Take Me Out To The Ballgame… in Rainelle, WV
by Jeff "Mario" Smith, Guerilla Reporter
June 2, 2005
Little League baseball, raffle tickets sold by pretty moms, aluminum bleachers outside left field, kids and Vets with hearts, tents and campers, and Harley Davidsons and other motorcycles have their annual reunion at a small town baseball field in West “by God” Virginia. It takes place every year right before Memorial Day weekend. Heavily packed motorcycles with Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and other license plates all converge upon Rainelle, WV, at the city baseball park, once a year during the KY Run To The Wall and the west coast Run For The Wall (RFTW) reunion hosted by this little town with a big heart for America’s Veterans.
The Rainelle Little League has placed a POW MIA flag permanently on their flagpole, thanks to their heart for the Vets, and for our mission to call attention to the willing abandonment of our Prisoners of War (POW) by Washington to the communists in all wars. It is this mission of protest that brought us to Rainelle, WV in the first place. With all the support provided by the Illinois Rolling Thunder Crew, they now have their RT Chapter Logo painted on the back of one of the dugouts, and a league supporter banner on the fence.
Big deal, right? Yep, sure is! Every year when these Veterans and supporters crowd into this little patriotic town on US Route 60 in the hills of East Central West Virginia, the local little league teams throw together a couple of games for us. It has become one of the main attractions of the annual trek to The Wall in DC, thanks to the fine baseball loving Vets and their supporters from the Rolling Thunder Illinois crew. These guys are unbelievable. You haven’t enjoyed a little league game to its fullest potential if you haven’t been to one of these games with the Illinois gang.
Moe, Larry, Curly, LT, Joker, and several I am forgetting to name, I’ll pay for that next year, entertain not only the other Vets and bikers, but they entertain the local crowd too. A new guy, new guys are always labeled"FNG" (military slang), gained a"“road name" there this year, "Cupcake". The jury is still out on whether or not he has the right stuff to maintain that difficult nickname.
The locals watch the games from the bleachers behind home plate near the dugouts, while we annual visitors “own” the left field bleachers. Moe, a big kid at heart, has to have the biggest set of lungs ever to cheer on a baseball game and one can imagine him at Wrigley or Shea being clearly understood by the catcher all the way from center field. Moe is the proverbial “ringleader” of the left field wrecking crew but it isn’t because he is the loudest, he is also extremely funny, the one-liners keep coming, and coming, and coming. If you plan to join us there next year, be sure to have your laugh muscles in good shape because they will be heavily called upon.
As the games progress, and the players become recognized by the Vets, some gain nicknames after famous professional players, or after something distinguishing about the individual player or his or her style of play. One year, a girl pitcher was cheered on to the point she was hitting the ball to the fence and you should have seen her lay a cheese on those Vets out in left field who were cheering her on with gusto this town has never seen at a little league game. If smiles were dollars, these Vets were the richest men on earth at that moment. That’s what it’s really all about, kids having fun, kids both young and old.
The fun rolls on and to make things even more interesting, a new tradition has begun, thanks to the generosity of these Illinois Vets. Someone came up with the idea, a few years back, to sell raffle tickets at these games as a fundraiser. They have what is called a 50-50 drawing. This is where the holder of the winning ticket gets 50% of the proceeds of the sales of tickets, and the league gets 50%. You would think a certain percentage of fans would participate hoping to bring in a slick hundred with a five-dollar ticket purchase, but that isn’t what happens. Instead, the winner, most always one of the Illinois Vets, gives back his winnings to the league. I have witnessed donations approaching $400.00 from these big burly guys, given with heart to the little kids of Rainelle.
This year, some cute little kids came out to the left field bleachers with the raffle tickets. They were quickly heckled and told to go get their Moms, heh heh heh. Sometimes when selling 50-50 raffles, traditionally, the sellers will sell you an arm-length of tickets for a certain amount of cash, using your arm. Well, the Illinois Vets have a better idea. With Moe leading the way, they come up with some very unique methods of buying large amounts of tickets for a twenty-spot. You say you have never seen a Vet and a pretty little league Mom carefully wrapped together in raffle tickets? Then you haven’t participated in the finest 50-50 drawing in the country found at Rainelle City Park in Rainelle, WV each and every Thursday before Memorial Day weekend.
I would recap the scores of the games for you, but with all the fun we had in the left field bleachers, and all the time I had my eyes on one of the prettiest Moms in West Virginia, I honestly cannot tell you who won. I do know the second game was a blowout ending early by the wining team getting to 21 and the losing team having less than five, but other than that, I can’t remember much about the games. I do, however, remember some big burly Vets opening up their hearts to some cute little kids and having a whole lot of fun doing it. Let’s put the final score at Vets 1 and Kids 1. It was a tie.
