PORT GIBSON — The baseball field behind Watson Elementary School in Port Gibson is a direct reflection of the team practicing on it.

The dugouts are hollowed out slabs. Weeds and even a small sapling grow where benches once stood. There are no fences; one fly ball sails into the parking lot, among yellow school buses. Beyond the boundary of right field, there’s a massive pile of debris. Hopefully, it will be out of sight and mind, like the past failures of Port Gibson’s baseball team.

The whole thing, like the 2008 Blue Waves, is a reclamation project. A few months ago the whole field was overgrown with weeds and trees. It was forgotten and neglected. Only a sharp-eyed coach could see the potential. Now, a new batting cage is tucked away in one corner. Grass still grows in the basepaths, but the outline of an infield is clearly there. In time, it’s hoped everything will round into shape both on the field and as a team.

“I’m 27 now. I’ve been playing baseball for 23 years,” said first-year head coach Dan Smith. “I know the full blueprint to get to where we need to go. But anything worth having, you need to work for.”

Port Gibson hasn’t mattered in a long time when it comes to baseball. It made the playoffs in 2002 — when current assistant coach Ocie Brown Jr. was a senior, and Tampa Bay Rays prospect J.T. Hall was his teammate — but fell off sharply after that. The program bottomed out with a winless season in 2007.

Enter Smith.

The 27-year-old was a pitcher for Alcorn State, played semi-pro ball in Pennsylvania, and spent a year as a graduate assistant at Alcorn.

He has no illusions about the difficulty of rebuilding Port Gibson’s program. There is no organized summer team — something Smith says is a top priority to field a competitive team — and with only a handful of experienced players on this year’s roster, he’ll rely heavily on young players. Smith plans to start a seventh, eighth and 10th grader in today’s season-opener at Natchez.

Yet unlike a lot of coaches who may have seen a baseball wasteland, Smith saw potential. He points to the dozen or so football players from Port Gibson who have gone on to play at junior colleges or four-year schools in the last decade. He sees a good basketball and track program, and sees a strong pool of athletes. The biggest challenge is getting them to give baseball a shot.

“There’s a lot of great athletes in Claiborne County,” he said. “You just have to get that baseball knowledge in them.”

Brown, who played football at Alcorn before returning to Port Gibson this season, agreed.

“It’s not a lack of talent. It’s just some kids not wanting to do it,” Brown said. “We’re trying to teach them about baseball and life, and they look up to us. They look at us like big brothers. If we can keep on being positive, we can turn it around.”

That turnaround started with the practice field.

Shortly after taking over the program, Smith realized he needed a place to practice. The team’s home field at the Claiborne County Fairgrounds is being rebuilt after a fire destroyed it last year. The Waves will play the early part of their home schedule at Alcorn State in nearby Lorman. Smith hopes the field at the Farigrounds will be ready by the end of the season.

On a trip back to Watson Elementary, Smith spied a chain-link fence through a tangle of weeds and brush. Some quick investigation told him there once was a field beneath all of it. A maintenance crew from the Port Gibson School District cleared the land. The crew later built a new batting cage for the team along the right field line, and a usable practice field was born.

“I looked and saw that home plate was still there. I just measured all the dimensions and with the help of the maintenance crew we were able to build a field,” Smith said. “I’ve been getting a lot of support from the community and the school system. That’s what it’s going to take to build a program.”

A team that understands the situation doesn’t hurt, either.

Senior catcher Nicholas Hutchinson was part of last year’s winless team. While acknowledging a state championship isn’t on the agenda this season, he said there’s already been a lot of improvement on the field and in the team’s attitude. He also said he accepts the upperclassmen’s role as team leaders. While he likely won’t be around to see the team’s future success, he can take pride in laying the foundation for it.

“If we start off now looking at the younger players, we’ll have a good program down the line,” Hutchinson said. “It all starts now with our leadership.”