The Weekend I Went PRO!

BY: MATTHEW PRESLAR

The last weekend in April turned out to be my best “working weekend” of baseball yet. I umpired at two BRAND NEW professional venues, even before the pro players have taken the field.

​My ballpark adventure started Friday night in Gastonia, NC. Working a Perfect Game tournament, I was on the plate for the VERY FIRST baseball game played at FUSE District Stadium. FUSE will be home of the Gastonia Honey Hunters and will play in the independent Atlantic League.

​FUSE is a turf field and meant to host a wide array of events. Being multipurpose makes for a lot of quirks for a baseball stadium. However, FUSE is unique and out of the mold of new ballparks being built today. My two Friday night games were both decided by one run, which made for some good, competitive baseball to commemorate “Opening Night.”

While it was quite an honor to work opening day at FUSE, Monday was even better… 

My family recently moved to Kannapolis, NC with affiliated Minor League Baseball and the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers being a large selling point. Rumor began to get out that a high school game may be played at Atrium Health Ballpark. And you see where this is going...

I was assigned the game between A.L. Brown High School and Northwest Cabarrus High School, the two schools in the city limits of Kannapolis. Three college games had already been played at the stadium. While these games were really fun to watch from our season ticket seats, it surely didn’t compare to working the bases for THE FIRST high school game played in the BRAND NEW stadium, beating the pro guys to the field by eight days.
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The environment had a pro feel and the town came out in full force. Supporters for both schools and baseball supporters in general made up the 1,400 in attendance; nearly full capacity under the current world climate. The game itself was great, no matter the venue. The game was a pitchers’ duel holding scoreless through five innings. Northwest scored in the top of the 6th to go up 1-0. This score held until the bottom of the 7th. A.L. Brown tied the score at 1 with a potential winning run being thrown out at home. With 2 outs and a runner at 3rd, from the middle of the infield, I called a balk for the pitcher not coming set before delivering his pitch. This sent the winning run in from 3rd and ended a great game. The game was full of great moments and will go down in the memories of the players, coaches, umpires, and the city of Kannapolis in general.