Hamlet Post 49 baseball returns for first time since 2007

HAMLET — American Legion baseball officially returns this week to Hamlet for the first time since 2007.

Head coach Chip Gordon’s two-year journey to revitalize the team has finally come to fruition.

“Our expectation is to win, like any coach’s expectation,” Gordon said. “We’re looking to build and make these kids the best baseball player they can be. By the end of the summer, we’re wanting to see improvement day-by-day. We’ve got a good group of kids that I think are going to work real hard and help make that happen.”

The process began in 2019 with procuring the support of the community, along with financial sponsors for the team. The program was supposed to return for the summer of 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic pumped the breaks on that. Gordon stayed in contact with the American Legion and the city of Hamlet during that time to keep them apprised of progress.

Then it finally culminated in the daunting task of revitalizing the field at Memorial Park that had previously fallen into a state of disrespair. Gordon and his assistant coaches, who all played for Post 49 and the Richmond Senior High School baseball team when they were young, have worked tirelessly in recent months to landscape and rebuild the park to get it back in playing shape.

Gordon said they had to do a lot of grass cutting, including removing all the weed growth from the infield. Then, they had to haul in about 60 tons of dirt for the infield, level it out and build a new pitcher’s mound and home plate.

“We basically did a whole field reconstruction,” Gordon said. “It’s been very, very, very time consuming. We couldn’t have done it without help from the city and Hodges Landscaping. (We’ve) spent many hours here trying to get this infield back to where it needed to be. The city has been tremendous in providing us funds if we need them. They’ve all been there for us, willing to help.”

The team held its tryout more than a week ago and began practice Monday once the high school regular season ended last week for some of its feeder schools. Post 49 currently consists of players aged 19-and-under from Anson High School, Richmond Senior High School and Marlboro Academy, but will add players from Union Pines High School and Scotland High School once their respective seasons end in the playoffs.

“When baseball finally started to get cranked up around here, I went around to the schools and watched the kids play and talked with their head coaches to build some enthusiasm about the program,” Gordon said. “I just kept pounding on doors and building enthusiasm about the program, and the kids responded.”

With Post 49 being the only Legion team in the region, it allows them to pull players from other surrounding counties that don’t necessarily live in Richmond County. Gordon said they can pull from schools up to a combined enrollment total of 6,000.

“The biggest thing we’re going to face — what I believe anybody in this situation faces, is we’re trying to get players from four different high schools to gel in a short period of time,” Gordon said. “But the kids seem to be meshing really well and getting along. I think we’ve got them ready to go. Thank goodness we’ve got two non-conference games to get the season started off and get a couple innings under our belts before we head into conference play.”

Post 49 opened its season Wednesday against Wayne County Post 11 at UNC-Pembroke, but will have its home opener Friday night at Memorial Park. Tickets will be $7 at the gate.