By Sabrina Manganella Simmons
Coastal Senior

Willie Smith has been coming to Grayson Stadium since the 1940s, when as a boy he would ride his bicycle over from Montgomery Street to watch spring training. His dad (the first Willie Smith) was a baseball fanatic, Willie Smith II is a baseball fanatic, and his son, Willie Smith Jr. is a baseball fanatic (and a former pro player). It's a family obsession, passed down from dad to son, dad to son, three generations of baseball aficionados. Smith does not miss a game, he has been a season ticket holder, like his dad was, for as long as he can remember.

But Grayson Stadium is not all baseball. A minor league baseball game is about the camaraderie, the regulars, and the atmosphere of a stadium full of memories. Smith saw Hank Aaron play there, and followed numerous players as their career took off, many going on to play for the Atlanta Braves.

With the sun setting, the children lining up to measure the speed of their pitch, the beer and the hot dogs, it's America, and it's beautiful.

"Hey, Blondie," Smith yells out to the girl across the field who works the scoreboard. The girl waves back to him. "See, I know everybody here," Smith says.

Grayson Stadium is not like the new baseball stadiums - built for the purpose of box seating and big spenders. Smith points to the one box seating area in the stadium and says, "I wouldn't be caught dead there. There is no shade and the view is terrible."

No, Smith is comfortable in his seat up from the catcher's mound, where he has been sitting with his friend Arthur Crum, as well as other long-time friends for about eight years. Even when his friends have a church event (the only thing that keeps them from the games) Smith is there, because nobody is lonely at a baseball game. It's community, pure and simple.

It wasn't always as simple as it is now. Smith remembers that when he first started going to the games as a boy and he sat in the Negro Section. The black section was not really in the stadium area, but off to the left side. The benches, Smith remembers, were wooden with no backs, and uncomfortable.

Smith's dad took him to a game every chance he got. "I don't know how my daddy made it. He would sit there like there was nothing wrong with it. I was just running around trying to get free balls."

Smith says that in the black section, the fans would follow the black players carefully and with pride. They were thrilled when their favorite black players excelled on the field. At that time, the baseball field was a rare place where skin color faded and players were judged on their merits alone.

"The baseball took the pain out," Willie remembers.

The highlight of his years as a fan occurred when they integrated the stadium and blacks moved over to the main stadium.

"You could see so much better. You were a part of the atmosphere, a part of everything."

In a family of baseball lovers, Smith's one regret over the years is that his father didn't live to see his grandson play professional baseball. His son has pitched for the Yankees, the Cleveland Indians and the Cardinals, among others. Once, he saw his son play at Grayson Stadium. His son was playing for the Augusta Pirates at the time. Everyone asked him who he'd pull for, the Savannah team or his son. "My son, of course," he told them.

Grayson Stadium has now built a child's play area with playground equipment, a wading pool and picnic tables in the place where the black section was. Children play together on the shiny new equipment. Times have changed, but Grayson Stadium remains a place where all kinds of people venture out of their private worlds, and root for the old home team, merging strangers into friends.