posted on April 24, 2009 23:43
Great baseball, great communities, great facilities and most of all great people. That sentence sums up this week’s Drake’s World’s tour of central Illinos. Chatham, which was our first stop Tuesday, is a bedroom community, just south of Springfield. Once a sleepy farm town, Chatham has grown into a quality suburb of the Capital City.
Community Park, on the south side of Chatham, thus South Park, is a sprawling complex of athletic fields to serve the young and not-so-young of Chatham. South Park is a super baseball facility for the Titans of Glenwood High. I really enjoyed the fine press box and the fine people who do a first-class job managing a Titan baseball contest.
Athletic Director Dan Rourke runs the show for Titan athletics and does a super job. Everyone I dealt with made me feel right at home, and made my experience covering Titan baseball a truly enjoyable one. The ball game wasn’t bad either, as Glenwood defeated its arch rivals from Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin 9-6.
Thursday, I visited Normal, the home of the Illinois State Redbirds. Normal Community High School is a sparkling, six-year old campus on the east side of town. The original Normal Community High School was adjacent to ISU and is now a middle school.
Head Baseball Coach Ryan Sharp and Athletic Director Andy Turner were truly helpful to their visitor from Chicago. The athletic complex at NCHS is first class. The fine press box looks out on all of their baseball and softball diamonds. On a super-windy central Illinois afternoon, the enclosed press box was truly appreciated.
The game itself was a classic. Normal Community and Normal West is a must-see in any sport and it certainly was Thursday afternoon. Normal overcame an 8-1 deficit to stun their rivals from West 13-12
I had the pleasure of covering the game with Jim Benson of the Bloomington Pantagraph. Jim, a 27 year-veteran of the Pantagraph, along with A.D. Andy Turner, made the game even more enjoyable to cover.
Drake’s World’s road trip to O’Fallon Tuesday has been cancelled due to O’Fallon dropping their second consecutive Southwestern Conference game to No. 4 Edwardsville on Thursday. PBR editor-in-chief and publisher Sean Duncan was in Edwardsville and did a great job in covering the SWC showdown. Undefeated Edwardsville appears to be in control of the SWC with the victory.