On a night with food, fun and fellowship, baseball was all the rage at Rock Barn Golf & Spa.

The Hickory Crawdads held their annual Hot Stove Banquet Monday night at the course. Area coaches from high school and college spoke about their teams’ upcoming seasons, and a coach from the Hickory Crawdads did as well. But the night was all about former major leaguer Ron Swoboda.

Swoboda, who is currently the color commentator for the New Orleans Zephyrs — a teamed owned by Hickory’s Don Beaver, who’s part owner of the Crawdads — spoke about his time as a player with the New York Mets in the 1960s.

Swoboda got his start in the big leagues with the Mets in 1965, and was a part of the Mets’ 1969 World Series team — better known as the “Miracle Mets.” He told of his first big-league at-bat, when manager Casey Stengel needed a pinch-hitter to face feared right-hander Don Drysdale of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Swoboda said he leaned back on the bench, hoping Stengel wouldn’t see him, but he did. “Grab a bat,” Swoboda recalled Stengel saying. Swoboda said he hoped the crowd didn’t see him shaking as he walked to the plate. He recalled Drysdale’s first pitch — a fastball — was thrown so hard he didn’t see it, and so was the second pitch. Down 0-2 to Drysdale, Swoboda recalled, he got a pitch to hit on the third pitch of the at-bat, and he lined out to second. “I made contact against Don Drysdale,” Swoboda humored.

The funniest story Swoboda told was about his near grand slam in old Crosley Field, the former field of the Cincinnati Reds. He said he hit a high fly ball that bounced off the wall, and he was given a single and an RBI. He said then coach Yogi Berra was ejected for arguing the call, but no one knew what it was he was arguing about. At the field, a yellow line on the wall signaled a home run. After the game, reporters had surrounded Berra and asked him about what he said to get ejected. As Swoboda recalled, “He said, ‘I told them that if they couldn’t hear the ball bounce off the wall, they were blind.’” The crowd busted into laughter, as Swoboda had to try hard to keep himself composed as well.

Swoboda, who wasn’t very good defensively, is probably best known for his catch he made to rob Baltimore Orioles third baseman Brooks Robinson of a hit in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 1969 World Series. The Mets, who had lost 100-plus games in six of the previous seven seasons, won the series in five games.

In addition to keynote speaker Swoboda, Hickory High head baseball coach David Craft spoke on the upcoming CVAC season, new Lenoir-Rhyne head coach Paul Knight spoke about the Bears, Chris Pollard, Appalachian State head coach, spoke on the Mountaineers, and Jeff Johnson, Crawdads pitching coach, spoke on Hickory’s season.

Craft announced that this year’s Catawba Valley Athletic Conference tournament will be held at L.P. Frans Stadium in Hickory, home of the Crawdads. He welcomed the conference’s newest member Patton, who has six players on its roster who competed in the Little League World Series a few years back.

Knight takes over a L-R for Frank Pait, who retired after last season. The Bears have just installed a brand new, state-of-the-art lighting system made possible by the gift given to the school as part of the Moretz Sports Complex. Knight comes from Florida Tech, where he posted 139-128 record. The Bears are at home the next three weekends.

Pollard took time to allow his baseball program to shine in the national spotlight the Mountaineers’ football program has brought the the school. He spoke on momentum, not just for his team but for the university as a whole. Pollard led the Mountaineers to 33 wins last season — the most in 20 years — and also tied a school record for Southern Conference wins with 14. The team returns its first Division I All-American candidate, and seven of eight starting position players are returning. The team opens the season against N.C. State for a three-game series on Feb. 22.

Johnson is in his first year with the Crawdads. He last pitched for the New York Yankees in the early 1990s. He said the pitching “was not so good” for the Crawdads last year, and hopes the team can improve on that. “They will compete,” he said. “They’ll give you everything they’ve got.”

The team opens the season at home against the West Virginia Power on April 3 at 6:30 p.m.