Dixie Majors pack more than bags for Texas trip

By BRANT JAMES

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 28, 2000

BROOKSVILLE -- The luggage was much more Spartan this time around.

Jason Dunn and many of his teammates brought only two small bags, a pillow and some sundry items to help wile away 40 hours of bus rides and five days in Euless, Texas.

The most valuable thing Dunn and his Hernando Youth League teammates were packing for the Dixie League Majors World Series was experience. Because a summer after he and several teammates went to the Dixie League Pre-Majors World Series as state champions, they are back, bound for Euless as 17- and 18-year-old Majors. They came to the team send-off Thursday morning at Hernando High packing knowledge on everything from efficient luggage to preparing for the pressure of a tournament featuring the state champions of 10 Southern states plus Euliss, the host team.

"Last year was kind of a fun atmosphere," said Dunn, a rising senior pitcher and third baseman at Hernando. "This year, it's going to be fun, but it's also going to be serious, too."

Dee Brown, a centerfielder who also played for the state champ Pre-Majors last year, already was thinking about the first game against Boccia, Ga., on Saturday.

"It's pretty cool getting back, but this time, we're looking to do some damage in the World Series," he said. "You get all the, I guess jitterbugs, out of the way by going the year before. Now it's time for business."

Baseball business is possible because the business of funding the trip went exceedingly well. HYL had six days to raise the roughly $7,000 needed to send the players and coaches 1,140 miles on a charted bus and house them in Texas. Raffles and car washes gleaned nearly $8,500.

"The community was amazing," coach Tim Sims said.

Raising funds proved easier than finding transportation as the HYL's usual carrier had its entire fleet committed to carry 15 bus loads of Miami residents to a political protest in Washington, D.C.

"We didn't have a bus until Tuesday," Sims said.

With logistics finalized, Sims began enjoying one of his favorite times of year. A playing veteran of three Dixie World Series -- including the 1983 tourney won by Hernando -- and a coach in five others, Sims recounts plays and players in casual conversation.

Stashed in his box of movies brought along for viewing on the bus is a tape of some old Dixie League games, featuring players who have gone on to become fathers and uncles of a new generation of HYL players.

Hernando won the state title last week in Avon Park against host Highlands County. After a moribund offensive showing, a lineup juiced with Chris Way, Chris Cole, Brown and Dunn produced a 12-2 win in the final.

It is impossible to estimate how Hernando's talent will fare, however, so Sims uses history to draw his conclusions.

He considers this team comparable to his 1983 title team mainly because it has savored the Series once. Sims' Majors team lost in the 1981 semifinals and the 1982 final before winning the championship.

"What they did (in Pre-Majors last year), it'll be the foundation for what we do this year," he said of players like Brown, Dunn and Patrick Ryan. "I explained to them that it took our group two trips before it knew what it took to win.

"It's not that we didn't want to do well last year, but you have to be there to experience that level of competition. My group, we experienced it twice and failed, and we were ready the third time."

This team will get one shot before key older players like Cole and Way age out, however. He hopes the older Majors players can get by on talent.

"The '83 team at one point had five people who went on to play Division I in college, and so could this team," he said. "Could we get to the final four? Could it happen with this group? Yes. Because of the experience, and the ones who didn't go to the series last year are quality college-type baseball players."

Dealing with the tournament began Thursday morning, Sims said.

"I think it starts after traveling 20 hours on a bus," he said. "Every day at the ballpark is a festival-type atmosphere, and you have to play under that. You start thinking as a player, "My God, we're two games away or three games away from the final."'

Brown said he knows how to approach the series.

"This is the Southeast's best," he said. "You can't wait too long to want to play. You have to want to play right there."

Sims said he will be able to tell before the first pitch how his team is responding.

"You start watching as a coach when they line up for the opening ceremonies," he said. "How they react to it. Are they going to have a good time but not go overboard? You start looking at that."

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