By Shawn Singleton
Morning News
ssingleton@florencenews.com
Mother nature has been very unkind to the teams of the Coastal Plain League this season.
Rainout after rainout has made scheduling games painful across the league. On Wednesday, five of the league’s six games were rained out.
The Florence RedWolves are not immune baseball’s greatest enemy. In the last two weeks, the team has already played two twinbills against Columbia.
As if the misery couldn’t end the RedWolves traveled to Fayetteville Saturday night for a doubleheader.
After a home date with Fayetteville tonight, Florence travels to Wilmington before hosting Wilson for a 6 p.m. twinbill on Tuesday.
Local players
Several local players have shined for the RedWolves this season.
In his second year with the team, Barrett Kleinknecht leads the team with a .313 batting average and five home runs.
The former West Florence and future Francis Marion standout won the CPL’s Home Run Derby in Asheboro, N.C. Monday night.
Kleinknecht went 0-for-1 with a walk in the All-Star game on Tuesday.
But he isn’t the only player who has helped the team challenge for the league’s best record. L.A. Owens, who played at Dillon, is 3-1 with a 3.78 earned run average, 22 strikeouts and 12 walks in 33 1/3 innings.
Owens’ high school teammate, Keon Graves, is batting .216 with two homers and 13 RBI.
Honoring a legend
Barney Dreyfuss was one of the founders of the World Series, and will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame today.
Dreyfuss built the field that is now Capital City Stadium in the 1920’s when he was the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Columbia Comers were a minor-league affiliate of the Pirates owned by Dreyfuss.
In honor of Dreyfuss, the Columbia Blowfish wore vintage uniforms during the second game of their doubleheader with Florence Friday night.
Unfortunately for the Blowfish, they were defeated by the RedWolves 3-1 behind six innings by Steve Grife.
Kleinknecht tossed the final inning to record his first career save.
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