Hartsville’s hot bats add up to historic run

TOMMY HENRY has been keeping the stats for the Dixie Youth World Series for the past 28 years. Like everyone else at Lexington Sports Complex, he’s never seen anything like what Hartsville Northern’s Majors team has done the past five days of the 2015 series.

“In the big leagues, you can have a slump and nobody notices because it’s such a long season. If you come in here in a slump, you go home after two games. If you come in here hot, man, you can blow the tournament away,” said Henry, a deputy commissioner for Dixie Youth. “They’ve been a hot team.”

So far, Hartsville has blown the tournament away. Hartsville, the South Carolina state champion in the Majors division (11- and 12-year-olds), won its first four games by a combined score of 76-2 (29-0, 20-2, 17-0 and 10-0). It hit a Dixie Youth World Series record 24 home runs along the way. All four games ended early due to the mercy rule, so Hartsville played 16 innings in those games.

That’s an average of 1.5 homers per inning.

“It’s an amazing run,” Henry said. “Strong, it really is. You put it up there, they are going to hit it.”

On Wednesday night, Hartsville’s bats finally cooled. They were cold for 62/3 innings. The South Carolina champions were tied 2-2 with Florida at the end of the regulation six innings. Two outs into the top of seventh, Hartsville had two runs.

Then the sticks returned. Keyshawn McDonald, who tied the score at 2-2 with a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth, hit a three-run bomb that put Hartsville up 5-2. Two batters later, Dariyan Pendergrass hit a two-run shot that put Hartsville up 7-2 and gave it 83 runs for the tournament, tying the national tournament record.

Hartsville will have a chance to set the record and win Dixie Youth’s national title Thursday in an 11 a.m. game against Louisiana, which would have to beat Hartsville twice to win the title.

“They are very confident, and it’s very contagious. Once one of them gets on a roll, it’s one after the next, after the next,” Hartsville coach Rodney Morris said. “We knew that they had great potential, but I had no idea they were going to come out here and set records.”

Eight of the 12 members of this team won the AAA Dixie Youth World Series (9- and 10-year-olds) in Laurel, Miss., in 2013. Most all of them have been playing together since they were 5 years old, manager Kyle Elmore said.

In local recreation ball, what Hartsville has been doing here would be unsporting, but every team here (other than one host team from Lexington in each division) is a state champion all-star team. There are no easy outs here. No easy wins.

At least, there aren’t supposed to be.

Ten of the 12 Hartsville players have hit at least one home run here. Alshani McFarland has hit five.

George Pinner has been the busiest man at the ballpark this week. Pinner is responsible for marking every home run ball hit by every player here. The balls are retrieved and ferried to Pinner, who writes a short story on each one. Included are the details of the hit (i.e., a 3-run homer), player’s name, date, team name and opponent, Dixie Youth commissioner and president’s name, division name and “2015 Dixie Youth.” Pinner has marked every home run ball at this year’s tournament.

Asked if the South Carolina champs had worn him out, Pinner replied, “Not yet,” and then launched immediately into a story from the last time a team put on such a show.

That was a team from Meridian, Miss., in 1992 that hit 10 home runs in one game during a tournament in Pelham, Ala. The problem for Pinner that year was the creek that ran behind the field. Tired of traipsing into and out of the creek, Pinner eventually chucked his trousers and waded sans pants in the creek for the next home run ball.

Meridian’s record of 10 home runs in one game stood until this year. Yep, Hartsville broke that one, too. On its first night in town, it hit 11.

At least George Pinner got to keep his pants on this time.

This story was originally published August 13, 2015 at 8:28 AM.