A night at the ballpark

When I was a kid, I remember spending HOURS at a local baseball/softball complex during the summertime. I played on church teams from the time I was in first grade until my sophomore year of high school, which led to numerous nights at the ballpark, countless dinners from the concession stand and one ice-cold Coca Cola after every game, win or lose.

This week, I have already spent about five hours at the new baseball complex photographing the Dixie Youth Baseball South State Tournament. (Whew! Long name!) While I captured a lot of fantastic game action, one of my favorite images from the evening was snapped during the downtime between games.

I knew I had to find a feature image, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to shoot for it. Sure, there were lots of kids warming up. Sure, parents were sitting in the stands cheering. Sure, there is a huge mister machine, and some kids were bound to be around it. But when I walked out from one of the four fields, I noticed a little girl hanging wooden stars on the back of the bleachers before her brother’s game started.

The following image of her is my favorite from the evening:

Maggie Hogan, 8, hangs stars for the Petal team before the Petal-Marion County game Monday night at Tatum Park. (Erin Parker / The Hattiesburg American)

More photos from the tournament can be seen at the Hattiesburg American Web site. (Click it! The link takes you directly to the photo gallery!)