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Oh, what a first half

• With a title intact and playoff spot secured, it's time to reflect on the South Georgia Peanuts' first half.

Danny Aller

ALBANY — Believe him or not, South Georgia Peanuts general manager Keith Michlig is sticking by his story.

On Sunday afternoon — Michlig’s only day off each week since the Peanuts opened the inaugural South Coast League season back on May 18 — the GM was asked to reflect on how he’d felt when South Georgia captured the SCL’s first-half title Friday night following more than six months of hard work just to get the team ready to take the field.

“This is going to sound really cliché, but I knew from the moment that I first met (Peanuts manager) Wally Backman the day he was introduced as our coach, that this guy drinks, eats, and sleeps baseball, and that this team was going to be special,” Michlig said. “Even when we were sitting in the lounge before he was about to meet everyone, he was on his phone, working his major-league connections and tracking down the players he wanted to assemble to be on this team.

“He didn’t go out and get the 35-home-run guys, or flashy types. He got what he promised the people of Albany he would: gritty, always-stealing, take-the-extra-base players, just like he was. And the fact that we’re about to start the second half of the season having won 33 games and only lost 11, with the first-half title and playoff spot already secured, just proves that he’s not only a great baseball mind, but that his style also wins.”

While hindsight is always 20-20, Michlig’s omen about the Peanuts not only ended up coming to fruition, but he was also quick to point out there’s still an entire second half of the season to play. That starts today when the Aiken Foxhounds come to Albany for the first of a three-game series at Paul Eames Park.

“It takes some of the pressure off knowing we’ll be playing in a playoff series either way at the end of the season,” Michlig said. “But when you look at what we did in the first half, who's to say we won’t win it again?”

Given the way the Peanuts nearly went wire-to-wire, only losing hold of first place in the SCL standings for one game in the middle of the season en route to the title by a 3H-game margin over the second-place Macon Music, that’s certainly a possibility many should be prepared for.

And SCL co-founder and CEO Jamie Toole is one who has become a firm believer that a second Peanuts title could happen after watching his league’s top franchise dominate in the first season.

“I don’t doubt that they could do it again, but that’s also the great thing about sports: The championship is only a three-game series, and whoever comes to play for those three games and wants that title will get it,” said Toole, adding the SCL’s rule — should the Peanuts also win the second-half title — would be to take the team with the best overall record for the season and pit it against South Georgia for a three-game series championship. “I was watching the Dallas Desperados in the (Arena Football League) playoffs the other day, and here was a team that barnstormed through the league all season, went 15-1, and then lost to a wild-card team in the first round of the playoffs. So, anything can happen.”

That mantra, “anything can happen,” also seems quite fitting for a season — and a league — in which many were skeptical of from the start, and weren’t sure what to expect long before the first pitch was ever thrown out. But what fans of SCL teams from Florida to Georgia to South Carolina got in the first half certainly was more of the unexpected, than the expected.

It was announced two weeks ago that Bradenton will be moved from the city in 2008 and could even play an entirely all-road schedule for the next season (no news on what its new city will be); one manager was already fired (Charlotte County’s Desi Wilson) and was replaced by arguably as big a marquee name as Backman in former MLB slugger Cecil Fielder; a parachuter crash-landed on the field in Charlotte County during a botched game on opening night, and speaking of opening night, attendance numbers on May 17 in Macon (5,033 fans showed up) were “mind-blowing,” said Toole, not to mention near sellouts everywhere else, including in Albany — a city that’s been burned over and over again by minor-league baseball teams that have blown into town making big promises, only to leave like a whipped up Polecat or Alligator with its tail between its legs.

This time around, the only thing that was promised came from Backman the afternoon he was introduced.

“We’re going to win ball games, and we’re going to do it the old-school way,” he told the crowd that day. “And it’s that simple.”

Of course, with the expected coming true, the unexpected came when Backman was suspended twice during the first half of the season for separate incidents. The ugliest of which included an off-the-field altercation with the general manager and broadcaster for the Anderson Joes that was preceded by an on-field tirade of 22 bats and a bucket of balls being hurled onto the field after he’d been ejected. Backman even threatened to quit if changes weren’t made to the league’s officiating.

But then again, that’s baseball — at least the brand of a fiery, no-holds-barred manager who offered no apologies for the way he ran what ended up being a championship team.

So maybe that wasn’t such a shock after all, at least not to Toole.

“We knew what we were getting when we hired him, and that was a great manager who will some day be back in the major leagues coaching again.

Writers can say what they want and papers can print what they want about Wally Backman, but I’m here to say the Wally Backman experience has been a success in our eyes,” said Toole, adding he never imagined Backman would be as scrutinized as much as he has, yet also understands the attraction he brings through his antics and coaching style. “Yes, there was the two incidents, but he accepted the suspension for both, and moved forward. Plus, to see him constantly making calls on behalf of guys and getting them back to affiliated ball, is right in line with why we created this league and what we’re all about.

“Overall, I’d say his impact on this league has been very positive.”

And for Backman -— the manager that no one wanted to give a chance to after the fallout with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2004 — after such a roller-coaster first half of the season with the Peanuts hearing words like that, coupled with once again proving he could lead a team to the promise land, only means the renewal of one thing: Validation.

After Saturday’s game against the Juice, Backman was asked if winning the first-half title proved a point: That even after a three-year layoff from coaching, he still had all the know-how to come back and win a championship right off the bat.

Surprisingly, Backman said validation was nice, but wasn’t what he sought when he took the Peanuts job. He was simply happy to be back in a uniform and sitting in someone’s dugout.

“I’m managing again, so I guess I’m back. I feel good about it. Success was never a question in my mind. I know the players I picked and I know how to manage a game. Success was never an issue but it’s nice to win,” he said.

“The bottom line is we were going to be successful anyway. (The players) have taken the direction I’ve tried to give them and they’ve gone with it. Stealing bases; I think we’ve stole 100 bases now in 44 games, so (the players) take on the personality of the manager. They know all about me and I know all about them.”

While he’s not a player, included in that group is Michlig, who — despite having quite the opposite personality from Backman’s — says he’s learned to channel the energy Backman brings to the team and the organization into making the Peanuts a success off the field as well.

And while he takes little credit for the Peanuts’ first-half title, Michlig, who — unless he’s dancing between innings with a hoard of kids on the field or trying to find two guys in the crowd with a few to many beers in them to take part in dizzy-bat — prefers to stay behind the scenes.

Although, he’s not shy when it comes to explaining why he couldn’t have asked for anything better than landing with the inaugural SCL champions.

“If I did have any part in helping us succeed, then great, but it all starts with Wally and the players he went out and got, and we’re all just lucky to be a part of it,” Michlig said. “Now, our goal for the second half of the season is to go out and get more fans to realize what a great product we do have, so we can begin to build a fan base that’ll keep growing for years to come.

“I would say one of the high points of the season was when I would walk out each night and look over the crowd, and not only see how many people who came out to support us, but all the yellow and blue Peanuts caps and shirts fans are wearing. That lets me know people are giving us a chance, and are moving past the Polecat days.”

Michlig says more promotional events will be added to the second half of the season, and the franchise is working on upgrading its sound system at Paul Eames. The awning to cover part of the stadium that was approved earlier this year by the city, however, likely won’t be ready until the 2008 season.

Michlig also added that one of his goals for the second half is to try and get residents from areas outside of Albany and Lee County to come to at least one Peanuts game.

“Our attendance numbers haven’t been as good as they could, but unless you sell out every game, you’re never satisfied,” Michlig said. “Maybe now that we’re first-half champs, more people will give us a chance to win them over.”

And that’s fine by Backman, who said he plans to turn up the heat even more on his guys in the second half.

“We need to get more fundamentally sound. We’ll work on fundamentals. One of the things we’re going to do in the second half of the season is have a weight program where they have to lift weights,” he said. “We slacked off a little in the first half, but I want them on some sort of program. If the record stays the same or is not quite as good, so be it, but I want these guys to be strong in the end.”

And as he continues to work the phones to try and get more of his players back to affiliated ball (four have signed so far), one has to wonder what the new found success of the Peanuts will mean for Backman’s immediate future.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets another shot at Major League Baseball not too far in the future,” Toole said. “And sooner, rather than later.”

So, is his phone ringing now? Is Major League Baseball calling yet?

“Not yet,” Backman says coyly. “We’ll see what happens this winter.”

And then, and only then, Backman says, he’ll think about his future again.

After all, the Peanuts still have an entire second half of a season to play.

And more importantly, they have a title to defend.

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