Vine-Ingle honors coaches, World Series teams with revamp of classic Opening Day ceremony

Lance Foster and the rest of Vine-Ingle Little League’s staff worried all week about the rain.

After all, baseball is the progenitor of the classic term “rain check.” You just can’t play ball when it’s pouring, and Little League is no exception. 

So when the forecast last week predicted rain Saturday morning, Vine-Ingle players and their parents — and Foster, the league’s baseball vice president — had their eyes on the sky leading up to the league’s opening day.

Luckily, Vine-Ingle Little League’s ceremonies went off without a hitch. The sun shone brightly on hundreds of kids in a variety of jerseys ranging from the Mudcats to the Mariners. The temperature was an unexpectedly balmy 70 degrees, and the fields were dry and ready for plenty of games.

“It turned out perfect,” Foster said Saturday morning. “We’ve got the good Lord to thank for that. He was looking out for Vine-Ingle this week.”

The opening was a special one, as the league honored two longtime coaching legends and a pair of recent teams that appeared in the Little League World Series. Vine-Ingle, a Macon fixture since it began in 1954, had not put together a true opening day featuring all teams and a full ceremony in a few years.

One of the men of the hour was Harry DeHart, who coached the Yankees team in the Major League — the league for 11- and 12-year-olds — at Vine-Ingle for more than 40 years.

“It will be harder for me this year since I’m not coaching (the same age group) anymore, but I love seeing everyone here. You do it for the kids and the love of the game,” DeHart said.

Since becoming a coach for his son’s team in 1977, DeHart has seen the league evolve. New age divisions have been added, including the Intermediate 50/70 League team with players of ages 11, 12 and 13 that made it to the Little League World Series in 2024 with DeHart as one of its coaches.

“They’re a great group of kids and I loved working with them over the summer,” DeHart said. “They’re very talented and they’ll do great as they keep playing ball at school and on travel teams.”

Vine-Ingle honored the Intermediate League team from last year and a Senior League softball team that played in the Little League World Series in Delaware in 2023. Large groups of parents cheered as the teams were announced.

“It was a really great group of girls that represented Vine-Ingle well,” said Charli Mansfield, the league’s Softball Vice President. “Most of those girls had played together for many years here at Vine-Ingle. Their coach, Shane Kitchens, had actually coached most of those girls since they were 8 years old, and he knew they were going to go a long way.”

Both teams were honored in a ceremony Saturday morning before games, along with DeHart and Randy Brunner, a Vine-Ingle staple who passed away in 2023.

“He meant a lot to everyone here until he retired in 2022. Those rules you see people enforcing about keeping your shirt tucked in, keeping the uniform right, we used to call those the ‘Randy Rules,’” Foster said. “He was a stickler about that stuff, but it was because he wanted you to look your best and be professional. He put a lot of people on the right track that way.”

After both teams and men were applauded, it was time for the season to begin. Fireworks shot out from beyond a pond near the fields despite the early hour, sending geese flying and garnering “oohs” and “aahs” from T-ballers and 12-year-olds alike.

The games began soon after. Brunner’s daughter threw out a ceremonial pitch at one game, while DeHart threw out another.

“I’m just hoping I can get it up to the plate,” DeHart joked beforehand. “I blew my arm out at one point.”

His first pitch made it up there just fine.

In addition to the hundreds of players and parents, the league’s umpires were there to keep things in line. One of them, Michael Stewart, has called softball games — though he fills in occasionally on the baseball field as well — at Vine-Ingle since he moved to Macon to follow his church 17 years ago.

“I figure it’s a way to give back to the community. You have to have people out here doing this or they couldn’t play the games,” Stewart said. “This is an important thing for these kids to have, and if I can help with it, that’s what I’ll do.”

It is a common theme among Vine-Ingle folks: they all love the game, in one way or another. Most of them did not play at Vine-Ingle when they were younger, but the sight of kids lining up for bubblegum and hotdogs at the concession stand or taking photos with metal bats slung over the wrong shoulder struck a chord with them.

“It’s all really nostalgic,” Mansfield said. “When I was a kid, this was it. No travel ball. This was where you wanted to be — at a little league game — because that’s where you got to play. It’s so fun seeing everyone out here like this.”

After the fireworks were done, some teams exited slowly since their games were scheduled later in the afternoon. Others raced off the field that hosted the ceremony, running to the diamonds hosting their games instead.

“You know what time it is,” one youngster said as he and a friend were the first ones in an uncharacteristically clean dugout.

With the season still unbegun, the wire-fenced bench area had not yet been marked with the array of sunflower seeds, dirt stains and empty Gatorade bottles that would soon bring it to midseason form.

“It’s game time,” his friend replied. “It’s finally game time.”