Below is a guest blog from Katya Cengel, author of Bluegrass Baseball. She writes about one of her "many" hometowns and what it did for its little league team that made it to the World Series.

One of the good
things about having moved around a lot in my formative years is that I can
claim many places as my “hometown”. 
Petaluma, California is one of them. My first newspaper internship was
in Petaluma and this summer around the same time my first book was released the
city sent their first little league team to the World Series.

The timing
couldn’t have been better.

A northern California city of around 60,000 hidden
between the trend setting Bay Area to the south and the affected wine country
to the north, Petaluma is a bit of an anomaly. There is an earnest quality to
the little city lacking in many of the more “sophisticated” communities that
surround it. Its quirkiness comes naturally — an ugly dog contest, wrist
wrestling championships — and its Butter and Egg Day Parade has not become a
parody as it might have in larger cities. But in recent years Petaluma had
become synonymous with tragedy, including the 1993 kidnapping and murder of
Polly Klaas and the 2011 death of local teen Danny Cox. It is no surprise then
that when the Petaluma National All-Stars made it to the World Series this
summer the whole town was happy to cheer them on.  The local newspaper issued a special souvenir
edition that featured full page ads from local businesses offering their
congratulations and a theater broadcast the games on a huge screen. Local
legend Jonny Gomes of the Oakland A’s helped raise money to house the players
while they competed in Pennsylvania and celebrated with them at a private party
after they returned home with a third place finish.

Even the local
bookstore had a Little League display in their window. And it was there that a
copy of my book could be found. It has been a happy time for Petaluma, and as
the author of a book on minor league baseball, a good time for me to be a
Petaluma native.