As West Virginia bashed four home runs this weekend in their sweep of TCU, there was a new way the Mountaineers celebrated. That way was with a string of pretzels dubbed the pretzel chain.
On Friday night, West Virginia baseball returned home for the first time in two weeks. Waiting for them was a necklace made of pretzels. That necklace would quickly be put around Landon Wallace’s neck in the first inning, as he hit a two-run blast to left field and it would continue all weekend as the Mountaineers scored 29 runs over the next three days.
“I’m surprised it survived the two weeks we were gone,” Wallace said after the Mountaineers’ 5-4 win Friday. “The necklace was made from just our pretzels in the clubhouse. One of our pitchers made it probably.”
The origin of the pretzel chain would be a secret no more. Freshman Sam White — who also hit a homer run on Friday — let it be known it was Friday night starter Ben Hampton who made the pretzel chain.
“It was a Sunday game against Kansas, and I got bored for a little bit,” Hampton said. “I did it when I was younger — I’d stick the pretzels together and make a little kind of like chain, but never a full chain to connect it all together.”
When Hampton finished the chain, he said a teammate thought to make it West Virginia’s new home run chain.
Sometimes pitcher’s get the reputation for doing funky things or as White called it, “a pitcher-only thing,” and Hampton lived up the reputation.
Hampton agreed saying he has a lot of time to kill when he only pitches once a week and lets his creativity show.
“As a starter, I pitch one game a week and I got to find something else to do for three other ones,” Hampton said. “I enjoy watching the games and stuff but sometimes you find stuff to do on the bench with your teammates.”
The chain was made by breaking a piece off of a pretzel, then licking it, and putting it back together. Dozens of pretzels later and you have the pretzel chain.
“You break just a little corner piece off then you lick all four of the edges and then you stick it together and hold it for about 30 seconds and it will stick pretty good,” Hampton said.
On Saturday, Hampton was called on in relief — not on the mound, but the chain needed help. Hampton said he had to fix a couple of the pieces that had broken but said he can keep fixing them if they only break off one at a time.
“If one breaks at a time I can kind of just keep fixing it up unless it’s a Friday night. But if it starts breaking over and over then we might have to figure something else out,” Hampton added.”
There are two main rules for the chain — don’t eat it and be gentle with it.
“You got to be as gentle as possible,” White said of the chain. Closer Carlson Reed who pitched the final 2.2 innings on Friday following Hampton’s start said he was tempted to eat the chain.
“Honestly, I don’t know much about it. But I definitely almost ate some of it,” Reed said. “I think it’s pretty cool bringing the team together.”
The pretzel chain is just one of the many things that makes this West Virginia team click. The Mountaineers checked in Monday morning at No. 18 in the country by D1Baseball. They also are in first place in the Big 12 standings and the chances of them hosting a regional are continually increasing with every win.
“Just being loose I think that’s what makes our team so good,” Hampton said. “We never get any sort of panic going on in the dugout or the locker room. We’re always pretty loose and just keeping each other laughing.”
With the pretzel chain on the field, came quite an atmosphere off of it. Monongalia County Ballpark welcomed 9,152 fans over the three-game series against the Horned Frogs. That was the highest series attendance in program history.
Fans stacked cups to create a beer snake, cheered on the Mountaineers, and most importantly to head coach Randy Mazey — everyone had fun.
“The games they want to play in the dugout, if they have fun playing the game, I’m all about it,” Mazey said. “And if fans, they want to stack cups up there like they did yesterday, I’m all about it.”
Mazey and the Mountaineers might have found a little bit of good fortune since the chain was made two weeks ago. West Virginia has won seven of their last nine games and have taken series from a ranked Oklahoma State team on the road and TCU at home since then.
Photo from @WVUBaseball on Twitter
