Cody Rogers
We are now 80-plus days into the Major League Baseball lockout. Spring Training – which should’ve started with pitchers and catchers reporting last week – has officially been delayed, and barring any miraculous bridge building over the far reaching valley between where the owners and players are at in their discussions, the start of the season will be postponed as well.
While the billionaire owners – who have seen their profit margins and team values skyrocket in the last few years – lock out the multi-millionaire players in the hopes of soon reaching a new collective bargaining agreement, it’s us, the fans, that are getting hit the hardest.
My editor won’t make his yearly trip down to Florida to watch his Phillies in Spring Training with his father, and unless my luck at scrambling for tickets to quickly scheduled games has changed since the last postseason, I’m probably not going to get to see my Braves hoist the 2021 World Series champion banner. We and the millions of other fans of the 28 other baseball teams will all have some sad story of how the spat between the two sides has hurt us.
As the owners’ unanimous decision to lock out players and scrub any knowledge of their existence from team websites, promo schedules and social media pages continues. Ironically enough, the group with the most to complain about in the world of the MLB, the minor league players who have no union or collective bargaining agreement, are set to play another season as scheduled.
These minor leaguers don’t receive a livable wage or year-round pay and won’t receive a single cent for their work during Spring Training. They are playing solely for the slim hope that they might one day make it to the big leagues. You can make the trip down to Gwinnett to watch a few of them play for the Braves’ Triple-A team, the Stripers.
If you’re not trying to make the hour-plus drive to watch them, there are plenty of other options for those of us starving for America’s Favorite Pastime, more so here in Habersham County than most places.
You can make the short trip to Demorest to watch the highest level of baseball the county offers with the Piedmont Lions baseball team. They are 4-2-1 so far this season and their schedule is full of home games for the next three weeks.
You’ll find the Habersham Central Raiders baseball team in Demorest as well. The Raiders have been on the wrong end of two close, exciting games, and more recently put a 11-2 beatdown on the neighboring Stephens County Indians in one of their games last Saturday. They play all of their home games at Raider Park, located at Hilliard A. Wilbanks Middle School.
About 15 minutes further along U.S. 441 is Tallulah Falls School, where the TFS baseball team plays all their home games. The Indians are coming off their first state playoff appearance in school history and scored 12 or more runs in their first three games of the season.
You can easily find the Raiders’, Lions’ and Indians’ schedules online, and they would all welcome your support for just $5 a ticket.
Cody Rogers is a staff writer for The Northeast Georgian. Email him at crogers@TheNortheastGeorgian.com