Out-of-towners enjoy baseball action
The great thing about going to the Conference USA tournament is meeting all the out-of-towners who have decided to make the trip to Hattiesburg.
Take Bruce Chase, for example, who spent the Florida International-Old Dominion game religiously filling out the scorecard in the sweltering midday heat Thursday at Pete Taylor Park.
He’s not an FIU fan. He’s not an Old Dominion fan. He’s a Rice University loyalist from Baytown, Texas, where, the slogan goes, “Oil and water really do mix.”
“It’s just something to keep me busy,” Chase said about his baseball obsession. He retired from the oil business in 2006 as a mechanical craftsman at an Exxon refinery.
Chase goes to every Rice home game and nearly every away game. “Flying is a waste of time,” he says, so he doesn’t go to any games that he can’t make by car.
When Rice’s season ends, he’ll start attending minor league baseball games in nearby Frisco and Round Rock. He’s also planning to attend his fourth straight College World Series in Omaha, Neb.
Chase is not married. But maybe you guessed that.
“I don’t know too many women who will watch four games a day,” he laughed. “When I go to a game, I don’t leave until it’s over.”
Joining Chase in the stands for the evening action were Paul and Sara Mittura of Clarksville, Tennessee, who came to see the Middle Tennessee State-Rice game.
The two high school teachers had a special reason for making the longest journey (9 hours by car) they’ve ever made for an MTSU baseball game. Their son Paul Mittura was toeing the rubber as MTSU’s starting pitcher.
Unfortunately it did not turn out well. Mittura was knocked out of the game in the fifth inning when a line drive hit him directly in the pitching hand. MTSU would go on to lose 8-2.
Now, unless MTSU rallies to win the tournament, it looks like the end of the line for the senior right-hander.
“It’s too bad,” the elder Paul Mittura said. “You want him to finish on a really good note, and this was less than a good note.”
It also looks to be the last hurrah for parents who have diligently attended their son’s games throughout the years.
“There will be a period of adjustment. There will be some withdrawals,” Paul Mittura said. “But we’ll still have a lot to talk about.”
“I guess every parent comes to that moment in life when their kid is no longer playing ball,” Sara Mittura added.
Contact American staff writer Ed Kemp at ekemp@hattiesburgamerican.com.