THOMASTON — The Georgia High School Association announced Wednesday that the baseball championship series for its eight classifications will be conducted at four neutral-site venues for the first time in 2018.
Rome’s State Mutual Stadium, home of the Rome Braves, and Savannah’s Grayson Stadium split all eight championships in 2017 with four classifications being held at each site. Those two venues will hold championship series once again but will also be joined by Macon’s Luther Williams Field, home of the Macon Bacon, and the University of Georgia’s Foley Field.
The best-two-of-three championship series will be held from May 21-23 with each venue hosting two classifications apiece. The classification assignments will be made after completion of the second round of the playoffs, according to GHSA officials.
Steve Figueroa, Director of Media Relations for the GHSA, said it took a while for the negotiations to be settled but that the new additions to the format should be beneficial to most.
"You can never please everyone, but now we have the ability to have shorter days for everyone that makes it to the finals with only two classifications at each site," he said. "Also, this should allow us to get teams closer to their fans than in the past."
Figueroa said feedback from last year's baseball finals were overwhelmingly positive.
"That was the first time we had ever gone to neutral sites and we got a lot of positive feedback on that," he said. "Hopefully this will make things even more positive. But there are always two factions and some people still think we should go to a home team's place.
"The overwhelming majority of the coaches, players, and fans we talked to said they would rather go to places like Foley Field than schools that have 40-year-old bleachers and no major facilities. This gives us the ability to do that. We're very excited about it."
