9/17/2018 0 Comments Champions of the SummerBY: MATTHEW PRESLARDuring all the stops on the road, you grow a great level of admiration and respect for those franchises. Once you have been to the stadium, seen the culture of the team, and observed the fan base, you have an attachment to every place you have been. In a way, its a little like coaching a youth league team. While you may only be around those kids for one season, you are naturally drawn to them. You want to see them grow up and take pride in seeing them succeed personally and professionally. I feel that way with many of these franchises. This season, against some difficult odds, we saw three of our stops go on to become league champions.
In order in which they were crowned champions (coincidentally in opposite order of when we attended their stadium):
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BY: MATTHEW PRESLARAn unexpected day off umpiring on the front end of our July tour turned into a big adventure. That extra day led us to look at any stadiums remotely close to our planned trip to East Tennessee. Although we didn’t purchase tickets in advance...JUST IN CASE, we decided we could try to stretch ourselves out and make it to Nashville.
We knew nothing was definite until we got there. However, we wanted to give ourselves every chance for an adventure. I umpired some showcase baseball on Saturday afternoon then came home and napped for a couple of hours. We left the Charlotte area around 1:30 in the morning after a historic UFC PPV that we couldn’t miss. We filled up with gas in Asheville at 4:30 am, then saw the sun rise on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. BY: MATTHEW PRESLARA few days ago at work, the question came up of who is the greatest baseball player in the history of Union County. A few names came to mind of some former major leaguers, all well past retired as active players. I also thought of a couple of names I knew that are currently moving up the ranks through minor league baseball. Hopefully these young men can continue to progress and help put Union County (NC) on the map on the biggest stage.
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