The year 2020 is like no other.

The Lexington County Blowfish are working to bring some normalcy back by playing baseball in a safe environment for our players, staff and fans.

Although the 2020 Coastal Plain League regular season schedule was delayed until July 1 and adjusted because of governmental covid-19 restrictions, the Blowfish, Macon Bacon and Savannah Bananas are able to move forward with a 40-plus game schedule.

Macon and Savannah, both in Georgia where crowd size restrictions have been relaxed provided facilities take the appropriate steps for social distancing and sanitation, has been approved by local officials to play.

The Blowfish, based in Lexington County, South Carolina are also working within the safety guidelines and social distancing measures established in their community allowing them to play games this summer with limited capacity. All three teams are testing players for Covid-19 upon arrival and instituting temperature screenings throughout the summer following league and governmental guidelines for the safety of players/coaches, staff and fans.

The CPL, in conjunction with the Blowfish, Bacon and Bananas have developed the Southern Summer-Ball Series between the 3 teams to compete this summer with 1st half/2nd half winners who will compete for the championship on Aug. 16.

Lake Murray Cup Series

In addition, The Blowfish have also created another unique way to fill out the summer schedule this season.

The Blowfish have joined forces with former Blowfish head coach Jonathan Johnson.

Jonathan is now the head baseball coach for the new Columbia International University Baseball team and is running a summer collegiate baseball developmental camp. These players will form the Lake Murray Purple Martins and Bomb Island Bombers’ rosters.

Bomb Island on Lake Murray is the largest purple martin sanctuary in North America. Some 800,000 to one million dozen graceful little swallows fly up to 160 miles every evening to roost in the trees on this uninhabited spit of land, once used as target practice by B-25 Bombers preparing to attack Tokyo during World War II.

From the 1st week of July through the end of August, the purple martins show up every afternoon at sundown on Lake Murray.

The co-owner of the Blowfish, Bill Shanahan, created the Columbia Bombers back in the early 1990s. Friend, TV & movie actor Mark Harmon (Mark was an owner in a minor league team that Bill managed in California in the late 80s) and Bill started an annual charity celebrity baseball game and in 1992 Bill named the team “Mark Harmon’s Bombers” for their 1st charity celebrity baseball game in Columbia which was the 50th anniversary honoring Colonel Jimmy Doolittle’s Raiders Army Air Corp 50th anniversary who trained here.

He then re-branded the Mets Single A franchise at Capital City Stadium the following season to be known as the Capital City Bombers. So the Bombers will once again take to the sky (field) and bring back wonderful memories of a time past.

To purchase “Lake Murray Cup Series” hats and for more information on the 2020 season, visit www.blowfishbaseball.com .