Oxford, AL – After a single season in the Oxford’s Choccolocco Park, the wood-bat Monsters of the Sunbelt League will relocate into Columbus, Ga.
Joe Medley Joe Medley
The Choccolocco Monsters gave college baseball players from Oxford area and the nearby areas an opportunity to showcase their talents during the summer months playing wood-bat baseball in the summer of 2013, and the team will be relegated after just one season. The Monsters announced plans on Monday for a game in Columbus, Ga., in the coming summer. Oxford spokesperson Lorie Wright Denton confirmed this report. “We hope that the Oxford Monsters only the best of success in their future endeavours,” she said. “Stay on the lookout for an announcement to be made very soon regarding this summer’s activities on Choccolocco Park?”
The team will become called the Chattahoochee Monsters, and play at Columbus’ Golden Park. “I am thrilled to announce that today we will be playing extra games at Chattahoochee Valley. Chattahoochee Valley, since they say that the Chattahoochee Monsters will call Golden Park their home,” Monsters president and general manager Scott Brand said at a news conference in Columbus. “We’re very happy about this, and I’ll tell you the reasons. “Besides the bonus baseball being offered to those who play in the Chattahoochee Valley Columbus as well as Golden Park This will provide local players and coaches from the local area the opportunity to showcase their skills through this league called the Sunbelt Baseball League.”
Major League Baseball funds the Sunbelt League. In theory, players within a 30-mile radius from home plate take advantage of the league during summer to chance to improve their performance for the college game or increase their draft standings by showing their skills using, or against wood bats. The players on the Monsters roster for 2022 include students from high schools Sean Smith (Piedmont), Brennan McCullough (Oxford), Dawson Winningham (Oxford), Jake Spivey (Oxford), Austin Goode (Alexandria) and Brant Deerman (Piedmont).
In Columbus The Monsters are sharing Golden Park with another Sunbelt League team that is the Columbus Chatt-A-Hoots. The park is being renovated with the sky box with 10. The Monsters were hoping to have at least an agreement for lease that reflected sky boxes that they could sell. “We cannot maintain the same financial commitments on our part without the capability to earn the cash,” Brand said. “It’s the case that it’s not necessary that we need to own these. We must at the very least be able to show a lease the fact that we have them. “If I can’t sell a skybox, at least $4,000 or $5,000 per box, then I’m not able to earn the cash. I believe that this should be part of the contract.” Brand said he found Oxford’s city Oxford in Oxford to be “great to collaborate with” and added that the both the city and team formed the same “great collaboration.”
