BETTIS ACADEMY – Local fire-ballers and sluggers in Edgefield County should listen up – coach Wilbur Gordon wants you!

Gordon and his staff are looking for players to fill out their Edgefield Monarchs roster before the Community All-Star League season begins again in August.

“Right now I have about 20 guys and almost all of them are from Edgefield County,” said Gordon. “Some of these guys played high school ball and weren’t doing anything so I went out and got them. That’s the reason I’m in it to help these guys to have something to do. That’s why I’m doing it. There was a lot of talent just sitting around doing nothing.”

That talent was put to use winning ballgames in the team’s inaugural season, something some said couldn’t be done.

“Last year we were a little better than .500 so we won about 13 or 14 games and it went really well,” Gordon said. “We made a lot of progress and I told the guys we would have to take some lumps, but there were some folks who were saying we wouldn’t be able to beat anyone in the league for a couple of years and I said they were crazy. And like I said within a couple of months we were beating those teams.”

After their first complete season, the Edgefield Monarchs – the team currently plays home games at Bettis Academy – had three of their players try out for the Paine College baseball team recently.
The players are (from left to right) Rickey Thomas Jr., Mel Jackson, and Tay Butler, pictured with Coach Gordon. The tryouts were conducted from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Paine College field on Saturday, December 17th.

Butler is a senior at Strom Thurmond, Jackson and Thomas are graduates of Strom Thurmond, and Coach Gordon is a 1983 graduate of Strom Thurmond who starred on the 1982 baseball state championship team.

“My goal is to get a field to play on closer to Edgefield,” he said. “We play games on Saturday and Sundays and we host at least one game each weekend. Right now we’re playing at Bettis Academy, but we would like to play closer to Edgefield and give the folks around there something to do in the summer.”

The team is also in need of corporate and local sponsorship to battle travel costs.

“We need equipment, league fees, traveling expenses and just basically things that will allow us to play,” Gordon said. “I didn’t want the players having to pay anything to participate and I was paying a lot of it last year and I just can’t do it by myself like that. So we would love to be able to have some local businesses to get involved.”

Interest meetings will take place 5:30 p.m. every Thursday at Bettis ballpark with practices starting Sunday, January 15th, 2012.

If interested in playing or becoming a sponsor, contact Coach Gordon (706)-664-3565 or Assistant Coaches Chester Jennings (803)-318-6362 or Aaron Bush Jr. (803)-439-2087.