Rain washes out R'Dogs, not pregame festivities

It was a great night for a towel giveaway and celebrity sightings, but an unfortunate night for baseball.

The game between the Charleston RiverDogs and Savannah Sand Gnats was postponed by rain on Saturday, but the standing-room only crowd at Riley Park got plenty of pregame enjoyment from Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert, who threw a pint of ice cream as part of the ceremonial first pitches.

The game will be made up today starting at 1:05 p.m. as the first part of a doubleheader and will pick up with Savannah leading 1-0 in the top of the first inning.

Joe Holden led off the game with a walk, stole two bases and scored on Brahiam Maldonado's one-out infield single.

Colbert, a native of James Island, was in town with Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream co-founder Jerry Greenfield to promote their new flavor — Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream. Proceeds from the sale of the flavor will go to the charity of the same name.

"Our first donation will be to help the families of the firefighters," he said.

Instead of a baseball, Colbert tossed a pint of his ice cream to the plate, where Greenfield scooped up the throw. He said he practiced that morning with a pint containing dirt.

"This morning, my son and I marked it off on the street, and I had the kids eat a pint for breakfast. We filled the empty pint with dirt and I thought that feels all right," he said. "In practice, I threw three or four right to the letters and thought I don't need to try anymore. I got out here and I lobbed it. I actually tried to throw a straight pitch, but I didn't have the distance. It was actually a little heavier than I thought."

Colbert was the centerpiece to several promotions at Riley Park. In front of the park was vehicle Bone Crusher to promote the new Transformers movie. The first 1,000 fans through the gate also received Transformers beach towels.

In conjunction with the Barrett-Fletcher baseball tournament going on in the Lowcountry, a 10-minute parade of all the participating teams occurred before the opening pitches.

And, South Atlantic League president John Henry Moss visited Riley Park and threw out one of the first pitches.

The starting pitchers for today's doubleheader will be RiverDogs Gabe Medina and Grant Duff againsts Savannah's Jonathan Castillo and Jeremy Mizell.

Reach Bill Henley at 937-5595 or at bhenley@postandcourier.com.