Checkmate in the Clubhouse By John Kocsis Jr.
The players in their late teens and early 20s in the Columbia Fireflies clubhouse spend most of their days and nights occupied with what’s happening on the baseball diamond. Sure, they have the game itself, which is typically a 2.5-hour affair at Segra Park or another Carolina League yard. The players are also taking batting practice each day, stretching and lifting, attending
meetings scouting the opposing team and some are taking early work to learn to field the ball better and to play different positions. Whether it is at the plate, on the mound or with a mitt on, most of the day is spent perfecting different parts of the game that each person is playing. Simply put, the 30 men on the roster are constantly churning away about baseball, trying to figure out how to climb the ladder to the show. Certainly, they have to take some time to themselves to focus on something other than baseball. Some escape through music, others through food and more through video games or conversing with friends or life partners. There’s one activity that has taken the team by storm in recent weeks though. This one, rather than involving one diamond, has 64 squares involved. Sure, it’s more complicated than that. See, there’s a king and a queen and they have a pair of knights and bishops that help protect them. On top of that, there are some rooks and eight pawns. Yes, there is a chess club making its way through the Columbia Fireflies clubhouse. Chess has been increasing in popularity the last few years. A 2020 Bloomberg article by Rachael Dottle titled ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Chess Boom Moves Online detailed that Chess.com has added millions of accounts since the release of the popular Netlflix series. What’s more is that toy manufacturer Goliath Games noted that sales of chess sets are up over 1100% since the show came out two years ago. The group in the clubhouse hasn’t been strongly swayed by The Queen’s Gambit though. You have some players, glancing at the board for the first time, like Isaiah Henry, then others who have been playing for most of their lives. “I think I started to pick it up back in elementary school. If I had some free time, I would play on the computer,” Catcher Carter Jensen remembers. “I never played super seriously, but every once in a while if there were no sports to play or if I was bored, I’d hop online and play against the computer.”
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