I suppose like many men who are avid sports fans, I have periodically fantasized a life as a sportswriter. I've pictured myself many a time sitting in the press box wearing an old rumpled tweed sports coat and a crooked dirty hat chomping on a cigar and leaning to the reporter next to me saying something like "Sanders is dropping his right shoulder early. 20 bucks says he doesn't make it through the third."
I had my chance to play sports writer last Saturday when I attended my first University of South Carolina Beaufort Sand Sharks game. My wife, Pam Cooper Hoel, a USCB faculty member, has volunteered for the past few games ( I had always found some reason to be otherwise engaged), with many members of the faculty, student body and community, to run the whole show at the Richard Gray baseball complex in Hardeeville where the Sand Sharks will finish this season and eventually, perhaps next season, compete on a beautiful new diamond to be built on the USCB Bluffton campus.
I joined Pam Saturday as a ticket taker and after a few problems making change I was politely invited by Pam and others to go watch the game for awhile. And what a game! I was standing next to a community volunteer passing out programs, a real fan who knew the team well. It was the bottom of the third inning when the opposing Florida Memorial Lions were leading 3 to 2. My friend commented that the Sand Sharks had gained a reputation over the season for scoring runs in huge bunches. On cue, the Sharks got eight straight hits and by the end of the inning, the score was 13 to 2.
The Sand Sharks went on to win that game, the first of a doubleheader, by the score of 21 to 11. Hitters may be a bit ahead of pitchers at this stage of a baseball player's career but it made for exciting baseball nevertheless. It was also astounding to watch how well the Sand Sharks had been coached; wonderful infield play, base running and hitting the cut off men just right. This is good baseball.
I wish we'd stayed for the second game which the Sand Sharks won on a walk-off triple entering the bottom of the last inning trailing 5 to 4. They won 6 to 5 and have won their last 10 games.
I also saw, I believe, an almost triple play. I'm really not a very good reporter and was talking to the crowd around me when I looked up to see the catcher pick up what was either a bunt or a dropped third strike with opposing Lion base runners already on first and second. In any event, the catcher threw out the batter about the time he was approaching first base while the runner who had left for second returned late and was tagged out an instant later. Amidst this chaos of three players tangled up at first base, the first baseman saw the Lion runner on second streaking towards third and fired a perfect throw just missing a tag out.
While the game was exciting, what struck me was the faculty, community and team involvement in bringing great baseball to our community. For those who still believe that university faculty members are stuffed shirts (I live with one by way who dramatically disproves the point), attend a game and witness the genuine camaraderie and dare I say, rowdiness, of this group. It was always a mystery to me why about six years ago Hardeeville built a baseball complex with four fields, two of which are full major-league dimension parks. In fact it was during the period when Hardeeville was attempting to establish its image as the "Emerald City" of the south and one of the City's strategies was to draw a minor league team to the area. The Emerald City plans have stalled a bit, but things are moving in the right direction. And USCB's energy and enthusiasm has certainly helped.
Three of those fields have not been maintained by the way, but the Sand Shark field is in beautiful condition and making it so is a story in itself. I understand that many from the University, including head coach Rick Sofield, his coaches and the players themselves were all involved in grading, sodding, mowing and generally pulling it all together to put this ball park in top notch shape.
At one point during the game I had the chance to talk to USCB Athletic Director Kim Abbott who is one of those people with a perpetual positive attitude and smile who convinces one in a moment that athletics at USCB will continue to thrive. Unfortunately, we couldn't talk too long. A foul ball down the left-field line went over the fence and as Kim was running from me to chase it down, she yelled back that we need every one of these. The Sand Sharks apparently don't yet have a budget comparable to the Yankees.
To top things off, USCB's Chancellor Jane Upshaw, who has done everything and anything to turn a former swamp into a now thriving University, added another line to her vita by singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch. I always get nervous for a "volunteer" for this assignment. I've seen too many embarrassing seventh inning stretches at Wrigley Field I suppose. But I needn't have been concerned. The Chancellor pulled it off in style. Harry Carey would have been proud.
Well back to business. I'm a Realtor, among other things, and I suppose I need to tie this back to marketing my wares in some way. Here's all I'll say. To anyone who reads this who has shoveled snow or scraped ice off a windshield sometime in the past month, my recommendation is to sell your home and move to Beaufort County -- immediately. The Sun Conference baseball playoffs start on May 7.
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