Jack Herring happened to be in Greenville at the right time.
The former Rollins College (Fla.) outfielder came to town ahead of his summer league assignment of playing ball for the Greenville Yard Gnomes in the Coastal Plain League.
That’s when he and his summer league teammates had a prime opportunity to check out an East Carolina baseball game.
The Pirates were hosting the Greenville Regional when the Yard Gnomes roster spent a day at the ballpark soaking in an NCAA postseason game from The Jungle. Fans wanted to see the Pirates finally break through their postseason wall, beginning with advancing out of the regional.
Herring realized the passion and understood that he hadn’t experienced this kind of atmosphere surrounding a college baseball team before. It caught his attention.
“I was in the (transfer) portal kind of late,” Herring said. “And when we went to the regional, I was thinking like, ‘This place is pretty cool.’”
That place turned out to be somewhere that Herring didn’t want to leave. Herring signed to play at ECU on July 12, inking his final two years of eligibility to play for the Pirates.
“The way the fans show up and the atmosphere,” Herring said, “it’s completely different than anything else.”
Playing for the Yard Gnomes has given him a soft opening of sorts and the Atlanta native has enjoyed his first taste of baseball in Greenville,
One day after signing with the Pirates, Herring blasted a grand slam in a weekend win over the Wilson Tobs. And his bat hasn’t cooled.
During Wednesday’s 15-7 loss to the Morehead City Marlins, Herring went 3-for-4 with a double, a walk and an RBI.
The Yard Gnomes (10-30) put up a strong fight on Wednesday, battling back from a four-run deficit to tie the score at 6-6 in the eighth. First baseman JC Vanek capped the rally with a two-out RBI double in the bottom of the eighth, and Herring came to the plate with a chance to take the lead, but he flew out to the warning track in left field.
Then the game turned into nightmare fuel for Greenville as the Marlins scored nine runs in the top of the ninth, despite collecting just one hit.
Morehead City took the lead on a sacrifice fly to make it 7-6, before the wheels fell off. Yard Gnomes pitching loaded the bases, then issued five consecutive walks with the bases loaded as the deficit ballooned to 12-6.
The Marlins capped the inning with a three-run double to put the game out of reach. The Gnomes scored a run in the bottom half but couldn’t muster any more fight in the loss, their ninth in 10 games.
Despite the losing record, the Yard Gnomes players are focused on improvements and individual goals as they tinker and make adjustments before returning to their respective schools.
For Herring, this summer was about taking another step in development while proving to himself that he can be an impact player in the CPL. Making the jump from Division II to playing at ECU next season is motivation enough, though he is driven by wanting to stand out in Greenville.
“It’s been going pretty good,” Herring said. “The last two weeks have been all right but I feel like I’ve had a pretty good summer overall. Some of my goals were to be an All-Star, be a starter, which I have, and maybe get the league MVP. Maybe I won’t get that, but I wanted to be one of the best players here when I got here.”
Herring has six home runs, five doubles, 28 RBIs and 20 runs scored in 35 games.
He looks ready for a bigger challenge.
“I just realized it was time and I just wanted to move on to something bigger,” Herring said of signing with the Pirates. “I was at a small D-II school and I want to try to go to Omaha, help myself get drafted and play for a team with a big culture. I want to be a part of something big like that.”
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