Mercer’s Club Baseball team has plans to take off in their second year

“We just want to play...all the time,” said Mercer Club Baseball player Layton Sheets.  

The team started last year after Sophomore Ryan Fields and some friends were looking to play baseball and realized that there was no club or intramural teams to do so.

Today, they’re in the middle of their second season, and they’ve grown to become a 20-member team.

“We’re open to anyone who’s interested, but as we grow as a team, we will start hosting tryouts,” Sheets said.

There is a variety of players who are on the team this year, but most of them are freshmen and sophomores.

[related title="Related Stories" stories="22820,22712,22442" align="right" background="off" border="none" shadow="off"][related title="Related Stories" stories="" align="right" background="off" border="none" shadow="off"]

“Most people have played baseball at some level previously,” Sheets said. “We have a lot of high school athletes and even a couple of guys who came from Mercer’s baseball team.”

There have also been some football players who have come out and practiced with the team.

So far, the club baseball team has played Georgia Southern, Armstrong, Coastal Georgia, Alabama, Georgia Tech and Tennessee. Sometimes they travel to those schools and sometimes the schools come play in Macon.

The team practices at a baseball field next to Lakeside High School about 15 minutes away from campus. They also host their home games there.

“The season is in the fall and the spring,” Fields said. “The fall consists of practices and a couple of games to get the team together. In the spring is when the season really takes off.”

The members of the team like it that way though. They enjoy playing year-round.

According to Fields, their first year performance wasn’t too bad. Their weakness was their pitching.

“Hopefully we move past that and play a little better this year,” Fields said.

Their number one goal is to play more games and keep the team together. It’s been tough for them to decide on a practice time that everyone will show up to.

If you’re interested in playing for the club baseball team, email ryanfields@bellsouth.net.