Home > BLARRGH! > Archives > 2009 > June > 02 > Entry
Night of the Jungle…
News and notes from twenty four hours of sweaty palms, sweaty backs and distended bellies in a revered collegiate baseball hotbed in the New American South…
Collegiate athletics is a dirty business. But there is a last bastion of American Collegiate Sport that has kept at least some semblance of dignity and purity. One last venue for pure competition free, for now, from Brent Musberger’s attempts to shove more Tostitos down our collective throats.
That this refuge is the game of baseball should come as no surprise. It’s the Great American Pastime, without all the barking commercials and the hype. By and large, it’s the goodliest game, with solid kids and dedicated parents and a small but giving fanbase that relishes that time at the ole’ ball park.
The sport does have it’s KingPins and the American South is full of them. But this story is not about them. The Texas Longhorns and the LSU Tigers are perennials, but it takes the likes a contender like the East Carolina PIrates to remind us of how good the game can be.
And while the destination is the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, it’s the journey that is the story….and that’s what brought me to the outfield “Jungle” parking lot of Clark-LeClair Stadium in Greenville NC. Ingeniously located between the gleaming towers in the Capitol City of Raleigh and the wild, bug-laden Outer Banks, Greenville (aka G-Vegas, Little LA and ProTown) is a quintessential baseball town in the new American South.
This is not the Pirates first taste of success. After winning a NAIA National Championship in 1961, the Diamond Bucs went Large and began to compete with the Big Boys, scoring a NCAA bid in their first year of competition. In the 58 years since the Bucs popped their first mitt, they’ve had winning seasons in 56. In a baseball world that rarely tilts too far north or south of .500, that’s beating the odds.
But Greenville and East Carolina have been, as they say, poor as Job’s Turkey. They’ve had to make-do without the trappings of high-falutin’ facilities and Vegas-style recruiting budgets. The ‘Bucs have always had to get by low, fast and on the cheap, and the elitists at the NCAA would never allow these baseball loving souls to host any of the NCAA tournament games…. Until Now.
But Money’s only half the story. You’ve got to be good -almost great- to get the bid. Over the last several years, Big Money followed the Big Passion and a new stadium was built. That was the dream of former Head Coach Keith LeClair, a man who is reverently referred to as #23. LeClair died one year after the stadium’s completion of Lou Gehrigs’ disease, an irony too big for even a grizzled baseball man to fully fathom. With #23’s dream and the mercy of a few well-heeled donors, the welcome mat was laid out. That was the first step.
The second was to field a worthy team. After the passing of LeClair, and the quick departure of his successor, Randy Mazey, it’s taken a few years for the program to get back into contention.
Enter Billy Godwin, now in his fourth season at the helm of the Pirate Program. Godwin’s made bankable, incremental progress in each season’s step towards baseball’s Holy Grail in Omaha. With yearly win totals of 33, 40, 42 and now 46 here in 2009, it’s hard to find fault with that kind of success. And by all accounts, Godwin is a solid man, a great recruiter and a savvy baseball veteran.
Now under Godwin’s stewardship, armed with a pile of wins, and aided by a lucky break here or there, all of a sudden…. It Happens.
Considering the ominous thunderheads rolling overhead as I headed into the majestic CLS, I wondered whether the weather would cooperate for the Pirates first foray of the 2009 Greenville Regional, but it didn’t take long to get the word. Game One of the tournament, featuring the second seed South Carolina and the third seed George Mason was in weather delay. Some Eagle-Eyed Official had spotted lightning somewhere within the Secret Radius, and by rule, the good people of Greenville should not fry in this manner.
Instead we were left to huddle under a giant pecan tree. It’s a safe bet we escaped by the standing hair on our electrically charged heads. It was time to find better cover.
I spent a fair amount of the next five hours with twelve other Pirates in the back a 1968 Purple Cadlillac ambulance. And yes, I was assured it was a custom ambulance and not a custom hearse. The vehicle hailed from Kansas, and we all know that no one ever died in an ambulance in the Great American MidWest. Folks out that way are too sensible for that. During the breaks in the weather, I would kick off my flip-flops and hurl rocks with my toes, the game perpetually 50 minutes away.
The Officials called the game just before the deadline (11pm) at which the game shall not be played under the all-encompassing rules of the NCAA. It meant back-to-back double headers were to follow, and no team in their right head could survive the torture. The weather cleared as we drove away….
2009 Greenville Regional
Friday May 29
South Carolina 11 - George Mason 3
Saturday May 30
East Carolina 11 - Binghamton 7
MVP Trent Whitehead: 2-4, 2 RBI, mashed the BU pitch for HR
Binghamton 11 - George Mason 6
South Carolina 12 - East Carolina 2
Sunday May 31
East Carolina 16 - Binghamton 9
Kyle Roller (2 HR, 4 RBI) led a potent offense, but the MVP goes to P Brad Mincey, whose first career complete game was critical to saving the bullpen for ECU to go deep into the tournament
East Carolina 8 - South Carolina 6
Three Pirates homered (Roller, Henderson, Harrington), but the MVP goes to P Kevin Brandt, who didn’t give up a run until the seventh and went 8 1/3 innings pitched. Again the pitching performance kept the Championship hopes alive. Monday June 1
East Carolina 10 - South Carolina 9
If Devin Harris’ ninth-inning, game-tying three-run shot to left field wasn’t enough to earn him MVP honors for the deciding game of the Greenville Regional, his base-knock up the middle (scoring Kyle Roller from second base) that won the tournament in dramatic fashion sealed the deal. Harris had 5 RBI on the night and scored twice.
Of the 24 exasperating and exhilarating hours spent in the Jungle of the CLS, the last hour was the best. All the hours of rain-sun-heat-sweat-beer-chicken-burger-baseball had left me dehydrated and delirious. But as I tried to wedge my way on the fence in the bottom of the ninth, I still felt like IT was bound to happen. When Harris’ shot left his bat and I saw that tiny white spec hurling against the black back drop of the early summer night, there was no doubt. We all hugged and high-fived, strangers and locals alike. And when Harris’ game-winner dribbled up the middle, I knew it. Roller made a mile wide turn at third and perfectly slid behind the well-thrown bullet from Whit Merrifield, the Gamecock outfielder. For a minute there, I thought I was at Woodstock. Winning’s like that. It brings out the love.
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