Former American Legion baseball players ready field for first season in 14 years

HAMLET — American Legion baseball is set to return to Richmond County this summer, but it’s still not quite clear when that will be.

Chip Gordon, who played for Legion Post 49 when he was in high school, made it his mission in 2019 to restart the team after 12 years of dormancy and the Legion’s Memorial Park falling into disrepair. He has worked on the field at no cost to the city for his labor.

Gordon wants to give kids another outlet for baseball during the Richmond Senior High School off-season that isn’t as expensive as other options.

“I wanted to give kids from around here the opportunity to play the most competitive baseball around outside of spending thousands to travel,” he said. “It’s the closes thing to college baseball.”

Gordon will be the head coach of the future team, along with assistant coaches Chaz Sessoms, Thomas Grooms, and Anthony Hailey, all of whom are from the area and played at Richmond Senior High School. They’ve worked together to rebuild the pitchers mound, replace home plate, and other landscaping and fence work.

All that’s left to do to get the field in playing condition is go back over the infield with a rake, according to Gordon. The start date at this point is just “sometime in June.” There will be an open tryout at some point, and the roster will be cut down to 18 players before the start of the season, which can’t start until after the Raiders’ season ends, according to Gordon.

Post 49 will have one team that plays against 12 other posts from the area along U.S. 74 between Hamlet, Wilmington and Morehead. Gordon said the team will mainly be comprised of teens between 9th grade and 19 years old from Richmond, Scotland and Anson counties. The upper limit on age is that the player can’t turn 20 years old during 2021.

Asked why the team shut down in 2007, which was three years after Gordon aged out, he didn’t have an answer.

“But I know it’s something that this city took pride in back in the day,” Gordon said. “It has a very storied history and it’s time to revive that in Richmond County and allow our kids to play competitive baseball.”

Gordon has met with Hamlet City Manager Matthew Christian to discuss a possible start date. Christian said that while he shares Gordon’s excitement for starting up the team again, it’s still uncertain when that will happen. The Hamlet City Council authorized Christian to resume city baseball at their March meeting.

“We believe this event — and others like it — will help revitalize our city, encourage commerce, and bring people together,” Christian said.