AS A Charleston sportswriter who covers Marshall athletics, I would like to thank the university leadership for giving our fair town 12 years of Thundering Herd baseball.
Has it been that long? Yep.
I'm sure MU coach Jeff Waggoner will tell you. He has been playing most of his Conference USA home games in Charleston for his 10-year tenure.
Wow. Has Wags been around 10 years? Yep.
With 229 wins, he's No. 2 all-time behind the 422 of the iconic Jack Cook (1955, 1967-89). His 308 losses are a badge of honor, a monument to his patience in leading a perpetual underdog.
Whatever pension Waggoner has earned, he deserves double.
I'm not sure how much he has looked around for other jobs, but do keep in mind college baseball coaches don't experience nearly as much turnover as in football and basketball. But if/when he takes another job, the phrase "they have great facilities" will be uttered.
Here's a little history, with a few imperfections: MU played for years at an ancient wooden stadium at St. Cloud Commons, a complex of several fields in the West End occasionally visited by Fourpole Creek. Then it was on to Bill Mire Field, an oddly shaped yard next to the Memorial Field House.
(And now, site of the shiny new soccer complex. Had I been baseball coach, I might have walked out over that.)
Bill Mire Field wasn't very good, but the school's attempt at a replacement at University Heights on Norway Avenue was worse. One of my pastimes in covering minor-league baseball here was to find a player from an MU opponent and quiz him on how bad that place truly was.
That was tolerated in the Southern Conference and Mid-American Conference. Whether it was an issue in MU's admittance to C-USA or not, I don't think athletic department officials even took the situation into account until ...
As I heard it early in 2005, C-USA told those MU officials that there would be no league games at University Heights. Even after the 2013 realignment, that league would be part of a "Power 5" if there were such a thing in baseball. At several schools, this is NOT a "non-revenue" sport.
Who was MU to argue? Former athletic director Bob Marcum had to make a deal with the city and the just-renamed West Virginia Power.
(Interjection: This is the 30th year of Charleston's Class A baseball era. That it's not celebrated and marketed by the Power is baloney.)
There have been five athletic directors at MU - six if you count Lance West - since 1971. One, Dave Braine, showed me a stadium plan when I was a student reporter in the '80s.
It didn't look bad at the time: Build it on what is now the West Lot of the new football stadium, install an artificial-turf field and use it for football parking. There was a detailed blueprint on Braine's wall.
The problem? I learned the idea was already dead. MU was lucky to get that football stadium for the 1991 season, and there wasn't the extra funding to go overboard.
Perhaps that was for the better. That project may have proved to be another half-hearted joke.
If there is movement on a new park, it's imperceptible. The site has been the issue - several areas north and east of campus have cleanup issues. (The site of the softball field at 22nd Street and Third Avenue was fine, it must be noted.)
Remember, Huntington grew up as an industrial town, with plants surrounding little ol' Marshall College. The school remains somewhat landlocked.
I might suggest MU officials consider going south of campus - where the school owns a few open patches now used for parking. (Yes, yes, I know parking is a hot-button issue. Always has been.)
Or maybe, just maybe, venture across Hal Greer Boulevard toward downtown. That may break an unspoken "nothing in front of Old Main" philosophy, but it's a thought.
In the meantime, Herd fans should support this baseball team as it plays in the Conference USA tournament this week on the Southern Mississippi campus. (Decent little yard there, I may add.)
But I'm afraid those Herd fans should brace for 12 more years in Charleston. See ya there from time to time.