MOSES LAKE — Rodney Watson, 11, is a baseball fan through and through. Not football. Not basketball. Baseball and only baseball. It should come as no surprise then that Watson ventured out to the Larson Playfield Tuesday night to see Grant County deputies take on Moses Lake officers in the Battle of the Badge charity softball game. It may come as a surprise that after the game Watson changed his mind about who he wants to model his game after.

“Did you see that big guy who caught all of those pop ups?” Watson asked his step-dad about corrections deputy Brian Kisler. “I changed my mind. I’m switching from (Seattle Mariner Kyle) Seager and want to start playing like that guy now.”

Watson couldn’t have picked a better deputy than Kisler to emulate in the future, as Kisler took home MVP honors for the Grant County Sheriff’s Office’s team. Moses Lake Police Department Sgt. Kyle McCain was named MVP for the MLPD team. Kisler and the GCSO team couldn't quite overcome McCain and the MLPD in Tuesday night’s charity game, losing in a close 8-4 contest. The softball game wasn’t solely about the action on the field, as proceeds from the contest go directly to the Boys and Girls Club of the Columbia Basin.

Coupled with in-between inning entertainment, MLPD Capt. Dave Sands providing comic relief as the night’s emcee, and a demonstration of just how powerful and useful K-9 Deputies Chewbacca and Grizzly are, the night united two agencies for a worthy cause.

“The softball action wasn’t exactly on the level of what you watch on TV,” chuckled Watson’s stepfather Ryan Davis. “But that doesn’t really matter because as a spectator you just know that they are having fun out there and not taking things too seriously. They aren’t afraid to have fun and make fun of themselves when the occasion calls for it.”

Adding together proceeds from sponsorships, concessions at the game and donations, this year’s Battle of the Badge raised a total of $4,364 for the Boys and Girls Club of the Columbia Basin.

Richard Byrd can be reached via email at city@columbiabasinherald.com.