Hartsville throws hat in the ring for 2012 World Series
HARTSVILLE - The City of Hartsville and the Hartsville Area Recreation Department along with the Hartsville Dixie Girls Softball League have thrown their hat in the ring to host the 2012 Dixie Youth World Series for the Ponytail Softball League.
“It’ll be a huge economic impact,” Director of Parks & Leisure Services Phil Gardner said.
The 10 to 11 teams would stay in Hartsville overnight three to five nights, and, since the ponytails are players ages 11-12, there would be a lot of parents and grandparents along with them, he said.
Gardner said it could mean as much as $1 million in economic impact to local businesses plus additional revenue for the city from gate admission and concessions.
“And it gives us a start going after something bigger, maybe two age groups,” Gardner said.
The City sent a letter of intent April 30 to the Dixie Girls Softball Association. The announcement of the winner of that bid will be Sept. 10 after park officials present and sell Hartsville to the organization.
Yes it would be a huge economic impact. Which is good. But I can only imagine IF the same incident happens that happened last night there will be lots of ANGRY parents. The ponytails finished up their final game last night. There were three ponytail teams this year. Segars Realty, Agrium, and Pee Dee Eye Asso. Segars and Agrium played the final game. After their game all the players lined up on the field and they gave out awards. How is that right? I feel like the third team should have been present before any awards were given out. There were players from Pee Dee eye in the audience and they could not believe that they didn’t get anything or any recognition at the same time the other teams did. They played ball just as hard as anyone else on any other team. There was also confusion as to the standings. One memeber of the rec dept. told us that the ponytails final scores go on a point system. No one explained that. I was assuming as everyone else was. You win, You lose. Then tally up the wins/loses. Anyways, no matter what the final standing was. The other two teams should not have recieved any awards without the third team being present.