Carolina Mariners and Charlotte Heat Old Days

I remember those guys

Back in the day when my son was younger we played some great teams and had a pretty good one ourselves. The Riverbandits coached by Mr Hanover. The Davie BoSox coach by Mr Merrifield. The Triad Thunder coach by "Deion". The Catawba Valley Storm dont remember the coach but they were a fine group. The South Wake Storm coached by Mr Mangum dad of Caleb Mangum former NC State catcher and now in the minors. The Banks Blaze out of Kinston and Lenoir area. The Rowan Stampede coach by a big dude who's name I can not pronounce. The ER Hawks. The Kernersville Cardinals. The Alamance A's. The Stansfield Clippers. And many many more. We had the Durham Diamonds who then became the Durham Diamondbacks. Later I coached the first team Scott Bankhead had at the NC Baseball Academy 12u AAU. Ryan Earnest coached the 13u team. They had Chris Luck , CJ Beatty , Justin Jackson and many others. Its alot of fun to see all these guys continue in the game and do so well. It would be fun to see some people post their rosters and posistions these kids played at that age and now where they are playing.

 

Coach 27, we have met. My son almost played for that 1st Baseball Academy team. Instead he went with GBC in Greensboro. Bankhead always ran a great program.

 

Sounds good! Let's list them.. I'll have to stick to the 08's and 09's as I have coached for 20 plus years and I'll for sure forget someone important...

 

semi-pro?

coach, what exactly is/was a semi-pro team? I always heard that term used.
are there still any semi-pro teams? is that the modern day 30 & over, 40 & over leagues, etc?
did Ray Tanner play for the Bees?

 

To be honest I really dont remember

Its been so long ago I really can not remember. There were alot of teams across the state that played in the same league. It was probaly just a term used to name it.

 

Durham Bees

Yes, I played with Ray Tanner and several UNC and NCSU on the Durham Bees in the summer of '80 and '81. The Bees were called a "semi-pro" team that played in a league in Roxboro years back against such teams as the Winston-Salem Pond Giants, Sonny's of Greensboro and Caldwell. The teams in this league consisted of current college players, former professional and college players and former high school kids. It was actually a very competitive league and many college players would play there prior to moving to the cape cod etc. The Winston-Salem Pond Giants were an all black team full of former major and minor leaguers that were all absolute studs.

Interesting story.

There was an old man that played with us for many years that played pro ball for the Mets. He must have been about 50 and was still pitching in the beer leagues. His name was Grover Powell. Grover made one major league start in 1963 and pitched a 4 hit shut-out against the Phillies and was dubbed the savior for the fledgling Mets organization. In his next start he took a line drive to the cheek and his career never recovered. I saw on Sportscenter some time back, he was the only guy ever to go undefeated for his major league career (1-0)! Grover was a branch manager of a bank in Raleigh when diagnosed and died of lukemia in 1985. Read sory here:

http://www.ivy50.com/story.aspx?sid=1/5/2007

 

nice story about Grover Powell.

 

Recently when Levi Michael started with the Dirtbags I asked Chad "that CANNOT be the same Levi Michael from the Mariners!?" But indeed it was. If you stay in this game long enough the people all come back around again. We had to rehash with his parents the time the Mariners beat the CV Storm when they were 9 or 10 for the State Championship in Concord at the little field in the back with the cement bleachers.

There were times through the years that Chad would get put on base and his eyes would well up and he would get so upset...he thought that was the meanest thing ever to walk a kid. He just didn't get it, but he gets it now!

It seems like it would come down to the Storm, Heat, Mariners, and don't forget the Cleveland County Cardinals every weekend. I also vividly remember the coach of the Cardinals stopping me in the parking lot one morning as we were headed into Hartsell Field. He said "It Chad pitching against us today?" I kinda smiled and said, "yeah". He shook his head and sighed.

Later it was the Yellowjackets, D'backs, Redwings mixing it up.

I saw the Long twins this summer at a showcase at HPU. They look exactly the same as they did when they were 9 years old.

 

You are so right

I can still see Austin Moyer on the hill with Cockman behind the plate and Dimmock at SS for the Triad Thunder. Cameron Conner on the hill and Cory Thompson at 3b for the South Wake Storm. I remember the Banks Blaze with "Big" John Alpin on the hill and Bryce Grady at SS. And those Catawba Valley Storm teams just loaded with outstanding young players. Now Im seeing the same guys and more every weekend. Its alot of fun to see these young men grow up in the game. And it sure is fun to have alot of them on your team instead of facing them. There is no doubt that playing that calibre of competition and getting good coaching growing up had alot to do with these guys development.

 

TRI-COUNTY TORNADOS

Do any of you guys remember the Tri-County Tornados? That takes me back quite a few years. We started that team in 1998 when the boys were turning 10. We won our 1st 2 tournaments we ever played in and so we kept going. When the boys turned 13 we played the fall season and had to call it quits because we had 1/2 our team playing middle school ball. We hated to see it end. Our players that are still playing ball today are:

Player College attending or to attend
----------- -----------------------------
Seth Grant App St
Matt Pruitt Western Carolina
John Hinson Clemson
Justin Jackson Pro
Parker Price USC Sumter
Nick Eddy Blue Ridge Comm Coll
David Capps Blue Ridge Comm Coll
Casey Allison Wingate
Alex McMahan Gardner Webb
Jason Merrill Louisburg
Ian Haley Surry Comm Coll

These kids will always be family to me. I am proud of them. There are some other boys who played with us that did not keep playing but all of these young men are quality individuals. This was a wonderful bunch of boys to be around. If you know any of these boys you know that is true.