Come for the bobble, stay for the baseball

Maria M. Cornelius2MCsports

The Smokies baseball team wrapped up the regular season Sunday with the fifth and final bobblehead giveaway depicting former Vol third baseman Trey Lipscomb wearing the infamous fur coat and Daddy hat. It was a double bobble weekend with Batman on Saturday and had the intended effect – draw fans to the stadium on a September football weekend when attendance can take a hit.

Fans are in line nearly three hours before the game starts for the coveted bobbleheads, which number 1,000 to 1,500 and typically are passed out within 15 minutes of the gates opening.

The story about the coat and hat was covered in this column here. Lipscomb has moved on to professional baseball after being drafted in July by the Washington Nationals. He made his debut in August with the Fredericksburg Nationals in Virginia, a Minor League Baseball affiliate of the parent club, and his team has made the playoffs this month. So far, Lipscomb has appeared in 23 games with 13 RBI, 12 stolen bases, a homer and a .299 batting average.

Current Vol quarterback Hendon Hooker also was featured on a bobblehead this season – a product of the new name, likeness and image (NIL) deals which would have been verboten under old NCAA rules – as did former Smokies baseball player Brennen Davis, who is the Chicago Cubs’ top prospect and moved up to Triple-A Iowa. The Smokies are the Double-A affiliate of the Cubs, thus the team’s bear logo is apropos, particularly in the land of the Great Smoky Mountains.

The other bobble was of the film character Henry Rowengartner from the 1993 movie, “Rookie of the Year,” about a boy who breaks his arm playing baseball. When the cast is removed, the tendons healed “a little too tight,” and he becomes a flame-throwing pitcher for the Cubs. The now adult actor, Thomas Ian Nicholas, came to Smokies Stadium this summer for an autograph and meet-and-greet in conjunction with the giveaway. The line extended down the concourse and didn’t clear for hours. Baseball nostalgia is a draw.

Season ticket holders are guaranteed to receive the bobbleheads and all giveaways from baseballs to T-shirts, which is just one reason I fall in that category. Of all the bobbleheads, the Batman one really pops with Lipscomb’s a very close second. (Hint to Smokies: Spider-Man would be awesome in 2023.)

The primary reason I am a longtime season ticket holder, of course, is the baseball. My love of the game started in the 1960s when my grandfather took me to the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to see the Atlanta Braves. I made sure to see the last regular season game there in 1996 before the stadium was demolished and found tickets as close I could remember to where we sat 30 years ago. I am certain I arrived on Earth not by fertilized egg but by springing forth from infield dirt.

I moved to Knoxville in 1988 to work at The Knoxville News-Sentinel – that was its full name then with the hyphen – and have since lived in West Knoxville, Northwest Knox County, South Knoxville, Blount County and now Sevier County – and the one constant was baseball from the old Bill Meyer Stadium to Smokies Stadium in Kodak. I never wanted the team to leave Knoxville, but my lifetime devotion to baseball outweighed the longer drive.

There is at least one more game this season at Smokies Stadium on Sept. 20 since the team made the playoffs.

After that, the plan is to play in Sevier County in 2023 and 2024 before moving to a new stadium in East Knoxville on the edge of the Old City in 2025. The team will change its name slightly from Tennessee Smokies to Knoxville Smokies.

One thing is for certain. I will be in my seat.

Maria M. Cornelius, a writer/editor at Moxley Carmichael since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press. She can be reached at mmcornelius23@gmail.com.

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