The fastest growing sport in America is... Quidditch?

International Quidditch Association

One sure sign that football season is right around the corner is when the members of the Alabama Sports Writers Association begin getting ready for their preseason prep football poll. On Monday, all ASWA members received an e-mail from ASWA prep football committee chairman Paul Beaudry saying that ballots for the preseason poll will be accepted from July 21 through July 29. The first preseason poll will hit newspapers on Wed., Aug. 7. In the meantime, sportswriters from across the state will be comparing and sharing notes about their local teams to prepare their preseason ballots.

As of today, the start of the high school season is 49 days away, that is, just seven weeks from now. Hillcrest High School and Sparta Academy will both kick off their 2013 seasons on Fri., Aug. 31, in Evergreen. Hillcrest will play Washington County High School at Brooks Memorial Stadium, and Sparta will play Pickens Academy at Stuart-McGehee Field.

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From the weird news file this week, I saw in Monday of last week’s “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” feature cartoon an item that said that the “6th Annual Quidditch World Cup took place in Florida in April 2013.”

Those of you familiar with J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” books and movies will be familiar with the game of Quidditch, which is a sport played by wizards and witches. In some respects this fictional game is something like soccer except that the players fly around on broomsticks, and the sport involves three balls rather than one. Also, instead of two goals, Quidditch makes use of six floating, ring-shaped goals.

Real-life Quidditch, which is also called “Muggle Quidditch,” is a game that’s been adapted from the game in the “Harry Potter” novels. First played in 2005 at Middlebury College in Vermont, this brand of Quidditch is played on the ground instead of in the air, but the players are required to run around with broomsticks between their legs.

The International Quidditch Association was formed in 2007, and there are now about 600 teams in the association in the U.S. and about 400 others outside U.S. borders. According to the IQA’s Web site, Quidditch is the fastest-growing sport in the U.S., and there are seven registered teams in Alabama, including a team at the University of South Alabama in Mobile.

If this sport is growing as fast as some people say, it might not be long before we see a game of Quidditch being played here in Conecuh County.

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The rosters for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game were announced over the weekend, and, surprisingly, only one member of the Atlanta Braves was picked to play in the game. Despite the star potential of many players on the Braves roster, right-handed pitcher Craig Kimbrel was the only Brave listed on the National League All-Star roster over the weekend.

This year’s MLB All-Star game, which will be played on Tuesday, will mark the 84th playing of this annual all-star game, which was first played in 1933. This year’s all-star game will be played at Citi Field, the home field of the New York Mets. If you’re interested in watching it on television, it’ll be televised on FOX.