Winners named at Hot Stove Dinner

We announced the l award winners tonight at the 1st Annual Grater Charlotte Hot Stove League Dinner.

Chase Arnold was named winner of the Youth Baseball Player of the Year Award. Chase plays for the Charlotte Megastars and attends Holy Trinity Catholic Middle School. Providence freshman Brett Austin was the second finalist.


Richie Shaffer was named High School Player of the Year. Richie plays for Providence and announced from the podium that he had committed to Clemson for baseball for fal 09. Tyler Pilkington, the outstanding lefthander from Weddington was second finalist.


On the softball side, Constance Orr was named High School softball player of the year. Constance in Chapel Hill bound next fall, but first will work to earn her 3rd straight state championship. Kalie Lang was the second finalist for the award and will be an early favorite to win next season as she is only a junior. Erin Kayton were named Youth Player of the Year. Erin is about to start her first softball season at Marvin Ridge. Alexis Davis was the second finalist for the award.

Olympic High School Coach Bob Rhodes was also recognized for his service to the game of baseball.

The event sold out about 2pm yesterday and we were very pleased with the amazing support for our first time event. As with anything we learned some things we will do better next time, but the Community support has given us a great start. We will expand to include some additional awards next season and as with any good event, look for ways to make it event better. Take what we learned, work hard to fix it and do our best to make the event perfect.

Not sure yet what we raised for The Miracle League, but I feel good that we are off to a solid start and more importantly we created awareness for what will be a true Miracle.
I want to comment the Charlotte Latin baseball family for being the firts team to make what will be a very sizable donation to The Miracle League. They have created a nice incentive plan that donates based on singles, doubles, triples and homeruns for the season. So Swing Hard Hawks!


Thanks for the support. We will be back next January!

 

...congratulations

I understand from some people that attended that they had a great time.

What have you found that you may want to do differently next year?

 

Upgrades

I think anytime you strive for perfection, you can find things to improve on. On the external things, we have two new awards we will add that allow us to honor more kids. One will be a team of the year that will focus not only on performance, but academics, charity and more.

The main focus of the evening is the youth and I want to be able to honor more as we are in such a talented baseball and softball area.

Jeff and I want this to be the best one in the country, so no matter how perfect something goes, we will look for ways to make it even better.

To be the first one, I think it went really well and I know the food was one of the highlights of the evening, the Filet was incredible and the chicken was the best I have ever had!

 

Bob Rhodes

Thanks so very much for recognizing a true gentleman of baseball. He has dedicated numerous years to this sport.
Ask any of his former players and they will all tell you that he's one of the best and he gets the most out of the talent pool that is available.
So.....here's to you, Bob!!

 

+1 to that. Well said. (and I hope Greg is doing well).

 

Greg is doing very well. The season starts this Saturday at Pffeifer. I bet you wouldn't recognize him now......he's a BEAST!!!
Hope to see ya' at some games this spring, Neckball.
Later, RSPM

 

By the way, Greg looked outstanding Saturday and he has gotten HUGE!!!!!