The German national soccer team arrives at their World Cup base camp in Winston-Salem today. The relatively small North Carolina town has several famous sons, the blueprint for the Empire State Building and a hyphenated baseball club.
“That’s baseball.” Definitely a good saying to somehow pretend to know even a little more about the sport than the fact that some people throw a ball, others try to hit it, still others try to catch it.
The Winston-Salem Dash, farm team of the Chicago White Sox from Major League Baseball, played against Hub City Spartanburger, the farm team of the Texas Rangers, on six days in a row in their own ballpark. There were three wins at the beginning with 2:1, 2:1 and 1:0, before defeats with 5:8, 4:9 and 8:11. That’s how baseball is.
A parking space costs ten US dollars, on average twice as much as a ticket, to see a game at Truist Stadium, which is located in southwest Winston-Salem just off Route 421.
The baseball stadium in Winston-Salem
It will be a while before we can play there again. There is an away tour for the Dash, which continues in their own stadium on June 16th. President Brian DeAngelis told the sports show that a much more prominent team would also be coming to the event. The German national soccer team is planning a visit to get a little relief from the stress caused by the World Cup in soccer.
First training in the German World Cup quarters
This Monday, the DFB entourage is traveling to Winston-Salem to move into the base camp. There will be a public training session in the evening from 6 p.m. local time. “Uh”says DeAngelis. He knew that Germany was coming to Winston-Salem and won 2-1 against the USA, but he hadn’t heard anything about training.
He is definitely interested in soccer, but more interested in Juventus Turin and a third division team from the south of Italy where his family lives and still can’t believe that Italy didn’t qualify.
Brian DeAngelis wears the Dash’s regular jersey in white with subtle purple stripes in the 8:11 against the Spartanburgers. The team, on the other hand, wears a very colorful jersey, designed by Miles Stuckenschneider. The eight-year-old boy also threw out the first pitch. “It was a hard time”he says of the leukemia treatment he received in recent years. “I’m feeling much better now.”
German footnational ball team? “Haven’t heard of it yet”
Young Miles likes baseball and the Dash, but he loves basketball even more. The NBA finals are currently captivating him. Soccer is not his thing. “Haven’t heard of it yet”he says when asked whether he knows that Germany, after all a four-time world champion like Italy, is coming to his hometown. When asked which footballer he actually likes, he says that he doesn’t know anyone.
The stature of Richard Joshua Reynolds in Winston-Salem
Brian DeAngelis and Miles’ parents are very understanding of the fact that German television sometimes stops by the ballpark to find out a little about Winston-Salem, a city with around 250,000 inhabitants in North Carolina. You can find out about this on Wikipedia, and you can also read there that Richard Joshua Reynolds founded a tobacco company in Winstom-Salem in 1875. The place is also called “Camel City” because it is the most famous brand that one of the most famous people to ever live in Winston-Salem brought onto the market.
A museum in his honor was created in the Reynolds House. There is a Reynolda Church, a Reynolda Village, a Reynolds Statue, a Reynolda Road, a Reynolds Park and also a Reynolds Park Road. The first headquarters of the tobacco company looks like the Empire State Building, and anyone who believes in coincidence will be proven wrong by the locals. The Reynolds home, now a hotel, was built by the same architect and served as the blueprint for the Empire State Building in New York.
The German flag flies on a high-rise building in Winston-Salem
Winston-Salem: Home of NBA stars Tim Duncan and Chris Paul
Another famous person who lived in Winston-Salem is Tim Duncan. The basketball star won five championships with the San Antonio Spurs. He previously studied at Wake Forest University, just like the also famous basketball player Chris Paul, who was even born in Winston-Salem.
On the cracked campus of Wake Forest University there are three very well-maintained grass fields on which the soccer team from Germany will train in the coming days.
The university takes its name from its original location in northern North Carolina. She moved to Winston-Salem in 1956 at the instigation of RJ Reynolds’ descendants.
Almost nowhere in Winston-Salem are there any signs of an upcoming World Cup that will be bigger than any that have come before. Traces of the Reynolds family can be found everywhere. However, the name of the local baseball club is unlikely to have been influenced by it. Dash is the English term for the hyphen between Winston and Salem, and the hyphen appears on caps that retail for $27.99 in the online store.
When the Greensboro Grasshoppers and perhaps the German national team come to the ballpark on Route 421 on June 16th, there will be a special offer: hot dogs for a dollar, “all game long”.