This is a blog dedicated in support of the first professional baseball team in South Carolina's Midlands region in 12 years. When I first moved to South Carolina as a toddler, not only did Columbia have a pro baseball team but so did Sumter where I am from. Now those days are long gone, and Sumter hasn't fought hard to even get a Coastal Plain League team since. Columbia was able to hold over with a CPL team from 2006 to 2014. But Columbia is used to great baseball with the Gamecocks, and while the Blowfish had some talent and was a good option to fill the void of sports in the summer, we really needed Minor League Baseball back here. Real professional baseball, which feeds into the major leagues and where only the best college and high school players get to play. And now we have that again. And somehow the same MLB affiliate is back as well!
So why start this blog? In Minor League Baseball wherever I go, there is a lot of hype surrounding not the players and the action on the field, but the in-game promotions between the innings. That, or the promotions such as Thirsty Thursday, Fireworks Nights, or free giveaways. When I first started to get back to going to minor league games when I was 13, those were fun and comical to see. But then you see them all. And when it overshadows the game, it stops being fun. A MiLB team like the Fireflies plays 70 home games a year. If you go to say five of them, stuff gets old and becomes less entertaining. And I think that would also have to include the 8 year olds that minor league teams mostly seem to market to. You need to give fans a reason to if not buy season tickets to come on a routine basis. And for a baseball team, well that means..... baseball.
So this blog is going to be about baseball. Sure, it will touch on the gameday experience at Spirit Communications Park, which will be my 500th sports stadium visited. I'll try to add the fan's perspective here on what it's like to see the Fireflies. Nobody wants just straight newspaper reporting on Minor League Baseball. But there is still plenty of baseball to discuss about the Fireflies. Will the Fireflies be as successful on the field as their predecessors, the Savannah Sand Gnats, were? Okay, that's hard to say as the Mets aren't prioritizing the results of their Class A team. But how successful will our Firefly players become? Which player should we be most excited about? When will the first Firefly reach the big leagues? Which players on opposing teams are some we can get interested in seeing? How will the Fireflies stack up in attendance compared to the Bombers of old and the rest of the SAL (that's what the men in suits are most interested in)? How does Columbia weather during baseball season compare to other cities? I am sure most South Carolinians will be interested in that after the Summer of 2013 and the events of this past fall. So yeah, there will be a lot of baseball-related issues to discuss with the Fireflies. Because this is baseball.
So when I can, I will update the progress of all players who wear the Firefly uniform as they try to reach Citi Field (or some place to be named later). I will post nightly recaps, with more details when I get out to the games. I will post a summary of all professional baseball games, not just results but weather and attendance as well. I will preview all SAL opponents as the Fiireflies play them. I don't like how we got this team from Savannah (more on that later) and I am not particularly fond of the Fireflies being affiliated with a big market MLB team (also more on that later). But ever since I went to High Point and got to see games in Greensboro and Winston-Salem in the first and last months of a few seasons, I thought it would be fun to follow the happenings of a minor league team throughout the season. That team has now arrived. It's going to be a fun five months.
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