Due to the efforts of Greensboro Smith High School baseball coach Derrick Johnson, the city of Greensboro will host the Black Baseball World Seires in August of 2009.
Johnson and his fellow Greensboro coaches, including JB Baynes and Reggie Tatum, took three teams to the World Series in Columbia, South Carolina this past August and they won the 15 and Under Series title.
While in Columbia, Johnson working along side former MEAC commissioner Ken Free, put in a bid to host the 2009 Black Baseball World Series and they were awarded the Series on Sunday of this week.
Johnson and Free, also a former Greensboro resident whose son Ken Free Jr. still livess here, both worked hard to beat out the other bid challenges from larger cities like Atlanta and Detroit and the request by Columbia to keep the Black Baseball World Series in South Carolina.
This should force Greensboro to work even harder to have the Civil Rights Museum completed by the time the Series rolls into town in August of next year. The Civil Rights Museum, to be located downtown in the old Woolworths building, would be a huge attraction for those in town visiting Greensboro during the Black Baseball World Series.
Skip Alston, Earl Jones, Mayor Johnson and Jim Melvin need to shake a leg and get the Museum open and ready for the incoming visitor traffic. Congrats to Derrick Johnson, Ken Free and crew for the landing the Series and bringing it in to Greensboro.
We will have more from Coach Johnson later today.