MT.
JULIET, Tenn. - The snow didn't stop volunteers from heading to the baseball
fields in Mt. Juliet on Saturday morning. An EF 2 tornado hit the city on
Wednesday, leaving a mess to clean up.
"It used to be like…bright,
but now it's all like dark and destroyed," Little Leaguer Hoyt Griner said
about the baseball fields.
February 2nd has been circled
on their calendar for weeks.
"We (were) actually
supposed to do tryouts today for ball," Coach Bobby Wood, member of the
Board of Directors for Mt. Juliet's Little League Organization said.
But instead of having their bat
and gloves, they're holding trash bags helping to clean up.
"When my mom gave me the
e-mail she said dad wants you to come," Griner said. "And I said, ‘I
was thinking the same thing.'"
"I'm finding lots of trash
and stuff, like trash cans that fly around," Little Leaguer Hunter Kinzer
said.
The tornado brought with it 115
mile per hour winds that mangled bleachers, crushed fences and littered the
field with debris from nearby businesses.
"When I first entered the
park it's just like not again because this is like round number three for us in
three years," Wood said.
Yet again volunteers showed up,
this time braving the cold to help clean up because for them it's about more
than just fun and games.
"I love seeing kids that
struggle that (are) good at something," Wood said about the impact
baseball has on the students. "It's that five or six hours a week that
parents can be proud of their children."
"I like playing
baseball," Kinzer said. "It's hard waiting a little longer to
play."
"Fall and spring it's what
we do," father Jimmy Griner added. "It's the way we spend our
weekends and we enjoy it quite a bit."
That's why so many are pitching
in because the faster they clean this up, "The faster we get to
play," Kinzer said with a smile.
