SPHS_BaseballProgram_2025.indd

Ladies and gentlemen, family, friends, teammates and members of the South Paulding community, welcome to Spartan Stadium. Tonight we gather not just as fans of the game, but as family. One bound together by the love of baseball, the bonds of friendship and the shared memories of a young man who left us far too soon. Our field is quiet now. The sun hangs low, burning red and the wind moves slow across the outfield grass. It is a good night for baseball. A good night to remember a man who played it well. Gaige King was a ballplayer, a South Paulding Spartan. He was strong on the mound and sure in the field. He worked hard, threw gas and never backed down from a challenge. He played because he loved it, and he loved it because it was good and right to love something that asks for everything you have. There are men who go through life careful and slow. Gaige was not one of them. He gave himself to the game, to his team, to his friends and to his family. He played with grit and laughed with ease. He was the kind of man you wanted in the dugout when the game was on the line. Now he’s gone, and the world feels smaller. But men like Gaige do not just vanish. They live in the crack of the bat, in the slap of the ball against a worn leather glove. They live in the cheers of their teammates and the dust kicked up from a hard slide. They live in the stories told under the lights, after the game when the night is quiet and cool. Tonight your Spartans play for Gaige. They play for the love of the game because that’s how he played and they will carry him with them, always. Rest well, Gaige.

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