By Nicholas Jason Lopez
Cursive orange letters bear “HOME OF THE Red Devils” upon a blue banner.
Independent Country singer-songwriter Cort Carpenter, 32, gazes through a black chain-link fence behind home plate.
The distance between him and that banner – an empty baseball field.
Carpenter, clad in a sky blue henley t-shirt and a black snapback baseball cap, holds a black bat diagonally across his chest. It’s evident he only spectates, but spiky cleats, gritty dirt and white chalk lines were once his life.
He had an opportunity to work at some professional baseball camps after college nine years ago but a car accident changed his life direction. Nowadays, a tireless stream of self-promoted Snaps, Tweets and Facebook updates have nestled Carpenter comfortably upon Nashville’s cutthroat music scene.
“I’ve been doing this for seven and a half years and they say Nashville’s a 10-year town before stuff really happens,” said Carpenter. “I think I’m ahead of the curve and not giving up, so that time will come.”
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