Column: If Cormell Field could speak...

Go ahead. Give me your best shot.

Make my day.

That’s right. I said that.

Most days, I feel kinda like Dirty Harry. I can take everything you punks got. But I almost always come out on top, and you kids end up covered with bruises, especially on your egos.

Yeah, you might get lucky every once in a while. But when you’re standing up there at the plate, staring down a pitcher and you’re ahead in the count, knowing there’s a good chance you’re going to get a
nice, fat fastball you think you can do something with, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya … punk?

You do? OK, then. Take your mightiest Hank Aaron hack, your biggest Barry Bonds whack, try to give it your stoutest Babe Ruth smack.

I’ve seen you make that perfect swing. And boy, you got all o’ that one. Straightaway center field. You start that home run trot as you get to first base. All you see is the ball in the air, the center fielder
going back and you can just envision that little white baseball landing somewhere on that hill near that stand of trees beyond my fence.

And then I see that look of disbelief on your faces when the outfielder stops running and camps under the ball and it lands with a thwack! in the pocket of his glove.

I love that sound. I love it almost as much as I love the dumbfounded look on your face. As hard as it is to believe, you gotta head back to the dugout, big boy. If you wanna beat me, you gotta do better
than that.

You know how they said “Shoeless” Joe Jackson’s glove was the place triples went to die? Well, home runs die here like the Wicked Witch of the West. They just get up in the air and melt. Some people
call me the “Graveyard.”

And don’t think I don’t hear the whispers. I know exactly what you little squirts think the first time you pull up into my parking lot and take that first walk over here where I’ve spent the last 37 years.

Just a few metal bleachers, not even a real press box, 320 feet down the lines and 400 to the deepest part of me — when it comes to college baseball fields, not much to look at, am I? “High school field,”
you think. Like I said, I know what y’all say about me when you first see me.

But it’s nothing compared to what y’all say about me after you hit balls that end up as outs, balls that would be out of 95 percent of the other fields y’all play on. I can’t repeat most of those words here.

Out here, if you’re lucky and the outfielder just can’t get to it, you might get a double. If you’re lucky. And even that doesn’t happen very often.

Francis Marion, the school that calls me home, has had some great teams play on me through the years. But this is the first time I’ve ever hosted a regional.

And guess what? I love it.

It feels good, having all you whippersnappers out here running around on my grass — and hey, I don’t mean to be too hard on ya, but y’all just got nothing for me.

Shoot, we’ve had the top three Division II home-run hitters of the season playing here this week, and what have they done? Heck, we even got the one team that led the nation in long balls. They had 106
when they got here Thursday. They’re back home now, and they got 107 to show for a three-game effort.

It’s nice, too, seeing Gerald Griffin sitting up there in the bleachers, taking in some of the action.

You coulda asked him before you ever stepped foot on me. You coulda asked him how much good it would do to lay into a pitch with all your might. He woulda told ya. He woulda told ya that if it’s a
perfect day, if the ball’s carrying just right, or if you got a little pop in your bat and you yank one down the line, you might be able to muscle a fence-scraper just over a glove out here.

See, Gerald pretty much was responsible for me being what I am today. He started the baseball program here in 1973. I wasn’t even ready for use that year. They had to play games at Legion Stadium
just down U.S. 76 out there, or over in Timmonsville or wherever else they could find a field that wasn’t in use.

But Gerald, see, knew what he was doing when he laid me out here, tucked me behind some woods in such a way that even if the wind is blowing out to left field — or really to any field — it’s pretty much
blocked off. No sir, you won’t get any help out here, unless it’s a rare day, indeed.

He probably did it that way because when you’re starting up a college baseball program, you want to give your pitchers all the help they can get.

But I like to think he had you punks in mind.

It might be better for y’all in 2012. They tell me I gotta retire after next season so the Patriots can play in a shiny, new ball park across the road out there.

We’ll see. But for now, for one more day, y’all are mine.

I put the over-under for long balls before this regional started at five for the whole tournament.

I took the under. Y’all got four so far, and one day left to prove me wrong.

So far, Clifford Cormell Field — that’s me — is winning.

But don’t feel bad. I usually do.