Yes, Catasauqua, you will have your annual August basketball tournament.

Catasauqua’s playground played host to its annual Tournament of Champions, normally held in early August and sometimes began in late July, for 30 years before COVID shut it down last summer.

However, tournament director Eric Snyder saw an eventual anticipated outcome reach its fruition earlier this year when he had to end the traditional tournament due to a lack of teams.

So, Snyder did the next best thing. He borrowed an idea from the Yankees-Mets annual one-game battle before interleague play, as the inaugural “Battle of the Boroughs” will be held Thursday, Aug. 5. There also will be a whiffle ball championship held around the approximate date.

“There just aren’t any summer leagues anymore,” said Snyder. “Every year, we would see less and less. It came down to the two leagues in Catty and one in Bangor.

“I got the idea from the old Mayor’s Trophy Game between the Mets and Yankees. There probably aren’t too many people who remember it, but the mayors from Catty and North Catty did, and they both liked the idea.”

In the format, North Catty League seasonal champion Pammer Chiropractic will meet the Catty League playoff champion Nites, and Catty League seasonal champion Ohlson Landscaping will meet North Catty playoff champion Curmaci Dental. The winners will play in a best-of-three series that will begin Monday, Aug. 9.

“We didn’t want to run the risk of teams playing each other again,” added Snyder. “It is a good format and it should be a good championship series.”

Along with the new basketball alignment, Snyder stated a whiffle ball championship between the Catty and North Catty playground is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 12, played before the possible final game of the basketball championship. Other possible dates for the whiffle ball tournament are Aug. 2, 3, or 4. It also could be held during the week of Aug. 23.

“We would like to have the whiffle ball game before the basketball championship,” said Snyder. “The whiffle ball championship usually takes less than an hour, and we would like to have ice cream for the kids afterward.

“We’re happy we have a basketball championship, and we’re looking forward to it in the future.”