This is an opinion column, but this next sentence is not an opinion. It’s a four-seam, dead-red fact. The SEC Baseball Tournament in Hoover has been a smashing success. In hardball terms, it’s become an annual walk-off, tape-measure grand slam.
It’s the best baseball event this side of the College World Series played by the best teams in the best conference in the country, part celebration, part proving ground.
If you can make it here, you can make it there, and when you get there, you’ll be ready. The Hoover Met’s dimensions match those of TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha almost exactly.
That’s not a coincidence. It’s the kind of attention to detail you get here, and if you think the RV park and the flat-screen TVs on the concourse and the courtesy cars and police escorts for the teams are nice touches, guess what?
As Arkansas native Dizzy Dean might say, it ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up. Hoover can, and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
This is the last year of the SEC’s current contract with Hoover. Next week at the league’s spring meeting, the SEC’s athletics directors will choose where to stage their baseball tournament going forward. Nashville and Memphis (the real contenders), New Orleans and Jacksonville all want to take what we’ve got, what we’ve built, what we’ve embraced as our own.
Those other cities all have selling points, but Hoover’s doing everything possible to make the decision easy.
The local brag bag is already bursting at the seams. There’s the most central location within a three-hour drive of six SEC schools; accommodations galore with more than 2,000 hotel rooms and 160 restaurants within five miles of the park; the Hyatt Regency-Wynfrey Hotel, which houses nine teams during the tournament and features a players’ lounge; and consistently strong attendance.
Three of the last four championship games have drawn 10,000-plus even without a state team involved. On a holiday weekend, no less.
That’s just for starters, but here comes what should be the closer: The $70 million Hoover Sportsplex on the site of the Hoover Met.
The complex will feature a 141,000-square-foot indoor event center beyond the right-field corner, and a covered walkway will connect it to the stadium. It’ll include a sports bar, a food court, a band, a stage for the SEC Network and a Fan Fest to rival the one at the SEC Football Championship Game.
Oh, and the kids might like the outdoor Ferris wheel and zip line.
Hoover will break ground next week on the indoor event center, which should be ready by the 2017 tournament. But that’s not all.
By the 2018 event, the complex will have added other facilities, including five new baseball fields. One will feature the same dimensions as the Hoover Met, with the same orientation to the sun, and it can be used as a second game field during the tournament if necessary.
Both the RV park and the regular parking lot will be expanded, and there will be no need for anyone to ride a shuttle to the stadium. Everyone will be able to park at the park.
The SEC obviously recognizes the many advantages of permanent or semi-permanent championship sites with Hoover in baseball, Atlanta in football and Nashville in basketball. They all work in large part because the locals roll up their sleeves year after year and go to work.
Hoover deserves tremendous credit because it isn’t resting on its considerable laurels. It’s taking a great thing and working overtime to make it even bigger and better.
A subcommittee of ADs has been studying the interested cities and their sites, and those men will share their findings with their colleagues next week in Destin. Anyone who visits the tournament this week will see for themselves.
This event shines here. The added facilities and amenities in the works should make the future brighter than ever.
This is an opinion column, and this last sentence is an unapologetic opinion from the head and from the heart. After two decades of positive memories, with the reliable promise of more to come, the SEC Baseball Tournament should stay right here where it belongs.
