When you come to southern West Virginia, you have some expectations, generally. Natural beauty. Secluded mountain cabins. White water rafting, maybe. Adventure. Art. That sort of thing.
Most people don’t think, “baseball”. But they should. Southern WV has
Power Park - Home of the WV Power
long been home to three minor league teams, the furthest south being the Princeton Rays and the Bluefield Orioles. They’ve provided the area with awesome baseball for decades.
And let’s not forget the West Virginia Power, whose long history as a franchise in Charleston as the Alley Cats, the Charlies, and the Senators (originally the Toledo Mud Hens!) has given the state a baseball team to cheer on since 1952.
And now Beckley will step in. A brand new, non-pro collegiate franchise, The West Virginia Miners, will begin play in “the small town with a mine of its own”. Here’s some info to get you ready…
- The Miners will play in the Prospect League. This league is designed for college players and uses wooden bats (NCAA college teams use aluminum bats, but all other rules apply). That makes it unique among other collegiate leagues.
- There’s a brand new, state of the art baseball stadium for the team in Beckley. The Linda K. Epling Stadium may even be outfitted with extra bleacher seats pre-season to meet demand for tickets.
- The Miners are developing a competitive junior league for both girls and boys called the Red Hats. The boys will play in under-8, -10, and -12 divisions, and the girls will play under 18 softball. Home field for the kids? You guessed it- Epling Stadium.
- Since the Miners are a collegiate club, the organization is running a promotion to find host families for some of its players. Host families that “adopt a Miner” get all kinds of perks in addition to the satisfaction of helping the team, like season tickets and parking passes.
- The West Virginia Miners’ home opener is on Saturday June 5th at 7 p.m. Expect the whole city to come out and welcome the team, so get your tickets early.