Favorite Legion Ballpark and Why

That's exactly how I remember "old Loudmouth"!
Yes, Concord post 51 included all the teams in Cabarrus County at the time:Ktown, Concord, Northwest, Central and Mount Pleasant.

Yes, I played third base on those teams, but you know I don't recall one bad deal between the players. We played hard but clean and I think we were all real competitors on the field, but respected each other off.
I still have the Towell Cannon Mills presented us for the Area III Championships one year! The only year we were able to beat Rowan!

 

That would be strange if you guys played together, but i just remembered that tj played when they had 3-fingered gloves

 

Gotta go with historic Fleming Stadium in Wilson

 

Newman Park... and they have decent hot dogs..

hot dogs are really good at south rowan..

oh yeah.. i know this isnt a legion stadium.. but i like the granite quarry site where east rowan plays or used to play...the wooden grandstand and all...

another place thats cool is in Kinston where the minor league team plays...
they have a score board with a goose that goes to a particular inning and drops the goose eggs if ya dont score..

 

Haven't been there in awhile but I remember Cherryville being a great place to play. Atmosphere was great there. Fleming in Wilson is also great. Grainger Stadium in Kinston isn't used too much I don't think, but thats a beautiful park.

"Slushy Land" in Smithfield (Johnston County) was always my favorite. Return a foul ball and get a free "Ice Cold Slushy". Or you could just take baseballs from the battin' practice bucket up there and cheat the system a little... Anything for one of those slushies. JC doesn't have a legion team anymore so needless to say, the park is dead to legion ball.

Legion Stadium in Wilmington is also very, very nice.

 

great parks to umpire at

I've umpired at Webb Field and not to disrespect, but it may have been one of the worst fields I've ever umpired on in respect to its surface & seating. I'm sure it holds alot of sentimental value for alot of players over the years, but if you're talking about nice parks, it certainly is not on my top 100.

Cherryville is pretty good - and talk about hecklers - how about Hoover? That old man shows up before Coach Reynolds to get in to the park. He'll heckle Cherryville players if they are not playing up to par. And don't walk one of Cherryville's batters, or you'll get the infamous "Throw the ball over!" Classic. Also, you may see a boy come out and reinact "Little boy with a baseball bat" by Kenny Rogers while they play the song over the loudspeakers during the 7th inning stretch if you're lucky.

M-S Deal (Cald. Co) is a very nice surface, great seating, great food, a reliable grounds crew, and best of all: a changing locker room for umpires! I've heard the bleacher bums up on the old pressbox have a cooler beer they sneek in to the game... classic stuff.
Shelby is the same way, but Shelby is alot newer of a stadium and has better parking. Caldwell has that old classic feel to the park with the odd dimentions and the scoreboard and powerbox (ouch) in play. Both parks are a great place to umpire a game, I've never watched a game there, but the seating looks top notch.

 

players and coaches today could not handle old ed or the old guy that sat behind homeplate at Newman these guys statyed on your butt by the time you got off the bus until you left the park that was the good ol days

 

Homeplate,,,,,,,,,, you are so right, today's players could NOT handle ole Ed,,,,,,,,,, neither could today's parents. Today's world is just different, from the cellphones to the video games. Back in the day of ole Ed, heck everywhere you went, there was heckling of players, I can even remember back in my little league days, I didn't know what a "RAG-ARM" was, but as a little leaguer, I only knew it was every pitcher's name. And it wasn't anything personal, and maybe it wasn't everywhere, but where and when I grew up, thats just the way fans yelled at the game,,,,,,, AT THE PLAYERS. After the game, it was over, no hard feelings. Just good competition.

If you look at today's fans, half of them are on their cellphones during a game, and many players don't get into it as much because they are more concerned with what they're doing after the game. Back in "the day", when there wasn't as much to do after the game,,, the game meant more to everyone.

 

Webb Field

No offense taken on the comment about Webb and really if I hadn't grown up in the area and see the place for what it was and not what it really is, you're right!
Nothing special, bad area, seatings terrible, etc.
But:

One rainy night while playing for Post 51 we had to get a playoff game played that night so we wouldn't get jammed up in the next series. It rained until there was at least 1-2 inches of water on Webb's dirt infield.
The AD at the time was Punch Ford and Punch had a great idea. He called a home heating company to bring a fuel truck down to the field, backed the truck up to the infield and sprayed the whole infield with heating oil.
Then lit her up! When it burned off, he did it again!
We all raked the infield and played the game!!!

After the game most of us players went fishing together, something we did a lot of back then. Seems like we were always doing something as a group together! I guess that made us play as a close knit group.
Staying out late or all night made it tough to work that first shift summer job in the mill though!

TJ21-give me some info on you! The Jr team will be at Newman on Friday maybe we can get together for a Hotdog on me!

 

CountryBoy, I will drive anywhere for a free hotdog, but I'm not from Rowan, I've been a Kannapolis boy all my life. The reason I asked about you playing on those great Concord teams from 72-74 is because I was at all those games. I was merely a youngster roaming the outfield bleachers playing with my buds, but we would stop and watch when the crowd roared. My dad passed away just a few years before your time period and my older cousin (who was apparently your teammate) took me to all the games and cuz is the one that introduced me to baseball. Despite what Braves would like for you to believe, I wasn't HS/Legion age until a few years later.

Look forward to sharing some stories with you at the next Kann/Con game, because I knew most of the players from your team, and several of them lived in my old neighborhood (Royal Oaks).