CAROLINA BASEBALL: GAME 11
Columbia Fireflies
We head to Segra Park in Columbia, South Carolina -- the state capital and home of the Columbia Fireflies, the Low-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. They face the Charleston RiverDogs, a White Sox affiliate on the verge of clinching a playoff spot to top off a historic season.
When Dad and I arrived at Segra Park, we were directed through a dirt road to a cracked and broken parking lot. We then scrambled over rubble and a rough hillside to the beautiful entrance to a $37 million ballpark.
Once the site of a mental hospital, Segra Park is the focal point of a 20-year redevelopment project in Columbia. It opened in 2016 and is home to the Columbia Fireflies, the Kansas City Royals Low-A affiliate.
Columbia's first known baseball game took place in 1867. Twenty-five years later, the Columbia Senators became the city’s first professional baseball team, joining the South Atlantic League. The Columbia Skyscrapers took root in 1904, changing to the Gamecocks for the next six years. In the 1910s and 1920s, the team was known as the Commies and Comers — not the political statement you might think but a nod to Columbia's commissioner-based government. The Sandlappers and Senators played in the 1930s.
In 1938, with the trend in affiliated baseball, the team became the Reds and remained so through the 1955 season (with Hall of Famer Frank Robinson as a star on the team). They briefly switched to the Kansas City Athletics as the Gems, then back to the Reds before beginning a 21-year of drought without professional baseball in Columbia.
The Shelby (North Carolina) Mets moved into town in 1982, then became the Capitol City Bombers in 1993 before moving to Greenville after the 2004 season. The current franchise began in Savannah, Georgia, as the Class-A Cardinals (1984-1995) and Sand Gnats (1996-2015) before moving to Columbia as the Fireflies for the 2016 season. Columbia had remained a Mets town until the 2021 season, when they became a Royals affiliate.
I have diagrams if you need them.
The team store is cleverly named The Mason Jar. I found Dad there completing his purchase of a hat with a neon firefly, one of the best hats in the store. I say “one of the best” because Columbia’s mason jar alternate hat is even better, and one of the finer things in professional sports.
The Fireflies opponent for the late-afternoon game was the Charleston RiverDogs. The two South Carolina rivals had experienced fairly different seasons, with Columbia now 6 1/2 games under .500 and the RiverDogs 22 1/2 games above .500 with a scorching record of 76-31. In fact, with a win tonight, Charleston would clinch its first appearance in the playoffs in 13 years, and would be the favorite to win its first-ever league title.
The home team looked to spoil the celebration with four runs in the bottom of the first off Charleston starter Franklin Dacosta. The 21-year-old from Venezuela had impressed in four Rookie-level appearances and had started well in Columbia. RiverDogs manager Blake Butera elected to leave him in the game despite the wobbly start.
I struck a ballpark culinary goldmine on the first-base concourse when I found The Godfather: cheesesteak, onions, peppers, and underneath it all, an Italian sausage.
Charleston put a four of their own on the scoreboard in the top of the third, highlighted by center fielder Beau Brundage’s three-run bomb to center. Starter Wander Arias — a 21-year-old Dominican who had also recently arrived from Rookie ball — did come out of the game.
The skies shifted from bright blue with wisps of clouds to grays and purples shocked and smudged by reflected wisps of the sun fading from sight. The teams fell mostly silent in the middle innings, locked in their struggle to clinch a playoff spot or, in the case of the Fireflies, avoiding a clinching on their home field. But shortstop Herard Gonzalez’ homer to left-center in the fifth put the Fireflies in the lead, 5-4.
Matthew Dyer
It stayed that way until the ninth inning. With the RiverDogs down to their final out, catcher Matthew Dyer hit a 1-1 pitch over the wall in left-center, and the visitors were alive again. Dyer hit .336 in 27 games in Charleston after being traded from the Mets organization, where he hit .194
Charleston put two more runners on base but could not take the lead. Their star reliever — Andrew Gross, who would post a 1.66 ERA in nearly 60 innings with Charleston — shut down the Fireflies in the bottom of the ninth.
The RiverDogs led off the 10th with a single but could not score their extra-inning bonus runner from second base, and he was thrown out at home on the next play. But a hit batter and a single off Fireflies reliever Patrick Halligan brought two runs home anyway, and Charleston led 7-5 going into the bottom of the inning.
Columbia scored its second-base runner on a single, but a double-play ended the rally quickly, and Gross closed out the game with a win, 7-6. RiverDogs poured out onto the field, many of them not on the team for much of the season. But playoffs are playoffs, always to be celebrated, and they had all made a contribution.