By: Austin Alexander – August 27, 2016 I don’t go to weddings, hardly ever, basically never. But last weekend I did. It was in Wilmington and the brides name was Kimberly, she was marrying a former player of mine Matt Williams. He is the current pitching coach at UNC-Wilmington, formerly at Spartanburg Methodist and a close friend of mine. First of all it was hot, VERY hot and the powers that be chose for them to do this thing outside, 93 degrees, heat index through the roof! We are accustomed to heat, but typically wearing different attire. Yet baseball person after baseball person filed in to ‘wear it’ because we respected the guy on mound and his bride. I was shedding clothes in the car until gametime, so were a few others, except for hitting guru Doug Angeli in his three-piece suit, also unaware of the outdoor endeavor! Girls like the whole ceremony thing, typically guys endure it. This was awesome for dudes though, strong baseball flavor starting with the ring-bearer bringing the prized diamond in a glove and attached to a baseball. The young man brought it directly to the best man, USC-Lancaster head ball coach Steve Williams. The vows were straight from the perfect directory of a consummate baseball wedding! As the groom tripped over words for the first time in his life and kissed his bride, they couple raced back down the aisle in a tidy 15 minutes and 25 seconds, very close to what the groom/coach predicted. May the creator of this Earth hover over that marriage until ‘death do them part’. That is my prayer at least. Here is the really awesome part of attending this wedding for a baseball guy that drives in though. So many baseball men and families also attended because of the well-calculated date and lull in the baseball calendar. That speaks to the respect we have for the couple on center stage. It also makes it fun for those of us who were not in the lineup. So often when baseball people are bearing down and doing their thing, seldom to they get a chance to chill out together. And almost never do our spouses get a chance to mingle too. Our table ended up being 40 years of Spartanburg Methodist baseball skippers (NJCAA and SMC Hall of Famers Lon Joyce and Tim Wallace) along with Dominican Republic fly-ins Chris Kemp and Jake Koenig (scouts with the Padres), plus another winner Mike Ranson. While Paul Faulk (Nationals scout) was cutting the rug, Mark Scalf and Randy Hood of UNC-W checked in to catch up, so good to see them as well! It was so enjoyable to spend time away from a ballpark with every name above. Thank you to Mr. & Mrs. Matt Williams for an evening of dreadful sweating in uncomfortable clothing, but also an opportunity to pull friends together! Weddings are always about the people wearing black and white. But thank you to this awesome couple for including a wide range of baseball folks to leave the diamond and get outside of our comfort zone to spend a Saturday unlike we are typically able to.
