Leaving the McKimmon Center Tuesday night, a woman yelled out to someone in the parking lot, “Wake Forest is up by two!” The man asked back, “What inning is it?” Some people think baseball year round.
The Raleigh Hot Stove League’s 63rd Annual Baseball Banquet proved that as more than 300 attended to talk about professional, college, amateur, high school and youth baseball.
In fact, Randy Mobley, the president of the International League, pointed out what a special area of the country the Triangle is for players, coaches and fans because of the wide variety of baseball options from the Mudcats to the Bulls from the Wolfpack to the Tar Heels, from USA baseball to the Middle Creek state high school champs.
The Mudcats made a big impact in their first year of High Class A baseball in the Carolina League in 2012, league president John Hopkins pointed out, by helping the league to its highest attendance ever at nearly 2 million. That’s the most that have seen games in the Carolina League since the Durham Bulls were in the league in 1995.
Steve Bryant, owner of the Mudcats, said he was impressed by the level of play, even stating that he thought the Class A Mudcats last year could have beaten some of the Double A Mudcat teams from years past.
The Triple A Bulls will spend the 2013 season celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Bull Durham movie that helped make the team and minor league baseball relevant nationally, said Bulls General Manager Mike Birling.
He pointed out that earlier this week, race car driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. purchased some baseball gear from the team’s website. Later he emailed to them a picture of himself with a Bulls hat on in front of his bus which is a replica of the Bulls bus from the movie Bull Durham.
Former major league pitcher Mike Caldwell, who won 90 games over six years with the Milwaukee Brewers, was honored with the Willie Duke Lifetime Achievement Award presented by banquet host Tony Riggsbee. Caldwell, a Tarboro native, joked that he helped put about 34 or 35 guys in the Hall of Fame by giving up 218 home runs.
Keynote speaker Johnny Narron, the hitting coach for the Brewers, despite talking seriously about what a privilege it was to wear a baseball uniform, also joked. He told about how a grizzly old baseball coach answered a man who asked what he should do about his son who was afraid of getting hit with a baseball. He said, “Teach him to play soccer.”
Texas Rangers pitcher Matt Harrison, who was born in Durham and raised in Creedmoor, was presented the Will Wynne Award, given to the North Carolinian who has contributed the most or had the biggest impact on baseball during the previous season. Harrison, who last week signed a five-year, $55 million contract, said he had worked very hard but that the game will definitely re-pay you – and he wasn’t just talking about money.
Carlos Rodon, a rising sophomore pitcher at NC State, was presented the college player of the year award while Jimmy Boyd, who pitched Middle Creek to the 4A State Championship, was presented the Jim “Catfish” Hunter award as the Wake County high school player of the year award.
The Raleigh Hot Stove League is one of the oldest, continually operating baseball organizations of its type in the nation. And its members can’t wait until Spring when people really will be talking about innings instead of halves.