Little League Central: Gillette always a hit each summer

For the South Durham Little League “Green” ages 8-10 all-star players, it was a near unanimous vote — Gillette Baseball Complex is their favorite thing about Wilson.

That’s understandable given the good times the self-proclaimed “Green Bean Kings” have had at the complex this summer, including winning their first two games in the Tournament of State Champions over the weekend as well as the North Carolina Little League District 6 championship there last month. As with most teams that have made it to Gillette for the NCLL postseason, it has become a joyous destination since the complex began hosting state tournaments shortly after it opened in 2009.

This summer, the facility has hosted a record 187 Little League postseason games and counting. The Ages 8-10 TOSC, a production of the Little League Southeast Region now in its fourth year of coming to Wilson, will wrap up by Wednesday, weather permitting, just in time for the Ages 9-11 TOSC that starts Friday with championship teams from Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, West Virginia, South Carolina and Florida as well as the state champion and runner-up from North Carolina.

From the time the Wilson City Little League begins play in April through the end of the WCLL season in early June and onto the crush of postseason games at Gillette, Wilson Parks and Recreation Department athletics supervisor Troy Blaser and his crew of mostly teenagers handle it all.

“Well, it’s never easy, but my staff is creative. We come up with ideas, we execute it,” Blaser said during rounds of games in the TOSC on Sunday at Southern Bank Stadium. “We add a little more as it goes on through district, states in the TOSC. Now we’re firing on all cylinders right now.”

After a two-month diet of hot dogs and Mountain Dew, Blaser and company are in the proverbial short rows now with one more TOSC to go after the Ages 8-10 wraps up. He said he has about 8-10 people working each game during the TOSC, which has just one venue — Southern Bank Stadium — for one game at a time. During the dual state or district tournaments, all four fields at Gillette are in use with more people needed to pull it off.

Parks and recreation director David Lee marveled at the smooth efficiency of Blaser’s crew when a monster rainstorm hit Gillette during a recent game.

“If we don’t get the tarp down and get the flags down and everything done, and he doesn’t have his staff, a well-oiled machine, then we’re in jeopardy and are not playing today because it floods,” Lee said, “but Troy and his people, they’ve got it down to a science between the rec staff and the park staff. And it’s just amazing to watch. We’ve done it a long time. It was 181 games so far, and we got another week and a half of teams in here from eight different states, and they love coming to Wilson.”

BUILT FOR IT

Indeed, they do. Gillette was built to host such events as one of the nicer Little League complexes in the state and certainly in eastern North Carolina. It was an easy choice for the Southeast Region to turn to Wilson and Gillette four years ago when Greenville landed the Little League Softball World Series for its Elm Street Park.

With the fourth year of TOSC games nearly halfway through, the Gillette staff has gotten used to the routine.

“We know what to expect,” Blaser said. “Just like the opening night, it was great. Friday, the weather cooperated and we just went out there and just like it was like riding a bike.”

Some members of Blaser’s young crew, as well as kids associated with the visiting teams in the tournaments, are getting a chance to sit behind the microphone and handle P.A. announcements or call the play-by-play for games streamed over the Gamechanger app or website. Lee said that one young man with South Durham, Court Beason, had discovered a niche for calling the action.

“We almost have our own little, like mini-training sessions going on if you want to be a play-by-play guy and there’s like five or six of them that love to do play-by-play and are really good at it,” Lee said. “He came to like every game and would do play-by-play. And he was wearing a Wilson hat!”

The biggest headache Blaser typically has to deal with this time of year is the weather with storms and rainouts that cause schedule shifts and antsy visiting teams. But worrying about the weather is not for him.

“It’s not worth it because it’s been wrong for the last three days, forecast-wise,” he said.

The only other blip in the tournament was an incident during a game against Bull City between one of the coaches for the Cherryville team and the home plate umpire in the Ages 10-12 state tournament last Monday, July 15. Some angry words turned into a shove by the coach, Chase Burgess, and the umpire, Robbie Beamon, responded by swinging with his face mask before cooler heads prevailed. The game, which Bull City lead 15-6, was called and the coach was suspended indefinitely from Little League activities while the umpire was banned from calling Little League games for the rest of 2024.

Fan-shot videos of the confrontation quickly spread across social media and into traditional media channels. Lee pointed out that even noted pop culture website TMZ covered it, but the incident didn’t ruin the summer, or even the week at Gillette.

“It was just a shame and embarrassing that we had a incident like we had between two adults, because it’s not about the adults, it’s about the kids and the games and the families and stuff,” Lee said. “We handled it like we handled any situation, and we’re going to move forward from it. And I hope the positives far outweigh that one one negative. You know, it’s like I said a little while ago, if you’re not doing anything, nothing happens. Folks love to come to Wilson. They love for us to host. They love our facility. All of them love our facility. And 99.9% of the folks have a great experience. It’s just unavoidable at times.”

LOVING GILLETTE

It certainly was forgotten by the time the Greenville Tar Heel Little League wrapped up the state championship and a nonissue for the teams arriving for the Ages 8-10 TOSC, especially South Durham Green, which couldn’t wait to get back to the site of its District 6 title. The “Green Bean Kings” had to go to McDowell County for the Ages 8-10 state tournament, where they finished second. But as the host state runner-up team, South Durham Green had a bid to the TOSC, where they won their first two games and qualified for the four-team semifinals.

After South Durham Green knocked off Virginia state champion Dulles Little League on Sunday, the players and coaches packed into the air-conditioned media room at Gillette to face off with their teenage interviewers.

When the question “what do you like the most about Wilson and Gillette” was asked of the whole team, the answers came fast and varied, from the turf infield that keeps the ground dry to the stadium to the giant scoreboard to nearly everyone’s favorite: the concession stand.

While Nancy and Al Hardison have been dishing out hot dogs and chicken sandwiches at Gillette since it opened, it’s doubtful the Gillette concession stand had ever received such a public and united outpouring of support as when several “Green Bean Kings” proclaimed it to be their favorite “restaurant” in Wilson.

For South Durham Green third baseman Theo Farris, whose parents are from Wilson, coming here has an even more special meaning.

“My grandparents live here!” he announced with a big smile.

Alas, the “Green Bean Kings” would eventually fall to Vero Beach (Florida) Little League in Tuesday morning’s semifinals, ending their summer but they left wearing smiles in the postgame press conference.

On Friday, the last round of Little Leaguers will hit Gillette with dreams of a tournament title but will leave Wilson next week with memories of a lifetime.

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