BY JOEL FITZPATRICK GREER CITIZEN SPORTS EDITOR One of the best parts of playing youth baseball is having a uniform of your own. Children will often wear their uniforms long after a game is over, wanting everyone who looks in their direction to know exactly which team they play for. The Greer Recreation Department also wants people to know what city the kids play for. To resolve the issue, the department ordered new uniforms for its baseball and softball teams. The hats will be major league replicas, while the rest of the uniform will be the same colors as the major league teams, but will read “Greer” across the chest. “We contacted local sporting goods companies for ideas,” Athletic Supervisor Red Watson said. “The baseball uniforms will be two-button performance mesh, while the softball uniforms will be two-button sleeveless dazzle jerseys.” The uniforms will be on display Saturday, Opening Day for the department’s youth baseball and softball leagues. Over 450 children, 12-years old and younger, signed up to play baseball this spring, as did 50 13- and 14-year olds, and 80 12-years-old and younger softball players. “One of the first things we wanted to do was take advantage of technology as far as online registration,” Watson said. “We did some research, and decided to go with E-Track, which handles registration, programming, facility reservations, and anything else associated with our department.” “We sat down with the E-Track designer and showed him what we wanted the program to be able to do. The program does game scheduling, keeps up with standings, and has records of past teams. In what normally takes us a week to do as far as scheduling, we were able to do in about 45 minutes.” “The program also allows coaches, parents, and players to e-mail each other. That will be an extremely valuable tool when it comes to notifying people about game cancellations.” Opening Day games will be played at Century Park and Country Club Park, but two other fields will be used in the near future. “The Field at Victor Park is a 200-foot field that will be used exclusively for girls softball, our fastest growing sport,” Watson said. “In the future, we would like to host local and state tournaments at that site.” “We also wanted to showcase all the improvements that have been made to Stevens Field. In December, we bid on the Dixie Majors state tournament. We beat out North Charleston for the right to host it, which will happen in July.” It has also been decided that the Coaches Pitch league will be sanctioned, allowing two all-star teams to compete for district and possibly state titles. “We are thankful to both our baseball and softball boards,” Watson said. “The baseball board volunteered a lot of time and was instrumental with getting our new jerseys.” “We have had a very smooth preseason. If we can get a sunny day this Saturday, we will be good to go.”