Play Ball

For twins Anna and Brooke Rose, the road to Greenville and the Little League Softball World Series isn’t very far. That’s because they live just a few miles away.

Brooke and Anna, daughters of Petula Rose ’00, a business systems analyst in financial services at East Carolina University, play on the Pitt County Girls Softball League All-Stars team that won the North Carolina state championship in July in Huntersville and with it the automatic bid as the host state’s top team. They will represent North Carolina when the series starts Sunday at Stallings Stadium at Elm Street Park in Greenville.

“We’re going to be nervous, but we’re all going to want to do our best because we’re in front of a big crowd and we want to represent North Carolina well,” said Anna, who plays shortstop and first base.

“It’s also really exciting because you’ve worked hard to get to this moment and you want to show everything you’ve got,” added Brooke, who plays second. She played on last year’s Winterville team that won the Southeast Regional. It’s Anna’s first World Series.

This year’s 50th anniversary edition of the tournament will feature 11 other teams from across the United States and Asia-Pacific, Canada, Europe-Africa and Latin America. Admission is free, and all games will be broadcast on the ESPN platforms: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews and ESPN+. The championship game Aug. 11 will air on ABC.

“It’s very electric, energetic,” Brandon Peebles ’00, assistant coach of the Pitt County team, said of the atmosphere at Stallings Stadium during the World Series. “It’s really special. You can’t go anywhere else in the country and find the setup we have here” – the proximity of the stadium and ECU and the community support.

It’s the third straight year Pitt County has played in the series.

When Little League International announced in April it was extending the contract to host the series with the city of Greenville through 2027, ECU was a big part of it.

“It’s been a great partnership,” said Don Octigan ’05, director of Greenville Recreation and Parks, which operates the city-owned Elm Street Park. “Little League International, the city of Greenville – East Carolina University got involved the second year with the housing of the players. It’s all positive.”

Ann Weingartz, director of University Printing and Graphics at ECU, has been a key part of Greenville Little League for years. Her husband, Brian, is commissioner, and their daughter, Ashley ’19, played Little League baseball before switching to softball, playing at ECU and becoming an assistant softball coach at Dartmouth. Together, they’ve staged numerous local, state and national tournaments in Greenville.

Ann Weingartz said Stallings Stadium was a key selling point in Little League selecting Greenville. None of the other cities that approached Little League had a stadium at their field, she said. The facility, with 234 chairback seats, was built in 2012 thanks to a $1.14 million gift from Clark Stallings ’89 and his brothers, Jeff ’88, Billy ’89 and Blake.

Preparation brings opportunity

Assistant coach Brandon Peebles ’00, right, is pictured during the 2023 Little League Softball World Series. Also pictured is assistant coach Percy Edwards ’87. (Photo by Aaron Hines)

In 2019, the future of Alpenrose Dairy Farm in Portland, Oregon, where the Little League Softball World Series had been held for 26 years, was uncertain. Owner and family patriarch Carl Cadonau had died years earlier, and some family members wanted to sell it.

“It was always in a sense a joke, but not really a joke: ‘Well, we need to get a World Series here. We’ve got regionals, we need to get a World Series here,’” Weingartz said. “Well, you know you’re not going to get the boys. We’re not Williamsport … we don’t have the land. We were kind of prepared in a sense, all this that we’ve done, running tournaments and fundraising. Fast forward to 2019, we know that there’s been some issues with where the Softball World Series was in Portland, the dairy had gotten sold, so we had been watching that. When it was announced that Little League was going out of Portland, literally the day that happened Brian started asking, ‘Do you think we’re crazy? Should we try to get this?’

“We went to recreation and parks and the city and said, ‘This is what we’re looking at, are you guys behind us?’ And they were behind us and have been very supportive. We couldn’t do it without them.”

In February 2020, Little League announced it was bringing the Softball World Series to Greenville. The excitement was tempered, however, when Little League canceled that year’s tournament due to COVID-19. So the series made its debut in Greenville the following year, but with spectator restrictions.

In 2021, players stayed in local hotels. But the next year, Mark Phillips, who has been a volunteer helping Greenville Little Leagues and the city organize and host the tournament, contacted Peter Groenendyk, associate vice chancellor for student affairs at ECU, to check about the university’s ability to house and feed the teams.

“The players can walk to the stadium on Elm Street from our campus, and we can accommodate lodging and meals in one neighborhood,” Groenendyk said. “In total, we have about 180 to 190 players stay with us. Each team has several staff including coaches, a player advocate, and the international teams may also bring an interpreter. Several of the teams have also been able to utilize our ECU transit services.

“We take great pride in serving as a host site for the teams. It’s especially exciting to see them arrive from RDU in our ECU motorcoach showcasing our Pirate pride. Hopefully, many of the players will remember the unforgettable experience they had in Greenville and consider returning as a future Pirate.”

In addition to providing housing and meals for players, ECU has opened its College Hill parking lots for spectator parking. Fans may walk the greenway to Elm Street Park or ride golf cart shuttles.

Teamwork counts

Volunteers from the community and city staff, ECU interns and Little League International staff will work the parking lot, shuttle people to and from the stadium, tend barricades and serve in hospitality roles. Among those driving golf carts to ferry people from the parking lots to the stadium and back will be Brock Letchworth ’02, Greenville’s public information officer.

“You can talk to the families and the girls, and they all rave about the stadium and the fans,” Letchworth said. “As with most things we do in Greenville, if we want to do it right, it requires a lot of our partners coming together.”

Andrew Schmidt ’90, president and CEO of the Greenville Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the tournament has an estimated $1.3 million economic impact for the city in terms of lodging, shopping and dining. During the series, the bureau will be running 30-second videos about Greenville on ESPN for households from Georgia to Washington, D.C. Last year, those spots aired 206 times, Schmidt said.

The exposure means as much to the community as the revenue the event generates, he said.

“When you have your championship game at 3:30 on ABC all over the U.S. and Canada, that’s a big deal,” Schmidt said. “It’s an international event.”

And while Greenville might not be a major city, it’s proved to be the right place for the series.

“We’re big enough, but we’re still small enough,” Weingartz said. “They were out in Portland where their hotel might be an hour from the field. We have a lot to offer, Greenville as a whole, it being a university town.”

The opening ceremony will be Saturday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Greenville Town Common. The public is invited. Games begin at 10 a.m. Sunday, with North Carolina taking the field against Asia-Pacific at 7 p.m.

This year’s event will also feature the return of AU Pro Games at the LLSWS, bringing Athletes Unlimited softball players to Greenville to meet and interact with LLSWS participants and play a doubleheader Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at ECU’s Max R. Joyner Family Stadium.

Stallings Stadium is at 1055 S. Elm St. As in years past, to ensure the safety of participants and spectators, the city will close Elm Street between 14th Street and 10th Street from Aug. 4-11. Only permitted traffic will be allowed in the blocked section of Elm Street during the closure. In addition, the pickleball courts at Elm Street Park will be closed during the tournament for maintenance.

The full schedule of games is at the Little League website. Temperatures are expected to be in the high-80s to low-90s, and rain is forecast nearly every day, so game times could change.

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