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Monday, April 14, 2008 11:12 PM CDT
You can even keep the foul balls
Meticulous planning makes Tuesday’s game something special
By Brian Nielsen, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
You could say Jim Schmitz foolishly gave up home field advantage and maybe any home fan support.
Don’t go thinking that Eastern Illinois’ baseball coach is some naïve sap who doesn’t realize that playing in the hometown of Illinois starters Ryan Hastings and Kyle Hudson and maybe just Mattoon in general, Grimes Field bleachers are likely to have as much Illini orange as EIU blue tonight.
“It came up in the organizing talk,” Schmitz said. “I don’t really care. It’s about playing a night game. It’s about giving our kids some fun signing autographs.”
Yeah, let’s have some fun.
Schmitz is not unaware. He just knows a promotion when he sees one.
Along with scouting the area for baseball players, Schmitz has seen who can turn what would have been an ordinary middle of the week non-conference college afternoon baseball game into a festive night.
Mattoon can.
So Eastern’s home baseball game is today at Mattoon, at not 6:30 but 6:33 p.m. That’s how detailed Kurt Stretch, superintendent of Mattoon parks and lakes, has gone into preparations bringing college baseball to one of the city’s showcases Grimes Field in Peterson Park.
“Kurt has put more time into this one game than we do for our 30 home games,” Schmitz told the Mattoon Rotary on Monday when both he and Illinois coach Dan Hartleb were guest speakers. “I get more e-mails from Deb (Crean, Stretch’s secretary) than I do from my wife. This is the most organized game I’ve been in. Six thirty-three. I don’t know where we get that. It’s not on TV.”
No, but close.
So far this season Eastern has had no local radio broadcast for its baseball games. Tonight both WEIU and WMCI are to carry the game.
The scheduled 6:33 p.m. first pitch is to come after a 6:05 meet the players session when Hudson and Hastings as well as their former Mattoon teammate Ross Jeske, an Eastern relief pitcher, are among those to be giving autographs. Blake Fairchild, another former Mattoon star whose injury is keeping him from pitching for Illinois again this year, still has his arm ready to sign autographs as well.
Players are to be introduced at 6:25 p.m. and then 5-year-old Alexis Cutler of Moweaqua is to sign the national anthem.
Rod Maxwell, a 1973 graduate who played for Eastern’s NCAA Division II College World Series team before being drafted by the California Angels, is to throw out the first pitch.
Not only is admission free but so are foul balls which unlike most games at Grimes or at Eastern’s Coaches Stadium can be kept for souvenirs rather than returned to the field.
Mattoon even seemed to plan the weather going from the past weekend’s frigid and wet weather to a Tuesday forecasted in the 60s with sun at least for the first couple of innings.
“If it goes over well and we win, we’ll do it again,” Schmitz said.
He probably was only partially joking. Actually, Schmitz has a better record than you would think about against the Big Ten foe standing 6-7 against Illinois.
Predicting the winning team for tonight is no sure thing. Saying this will go over well is a pretty sure bet.
Brian Nielsen is sports editor of the Journal Gazette/Times-Courier. Contact him at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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K.S. wrote on Apr 15, 2008 4:26 PM:
What a great opportunity for local baseball fans.
Thanks to Coach Schmitz, Kurt Stretch, and Brian Nielsen for a great article.
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