Where are the boys of the Summer?

Where are the boys of the Summer?
Courtesy of Jordan Stowe, for GreensboroSports.com and taking us back to Days/Daze of Summer, and the sport of baseball in the Major and Minor Leagues..

“Take me out to the ballgame, take me out to the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack, I don’t care if I never get back. Let me root, root, root For the home team If they don’t win it’s a shame Aahh. For it’s one,Two, Three strikes you’re out At the old ball game…”

Major League Baseball is as American as apple pie, banana pudding, and southern sweet tea. This year due to Covid-19, the boys of summer are taking a hiatus. The local stadiums in Greensboro, High Point, and Winston-Salem are all sitting quiet. The High Point Rockers were setting up to start their second season after a pretty stellar inaugural start last year.

A midst the hiatus, Major League Baseball also has decided to cut 42 teams from the Minor League Baseball Farmyard System. Among those are the Burlington Royals from Burlington, NC. The South Atlantic League, home to the Greensboro Grasshoppers are losing several opponents in the West Virginia Power and the Hagerstown Suns.

Hagerstown was put on the map when Bryce Harper came kissing his way through. It is no secret he was not a nice guy in the minors. I saw him on several occasions back in 2012/2013 and actually witnessed his 10th, 11th, and 13th Home Run in his Minor League career. The Suns were playing against the Greensboro Grasshoppers that day. I found out then that he drove his Lamborghini to the games and he would put his equipment bags on the bus, but he did not ride with the team. It was very obvious he was not a team player. To put that in perspective, when Michael Jordan played for the White Sox affiliate, the Birmingham Barons, even he rode the bus.

I definitely miss the boys of Summer and I can not wait to see them swing that bat, see an outfielder scale a wall to rob a home run, and drink beer in the heat of the sun.

I realize the landscape will be forever changed in the sports world, when we look in the record books in the years to come, there will be 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022. The sports world will not have a 2020 for the first time ever in our history of modern sports.

The NCAA Tournament season this year was March sadness to say the least. There were no Cinderella stories of Lehigh University beating Duke in the first round. There were no Mayweather fights, there were no Oilers losing another season. There was just silence. Empty seats. And silence. We are living in different times. And as one human to another, be blessed, be safe, and until we smell the popcorn and hear the crack of the bat, and cheer on out favorite team, “y’all be careful out there!”