Roughly eight hours after she left Florida’s oil-stained Panhandle, Becky Aldrich joined a crowd of 6,000-plus baseball players, coaches and fans at Camp Jordan Park for the Dizzy Dean World Series opening ceremony Wednesday evening.
“It’s always a fun getaway,” said Aldrich, whose son, Jaxson, is a catcher for the Navarre (Fla.) Raiders in the 11-year-old division. “I love the competition. I love the fellowship. And I’m so excited to see this part of Tennessee. It’s so green and so gorgeous.”
Between the 36 11-year-old teams and 52 6-year-old squads gathered at Camp Jordan for the next week – champions will be crowned in each class on Thursday, July 22 – Chattanooga’s hotel and restaurants expect to take in as much as $3.5 million in green bills over the next eight days, or nearly four times what last December’s NCAA Championship Subdivision football game brought in.
Florida teams such as the Raiders traveled the farthest to reach the Scenic City. But there are also teams from Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and, of course, Tennessee.
“The turnout tonight was great,” said Dizzy Dean vice-president and Harrison resident Bobby Dunn, whose been involved in Dizzy Dean baseball since 1970. “I thought it was a lot of fun for the kids, especially the 6-year-olds, who really seemed to have a great time.
“You know, we’re a community-based organization. For a lot of these teams, this is their vacation, it’s the only time they’ll leave their communities all summer to play baseball. A lot of our teams pick up cans from January to July to make enough money to get to the World Series.”
Both Aldrich and fellow Raiders parent Jennifer Tweedy wanted everybody to know that they weren’t escaping the Gulf Coast oil spill, however.
“We haven’t seen the oil that a lot of others west of us have,” Aldrich said. “The only thing suffering in Navarre and Destin right now are the hotels and restaurants. Tourism is definitely down.”
Added Tweedy, whose son, Mycah Daniel, is the Raiders’ center fielder, “Most days the water is as clear as ever. I did have my little nephew come back from the beach with some tar balls in his hair last weekend, but they washed right out. We haven’t seen anything like they’ve had in Louisiana.”
What Dunn wants to see is more than 1,000 young baseball players having fun.
“No matter who wins – because only two teams are going to be crowned champions,” Dunn said, “if these kids go home having had a good time, we’ve had a great tournament.”