SACCO: Generals ‘almost there. It’s almost here’

The players don’t come all at once, but in waves.

First two trickle in at a time, then three show up together. Parking their cars in the Kate Collins Field parking lot, they pop open the trunks — filled to the brim with luggage and duffel bags – and grab their baseball equipment.

Generals co-owner John Leonard, parting a sea of people running back and forth carrying food and cases of bottled water, slowly walks out to meet them.

“Welcome to the Waynesboro Generals,” he says, extending his hand. “I’m John Leonard.”

It’s the first day of practice at the newly named Fishburne Military School Park at Kate Collins Field and the place is a termite mound of activity. Co-owner Jerry Carter, with his son, Chris, and wife, Linda, giving a helping hand, chats on his cell phone while using hand signals to communicate with the volunteers.

But when a new group of players heads toward the press box and team offices, he quickly wraps up his conversation and joins Leonard in greeting them.

“We have a map upstairs,” he tells the players. “Grab a push-pin — yellow for players, blue for staff — and put it in your hometown.

“Remember, you’re yellow,” he says, as they walk away.

Taking a break from the baking sun, Carter grabs a bottled water out of the concession stand cooler, opens it quickly and takes a big gulp. Letting out a sigh, he wipes some sweat from his brow.

“It’s amazing,” he says. “There’s still a lot of work to do, but the way the people have gotten behind us, it’s amazing.”

He walks over to a new industrial-size fryer in the concession stand and explains how the team was in need of one, since they go through “about 50 orders of fries a night,” he says. It seems a conservative estimate.

Former City Councilman Reo Hatfield jumped in and got the team a new one, touted on Carter’s Around the Valley in 60 Days Web site as, simply, “Santa Claus showed up early this year.”

“So,” he says with a smile, “we’re going to call them Hatfield fries.”

He makes a groaner of a joke about having to come up with some concession item named after the McCoys. Even with two other people in ear-shot, Carter’s the only one who laughs at the joke.

“This,” he says before opening the door and heading out into the heat, “is exciting.”

Carter has made no secret about his desire to mold the Generals after two teams.

From a business standpoint, he wants to be as successful as the Staunton Braves — a team that had seven of the eight 1,000-plus attendance nights in the league in 2008.

From an organizational standpoint, he says amid a second break from running around, he wants to be like the community-run New Market franchise.

“We’re proud to call ourselves New Market south,” he says.

It hasn’t been seamless.

Not by a long shot.

The boards that he’s going to install on the press-box façade are too big to fit into his daughter’s car.

“Both teams’ starting lineups,” he says when asked what those boards are for, “the current standings and the out-of-town scoreboard.”

And the night before practice, they realized they had no balls to practice with.

“We got that problem solved,” he says.

More members of the staff start to show up. Chris and Crystal Graham sit at the picnic benches along the third-base side and a few parents of the players sit in the stands.

Head coach Andy Chalot and the rest of his staff have the team on the field. Some taking grounders, others throwing to catchers.

Carter, finally relaxing while leaning against the brick that rings the area behind home plate, looks across the field and breaks into a smile.

“We’re almost there,” he says, watching the team practice. “It’s almost here.”