650 miles journey, the boy who Evergreen Alliance Baseball, a league west of Washington. Since then, they have played as the red and the city of Kirkland bombers, games twice as many games as usual. Starting this week, their record is 18-17.

Pekich of 15 years, ends his first baseman Finn Hill Junior High School baseball team in the spring of this year to allow time for the bomber / Reds. “I had more friends on this team, that I am closer,” he said.

If money has Ockerman bus for a trip test in Vancouver this month, was brilliant in a motorhome species. Players find their names stenciled on 7-foot-long berth with a refrigerator and a sitting room with TV and video games. The boys even have a roll-out putting green, is part of the corridor.

“We were all surprised by the bus,” said Pekich. “We did not hear about progress until we berths. We considered all sorts of this month. ”

In preparation for the trip, young flames painted on the side of the bus, and their team, their names and the name of the sponsor. Honda of Kirkland is to provide boys $ 1200 to camp on KOA campsites along roadsides and $ 3500 for gas. Team members buy their own food.

The bus handles surprisingly well, says Ockerman. “It is built like a shell,” he said.

Ockerman charted a route to take, as well as historical sites baseball emblem. His first station Yakima for a three-day Little League tournament. So it is for the Montana fly fishing nearby, where “A River Runs Through It” was filmed. From there, Da bus ride on Mount Rushmore, New York, Washington, DC, and Gettysburg, Pa., to care for games and tournaments.

Ockerman teams looked on the Internet and asked the coach for the planning of games. Most of the game is due on Thursday evening on the Iowa cornfield, where “Field of Dreams” was filmed.

“I do not know how we are going to win many games, but this is not the point,” said Wilson, will help monitor along. Some parents are considering putting the team in Cooperstown, NY, where boys play in a three-day tournament. But for the most part, they want boys for some time on you. Ockerman, promised, stay in front of the bus to give her son a little more privacy.