Sunday, August 26, 2007

Go Warner Robins!!

Congratulations to Warner Robins’ newest young heroes, the Little League World Series Champions!! 

Watching this year’s Little League World Series was a big-time walk down memory lane for me, with the memories of two incredible weeks last year covering Columbus’ Northern Little Leaguers as they won their own LLWS crown.  Videographer Jeremy Davies and I drove to South Williamsport, Pennsylvania and spent two weeks covering the team and the events surrounding the tournament.  If you ever get a chance to go to the World Series in Williamsport, do it.  No doubt, it is the most special sporting event I’ve ever been able to attend, and it still gives me goosebumps remembering the first time I walked into Lamade Stadium to take a look around at the empty field.  The most amazing thing about the World Series complex is how unassuming it is.  There’s really not much to it… just two big Little League Stadiums, a museum, and the rolling hills of central Pennsylvania.  But maybe that’s what the magic is all about…

Warner Robins is just the third team from Georgia to reach the LLWS, and like Marietta in ‘83 and Columbus in ‘06, they’re World Champions.  That’s really, really exciting.  If their experience is anything like the guys from Columbus’ championship team, it’s going to be a long time before their lives get back to normal.  I hope that they’re able to enjoy every second of the ride.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane as I was a member of the LL teams from Auburn in “55 and’56 who represented the SE Region.  We won third place in ‘55 having lost in the last of the sixth inning. We would have won the championship game, without a doubt. In ‘56 we lost our first game, but what a thrill it was to go there and even more to return.  Some of my team members still reside in the Loveliest Village.  War EAGLE George Salter,’65