BAILEY'S TAKE ON PIRATE SPORTS
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From the Anchor Desk Tuesday, June 20, 2006 ----- By Brian Bailey

The legend of Drew continues

©2006 Bonesville.net

The first ever Drew Steele-Skip Holtz Golf Classic was a smashing success. The final numbers are still being tabulated, but the tournament raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $165,000 for special populations in Pitt County.

“It was amazing,” said Mike Steele, the former Pirate basketball coach who is now better known as Drew’s Dad. “The entire community came together for a great cause. It was fantastic, and we’re going to make it even bigger and better in the future.”

I caught Coach Holtz during one of the several football camps that East Carolina is hosting this summer.

“It was a lot of fun,” Holtz said. “And we really didn’t have that long to work on it. I want to thank everyone that came together for the tournament.”

Last month, I wrote about my involvement with the Challenger Little League program in Greenville in conjunction with the first ever Steele-Holtz Golf Classic.

As I told you last month, Drew Steele is my first base coach with the Cubs. Drew “aged out” of the league as far as playing goes, but he was a great leader as a coach.

After our next to the last game Drew wanted to take some batting practice before the next game started. He hit a few, missed a few, but had a good time.

I told Drew that I would let him hit for us in the last game, as a reward for such a great coaching job.

Our last game came and Drew showed up 20 minutes early to take a few cuts. He missed more then he hit, basically because he was “stepping in the bucket”, baseball talk for stepping more towards the foul pole then the pitcher.

In his first at bat, Drew missed a couple and then hit a soft liner for a base hit. He was beaming with a big smile.

It was his last at bat that will become legendary. Drew strolled to the plate, took is bat, and pointed to right field. Drew looked just like the Babe.

The first pitch came in and Drew unloaded. He hit a blast to right field. I don’t think the ball ever came down. It was almost like something from the move “The Natural”, with Drew as Robert Redford. He jogged around the bases, grinning from ear to ear.

It was the last hit of our season, but one I’ll never forget.

I can tell you this. Drew and that Challenger team did more for me this spring then I could ever hope to do for them.

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02/23/2007 01:33:50 AM