KANNAPOLIS, NC – Our annual trek to North Carolina to visit family brought an added surprise; reuniting with a former Tulsa Drillers player was one of the highlights of the week.

On Sunday, I was honored to be invited to play the National Anthem on my trumpet at the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers game. It was my second time to perform at a minor league baseball game in Kannapolis, however, the first time was several years ago when the team was called the Intimidators, and played at their old ballpark.

The new Atrium Health Ballpark in downtown Kannapolis is an upper-class Single-A stadium, that rivals many of the Double-A parks around the country. I wrote extensively about this new ballpark a few years ago, so I won’t spend a lot of space detailing every aspect of the venue, but suffice it to say, it’s a great place for a ballplayer in his first or second season of pro ball to spend the season.

While watching the game, I recognized a guy sitting in the next section over, and then it hit me. “That’s Andy Barkett,” I told my wife. “I have to go say hello.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked me.

I explained that we come to town every year to visit my mother-in-law. Barkett said that he is now the minor league hitting coordinator for the Chicago White Sox, and Kannapolis is their Single-A affiliate.

I asked him what he remembered about his time in Tulsa during the 1997-1998 seasons.

“We had really good fans and I loved the old ballpark,” he said. “I’m sure the new one is beautiful but I haven’t had a chance to see it yet. I just enjoyed that old ballpark, and just the way the fans were right on top of you and always into the game.”

Barkett remembers playing for one of the most popular managers in Drillers history, Bobby Jones.

“Bobby was the manager and he was always very colorful, and a fun guy to be around, to say the least,” Barkett said. “It was the first time I had been around a player that got called up, as Fernando Tatis, Sr., got called up [to the majors] when I was a Tulsa Driller, and that was pretty cool. I made a lot of good friendships and the town was great, so I had a really good experience.”

Other than the fact that Barkett was one of my regular attenders in chapel on Sundays, one of my most vivid memories of Barkett’s time in Tulsa was when he ran full speed into the wall on the first base side of the grandstand.

“That was on opening night 1997, at home, in front of 12,000 people or whatever Drillers Stadium used to hold,” he recalled. “I was all excited, geeked out, and I think it was the second hitter who checked his swing and hit a little weak pop-up. This was back before they put pads on the wall, it was just concrete. I went to catch this ball, and it probably ended up being about 10 rows up, I had no shot, but I thought I was Superman. I hit the wall, as hard as you can hit the wall, and the next thing you know, I had a concussion and a stress fracture in my thumb.

Barkett ended up missing the first couple weeks of the season, but when he returned to action during a Drillers homestand, he had a great week at the plate, hitting a couple home runs and a few doubles, winning Texas League Player of the Week honors.

“We were getting ready to go on the road to Shreveport and as I was carrying my bags to the bus, I walked by Bobby’s office and he said ‘come on in here and sit down,’” Barkett continued. “I said, yeah Bobby, what do you got? He goes, ‘hey, every homestand, first game, I want to you to run into that wall as hard as you can.’ He goes, ‘you came back raking.’”

Barkett admitted he misses being the manager of his own team, but said the minor league baseball life of being on the road for seven months, is not easy on a family. He and his wife have three children between high school and college aged. He enjoys his current job and the flexibility it gives him to go home several times during the season.

“I really enjoy being able to impact peoples’ careers, and as a coach, you have the ability to do that,” he said. “I was able to be a major league coach and win a World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2018, and I was there in 2019, as well.”

Running into Barkett in Kannapolis was a treat. Getting to chat with him after so many years brought back so many great memories of those days at Drillers Stadium. He is truly one of the great guys in baseball that I have met along the way.

TULSA BEACON RADIO

My guests this week on “Tulsa Beacon Weekend” will be local author Julia Bryan Thomas and cartoonist/comedian Earl Musick, who has worked for both the US Postal Service and the FBI. The show airs on Saturday at 12:00 p.m. CST on 970am KCFO.