Let the games begin!
The McComb and Summit Dixie Youth Baseball season gets underway Thursday with the McComb Jamboree.
The preseason jamboree will continue through Saturday at Edgewood Park and the Windsor Gay Youth Complex in Summit, and will involve 72 teams playing 90 games.
The Summit site will have games just on Friday and Saturday.
“People are anxious and ready to get the season started,” McComb Dixie Youth Baseball president Ricky Johnston said.
Two games will be played on each field in McComb on Thursday and Friday, at 6 and 7:15 p.m.
Each game will have four innings or a one-hour time limit.
Teams in the 4-and-5-year-old division will play one game apiece during the jamboree. Those in the 6-year-olds age group will play two games apiece, and teams in 7-to-12-year-olds age group will each play three games.
Saturday promises to be the big day of the jamboree, with 66 teams — approximately 800 players — competing in 49 games on the five fields at Edgewood Park.
“This should be the most teams and most games in one day ever at Edgewood Park,” Johnston said.
Edgewood Park will be jam-packed Saturday, with games on each of the five fields beginning at 8:30 a.m. and the final game slated for an 8:30 p.m. first pitch.
Johnston said the idea for the jamboree came about after the decision that the Summit and McComb Dixie Youth leagues will play an interlocking schedule.
“(Summit’s) league and our league will be as one,” Johnston said. “Half the games in the regular season will be in McComb, the other half will be in Summit.
“That will give the kids a change of scenery,” Johnston added. “At the end of the year, we’ll go back to being rivals and try to beat each other at All-Stars.”
The leagues’ regular season opens Monday.
