By Lonnie Turner
Every year about this time, children all over the county are thinking about playing our country’s National Past-Time and it’s no different right here in our great hometown of Dillon, SC. The Kiwanis Club members of the city had everything in place for the annual opening ceremonies which was set for Monday, April 7th, but the Good Lord above knew our needs much better than our wants and he sent the rain to knock down the pollen that has been giving everybody a fit. With the rain came postponement of the ceremony and the first two baseball games, until Tuesday evening.
People started arriving at Michael Lecholop/Kiwanis Park as early as 4:15 in anticipation of the new season’s beginning and by 5 o’clock there wasn’t a parking place anywhere within a two block area of the park. At precisely 5:30 p.m. player introductions began and by 6:10 a total of 258 children, ages 4-12 and 39 adult coaches had been introduced and had the chance to run around the infield giving high-fives to their friends. The Dillon Herald was represented by Johnnie Daniels, with his handy camera, and Mark King in order to get team photos in The Dillon Herald over the next few weeks, and Sandy Webster of Sandy Toes Photography was on hand to snap team pictures for the parents. She will set up a schedule to take individual pictures over the next week or so.
Pastor John Bumgardner of the First Presbyterian Church took a last minute invite from the club to offer the invocation and Mayor Todd Davis also accepted a last minute appeal to throw out the ceremonial first pitch to get the 2014 season started.
The Pepsi-Cola Blue Jays sprinted out to a 7-3 win over the Burger King Braves in the first game, a Minor League contest, and the Dillon Family Dental Center Giants were victorious over the Physicians Healthcare Yankees by an 8-1 margin in the Majors.
Lexi Martin, the only girl participating in the two leagues this season, worked Blue starting pitcher Kyle Rowell for a walk and after a wild pitch moved her to second, she was safe at third on an errant throw and scored the season’s first run as the Burger King Braves took a 1-0 lead into the bottom of the first inning.
The lead would be short lived, though, as Nigel George lashed a double and scored the tying run on a passed ball. With one out, Holden Matthews was hit by a pitch, stole second, and scored on an infield error to take a 2-1 score after one inning.
Pepsi-Cola added three more runs in their half of the second inning, taking advantage of three walks, two hit batters and a base hit. George’s single in the second was the only other hit off losing pitcher Nathan Ford.
The Blue Jays scored two more when Jeremy Byrd walked and eventually scored with a stolen base. Holden Matthews followed and was hit by a pitch for the second straight time in the game and Tyrese Smith recorded his first RBI of the season, sending Matthews across the plate with a ground out to first base. Martin also walked again in the Burger King fourth inning and scored on an RBI single by D.J. Brogdon.
Pepsi was scheduled to play Ace Hardware and Burger King was set to take on McLeod Health on Wednesday evening in rain-out games.
Noah Carter’s perfect pitching performance over five innings highlighted the Giants victory over the Yankees. The 12-year old returner from last season faced the minimum number of players in the three innings, striking out 12 Yankees. He also was perfect at the plate with a single and was hit on two other appearances.
The Giants pounded out seven hits in the game with Caleb Boykin collecting two hits in as many times at bat, with one run batted in. Daiquan “Da-Da” Blakely also had two hits, including a run-producing triple in a five-run fifth inning. The biggest blow in the big inning was a bases-loaded clearing double by Nick Evans. Quentin Hunt had what proved to be the game-winning RBI with a single in the bottom of the third to give the Giants a 3-1 lead.
The Yankees will be in action in the second game against the Dillon Internal Medicine Hurricanes on Thursday and the Giants will take on the Dillon Meat Center Reds in Friday night’s first Major League game.
Only Major League games will be played on Thursday this season and to keep youngsters from being out so late, the times for the games have been changed. The first game will begin at 6:00 PM instead of 6:45 and the second game will get underway at approximately 7:30 instead of 8:15. The change was implemented in hopes that parents can get the youngsters home at an earlier hour during school nights.
