SEC Baseball Tournament Report
Tailgating
Cary Estes
It is a familiar sight in SEC country. As two teams prepare to do battle inside the stadium, fans take up residence outside, gathering for all the traditional pre-game tailgating festivities.
It is no different on this occasion, in the hours leading up to a showdown between Alabama and LSU. Alabama fans are throwing meat on the grill. LSU fans are passing out beads (and sometimes just plain passing out). Auburn fans are watching ESPN’s SportsCenter on a high-def TV. Ole Miss fans are … .
Wait a minute. If Alabama and LSU are about to play, what are Auburn and Ole Miss fans doing here? Along with screaming South Carolina supporters, barking Georgia grads and flag-waving Miss State alums?
They are here because this is not your regular mano-a-mano meeting between two SEC football powers. Instead, this is the more laid-back world of the SEC baseball tournament at Regions Park in Hoover, Ala. Each May, fans of numerous conference schools gather outside the stadium in suburban Birmingham for a week-long tailgating experience that turns into something of a group hug.
The fundamentals are the same as for football. Canopies, lawn chairs and outdoor grills abound. Team logos are plastered everywhere, on shirts and coolers and too many banners to count.
But the intensity in the air is toned down a good two or three notches from a typical football tailgate, partly because the fandom is divided more than a half-dozen ways. In fact, since only eight of the SEC’s 12 teams qualify for the tournament, there are actually some fans in attendance who have no team to root for. They simply are fans of tailgating.
That is the case for Bobby and Cheryl Rushen, Auburn supporters from Cropwell, Ala. Every year, they park their RV in the paved lot located a short walk away from Regions Park, and there they remain for the duration of the five-day tournament. The fact that their Tigers haven’t been to the SEC baseball tournament since 2003 does not deter them.
“We’ve been here for a number of years. Unfortunately, our baseball team hasn’t,” Cheryl Rushen said with a smile. “But that hasn’t stopped us from coming. One day they’ll show up, and we’ll already be here.”
The comedian George Carlin, in his famous comparison between baseball and football, stated that there is “a picnic feeling” among fans at a baseball game. But at a football game, he said, “you can be sure that at least 27 times you’ll be capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.”
Outside of Philadelphia, that’s probably a bit of an exaggeration. Still, the fact remains that the boiling emotions found at your average SEC football tailgate are reduced to nothing more than a simmer at a baseball game.
For some fans, that is one of the primary attractions of tailgating at the SEC baseball tournament.
“The fans here aren’t as mean and nasty as football fans can be. They’re a lot more tolerable,” said LSU supporter Don Lewis of Chalmette, La., who this year made his eighth trip to Hoover for the SEC baseball tournament. “At football games, there are 92,000 (people). This place holds (10,000), so we kind of know each other. Everybody talks to you. It’s totally different.”
That doesn’t mean there still isn’t room for some good old-fashioned trash talking. Cheryl Rushen said since Auburn didn’t make the SEC baseball tournament, she was a fan of whatever school was playing Alabama.
“We root for seven different teams,” she said.
Alabama fan Bob Massey of Warrior, Ala., heard that remark and replied, ““Yeah. One for each year that Auburn hasn’t been here.”
That type of camaraderie between fans likely would exist no matter where the SEC baseball tournament was held. But for RVers, Regions Park is appealing because the designated RV lot includes hook-ups for water, power, sewer, cable TV and even wireless Internet.
“This is high end for RVers. It’s a great facility,” said Georgia fan Jeff Treadwell of Newnan, Ga. “When you go to the football games, it can be kind of primitive camping sometimes.”
In 1998, when the SEC baseball tournament moved to Regions Park (then known as the Hoover Met), there was no official RV lot. Campers and tailgaters set up shop at a nearby soccer field that offered no facilities.
The Hoover City Council and then-mayor Barbara McCollum agreed in 2001 to the creation of the RV lot, which is open year-round. It has become, according to current Hoover mayor Tony Petelos, one of the top selling points in the city’s quest to keep the SEC baseball tournament after the current contract expires in 2011.
“The RV Park is a great venue for this event,” Petelos said. “The fans who are out there love coming here. They’re some of our biggest supporters in keeping SEC baseball in the city of Hoover. They don’t want it to move.
“We have found that whenever their teams lose, a lot of them will continue to stay through the championship. They all have become friends with each other. They know each other. It’s a great atmosphere out there. We’re glad from the city’s perspective to have them here.”
Petelos said long-term goals for the RV Park include the addition of covered pavilions and restroom facilities, though nothing currently is being planned.
While the tailgaters certainly would welcome any additional improvements, it is obvious that most of them already are happy with the facility. The 142 designated spots in the RV Park sell out well in advance of the tournament, with some tailgaters reserving their place for next year’s event the day after the conclusion of this year’s tournament.
“Come Monday morning, we will call to reserve these spots again for next year,” Cheryl Rushen said on the Friday of tournament week. “Whether our baseball team shows up or not, we’ll be here.”
