The Ballpark's Lit Again. And the Best Stuff Is Free.

Good Thursday morning from The Seawall.

Last week the ballpark went dark and the Coast filled the hole four times over. This week the lights are back on, and nobody had to.

The Shuckers are home Friday, Saturday and Sunday against Knoxville — the back half of a twelve-games-in-thirteen-days homestand that runs clear through Labor Day. Friday is First Responders Night. Saturday is Marvel Night, and the first thousand people through the gate get a Spider-Man Funko Pop. Sunday is just baseball, which is enough.

But the actual story this weekend is what it costs. There's a free concert on the riverfront in Moss Point, a free Friday night at the children's museum in Gulfport, a free band on the lawn at Fort Maurepas, and a free three-mile walk out of a coffee shop in the Bay at seven in the morning. Four of the best things on the board this weekend are free.

The ticketed stuff is good too — Lauren Alaina at the Beau Rivage, Zebra at Hard Rock Live, Grayson Capps in the blues room, and a convention center full of people in costume, which we will get to.

One thing before you plan: there is no dry day this weekend. Every one of the three carries a real chance of a storm, and Sunday is the wettest of them. Nothing washes out — this is late August, and it comes in the afternoon and leaves. But mornings are your friend, and there's a rain plan below.

Plus a Pass Christian house sitting under a hundred years of oak, and a one-year-old dog in rainbow bunny ears.

Before the guide, one thing about Saturday.

Saturday is August 29. Twenty-one years.

We went looking for something to send you to — a service, a wreath, a bell at 8:29 — and there doesn't appear to be anything on the calendar this year. That's ordinary for an off-year, and it isn't the same as forgetting.

If you want to stand somewhere, three places are open and none of them need an event.

The memorial wall on the Biloxi Town Green is there whenever you are — twelve feet of black granite with the names on it, a mosaic wave for the surge, and the wall's height set to how deep the water ran in that part of Biloxi. The high-water mark is still there too.

The glass memorial — the one that used to stand on the Green — was rebuilt in a new case in 2025 and now sits in the west foyer of the Biloxi Visitors Center, 1050 Beach Blvd. Open daily 8 to 5, free. Outside, on the flagpole, they've marked where the water reached in 1969 and again in 2005, one above the other, which will tell you more in four seconds than most of what gets written about either storm. A Katrina documentary runs upstairs daily at 10 and 2.

Twenty-one years is long enough that a good number of people on this coast have no memory of it at all, and short enough that plenty of others don't need a calendar to remember what they were doing. Both of those are worth a minute on Saturday.

Friday: Partly sunny, high near 87. 50% chance of showers and thunderstorms. Northeast wind around 5. Low around 74.

Saturday: Mostly sunny, high near 87. 40% chance of an afternoon storm. East wind 5 to 10. Low around 76.

Sunday: Mostly sunny, high near 87 — but showers and thunderstorms are likely, 60%. Southeast wind 5 to 10. Low around 76.

There's no clean day in there. Saturday is the best of the three and Sunday is the one to hedge on — that's the reverse of how this week started, so if you made a plan Monday, look again. Rain totals are small, under a tenth of an inch, which is the signature of a pop-up storm rather than a washout: it arrives in the afternoon, it's loud, and it's gone.

Heat index runs 98 to 101 — hot, not dangerous. No advisories are in effect for the weekend and none are forecast.

In the tropics: nothing in the Gulf, nothing in the Caribbean, and no named storm anywhere in the Atlantic. The Hurricane Center is watching one disturbance out near the Cabo Verde Islands that may briefly organize today, but conditions turn hostile on Friday and it's expected to fall apart. Nothing to plan around.

Bottom line: do the outdoor things in the morning or right at sunset, keep an eye on the radar Sunday afternoon, and don't cancel anything.

⚾ Shuckers vs. Knoxville Smokies · Keesler Federal Park, 105 Caillavet St, Biloxi
Fri 6:35 (gates 5:30) · Sat 6:05 (gates 5:00) · Sun 5:05 (gates 4:00)

Three straight at home to close out the month. Friday is First Responders Night. Saturday is Marvel Night — the first 1,000 fans through the gate get a Spider-Man Funko Pop, so if that matters in your house, get there when the gates open and not at first pitch. Sunday's just a ballgame, and Sunday's also the earliest first pitch and the wettest forecast, so that's the one to check before you drive over. Box office 228-233-3465.

🤠 Dolly Day · Neighbors Tap & Table, 1307 25th Ave, Gulfport · Sat Aug 29

Dolly Parton died Tuesday at 80, and Gulfport is doing what Gulfport does. A sing-along, a drag show, and an open invitation to show up in a wig. Wear something she'd have approved of, which is to say too much.

🎌 Anime Town Biloxi 2026 · MS Coast Convention Center, 2350 Beach Blvd, Biloxi · Fri 3–8, Sat 10–7, Sun 11–4

Year two. Voice actors, cosplay contests, gaming, artists, vendors. Single days run $22.45 Friday, $33.18 Saturday, $22.45 Sunday; three-day is $54.63; kids 4–11 are $6 and under 3 are free. There's a Sunday Family Pass at $27.88 covering two adults and four kids, which is the best per-head number on this entire weekend — and Sunday is the wet day, and this is indoors. That's the whole argument.

🎨 Free Friday Night at Lynn Meadows · 246 Dolan Ave, Gulfport · Fri 5–8 PM · free

Last Friday of the month, the children's museum drops admission entirely. No catch, no ticket. Free, indoors, three hours long — the best Friday-night idea on the Coast if you've got kids, rain or not.

⛴ Ship Island · Gulfport Small Craft Harbor at Jones Park · from $45 adult

Fall schedule now. Friday: out at 9, back at 2:30. Saturday and Sunday: out at 9 and noon, back at 2:30 and 5. Weekends sell out — buy ahead, get there thirty minutes early, parking's free. Take the morning boat if you're going; there's nowhere to hide out there when an afternoon cell builds.

🥬 The Pass Market · War Memorial Park, 103 Fleitas Ave, Pass Christian · Sat 9 AM–1 PM

📚 Main Street Book Club · Eataliano on Howard, 1036 Howard Ave, Biloxi · Fri 5:30 PM · free

This month it's Buckeye by Patrick Ryan.

👟 Miles That Matter · Mockingbird Café, 110 S Second St, Bay St. Louis · Sat 7 AM · free

Untimed, about three miles, walk it or run it or roll it. This month they're collecting new twin-size bedding for Sleep in Heavenly Peace. Coffee at the start line, which is the correct way to organize a morning — and seven AM is the only civilized hour to be outside in late August anyway.

Worth knowing where you're standing: the Mockingbird is the Coast's Dolly Parton house. Every winter it throws Dolly Should, with a look-alike contest, a 9-to-5K and a children's book drive that has put thousands of books in kids' hands in her name. If you want to leave something behind on Saturday, that's the place.

🥕 Hancock County Farmers Market · 3068 Longfellow Rd, Bay St. Louis · Sat 8 AM–noon, or until the vendors sell out

🎸 Silver Slipper · 5000 S Beach Blvd, Bay St. Louis · free

Revamped Band Friday, Tease Me Band Saturday, both 7–11 in the Stage Bar.

🚀 INFINITY Science Center · 1 Discovery Circle, Pearlington

Indoors, which matters this weekend. We could not get their current fall hours from any source we trust — call 228-533-9025 before you drive out.

100 Men Hall is dark this weekend. Booker Fest lands there next weekend — see Coming Up.

⭐ Levitt AMP Moss Point: A.J. Haynes · Riverfront Park, 5200 Main St, Moss Point · Sat 5–9 PM · free, all ages

Week two of seven free Saturday concerts on the Escatawpa, and the reason the series exists is worth knowing. Moss Point just unveiled the River City Guitar, a riverfront sculpture designed by the Walter Anderson Museum with Plowshare Creative, built to tie together the town's blues, its timber history and its river. The concerts exist to put people around it. Bring a chair. Saturday's the driest of the three days and this runs until nine.

🎪 Fridays at the Fort: The Chuck Lofton Band · Fort Maurepas Park, 100 Front Beach Dr, Ocean Springs · Fri 6–9 PM · free

Food trucks and a band on the lawn with the Sound behind it. Only five of these happen a year and this is the fourth. Fifty-fifty on rain — check the radar before you load the chairs, but a six-o'clock start usually gets in ahead of it.

🥬 Ocean Springs Fresh Market · 1000 Washington Ave · Sat 9 AM–1 PM

🐕 George Rodrigue — "The Bayou Collection" · Walter Anderson Museum of Art, 510 Washington Ave, Ocean Springs · Mon–Sat 11–5, Sun 1–5 · $10 adult, $5 student, free under 5

Third full weekend of the Blue Dog show, and it runs through January 9. Active and retired military families get in free through Labor Day.

🧘 Mantra Music — Yoga + Live Music · 3670 Groveland Rd Ste A, Ocean Springs · Sat 6–7:30 PM · $35

For whichever afternoon it catches you — and Sunday is the likeliest. All indoors.

Lauren Alaina — "Stages Tour" · Beau Rivage Theatre, 875 Beach Blvd, Biloxi · Sat Aug 29, 8 PM

The biggest ticket on the Coast this weekend. Buy from beaurivage.com or the box office — the prices floating around on the ticket-guide sites are resale, not face value.

Zebra · Hard Rock Live, 777 Beach Blvd, Biloxi · Fri Aug 28, 8 PM · $36–$71

Forty-plus years on, the New Orleans power trio still plays this coast like a home room.

Grayson Capps Band · Ground Zero Blues Club, 814 Howard Ave, Biloxi · Sat Aug 29, 7 PM (doors 5)

Alabama songwriter, gravel and swamp, the kind of writing that rewards standing still for ninety minutes.

The Keeshea Pratt Band · Ground Zero · Fri Aug 28, 7 PM

Blues Music Award-winning Houston band. Big horn section, bigger singer.

Holley Rumbarger · Murky Waters, 1320 27th Ave, Gulfport · Fri Aug 28, 6:30–9:30 PM

Barbecue, and somebody good playing while you eat it.

A word about that: Ground Zero shows up in this section every week because it is one of the only rooms on this coast that publishes a calendar more than a few days out. It isn't a sponsor and we don't get anything for it — it's just the venue we can actually verify. If you book bands anywhere between Waveland and Pascagoula, send us your dates and we'll run them. [email protected], Tuesday noon.

Silver Slipper, Bay St. Louis (Stage Bar) — Revamped Band Friday, Tease Me Band Saturday, 7–11.

Island View, Gulfport (Sunset Bar) — Mishee, Friday and Saturday, 7–10.

Beach View, Gulfport (Stage Bar) — New Direction, Friday and Saturday, 8–11.

Boomtown, Biloxi (Main Stage) — STARZ, Friday and Saturday, 7–11.

Hard Rock, Biloxi (Center Bar) — DJ Doc Roc Friday 9 PM, Klass Kings Saturday 9 PM. Karaoke with MC Angie in Roadhouse 777 Saturday, 9 to 1, no cover. Pool party Sunday.

Palace, Biloxi (casino floor) — DJ Hurricane, Friday and Saturday, 8–11.

The Saenger. The Coliseum arena. The Sound. IP Studio A. Treasure Bay. 100 Men Hall. Beau Rivage Theatre is Saturday only.

And a note on Sunday: every free casino stage on this coast runs Friday and Saturday. Sunday night it's the Ground Zero brunch and the ballgame, and that's about it — which, given Sunday's forecast, may be the point.

A.J. Haynes at Levitt AMP, Moss Point, Saturday 5 to 9, free.

The easy pick is Lauren Alaina and the connoisseur's pick is Grayson Capps, and both are defensible. But a free four-hour concert on a riverfront in Jackson County, built deliberately around a new piece of public art, in a town that does not get written about enough — that's the one we'd drive to. It also lands on the driest of the three days. Bring a chair, get there before the sun drops behind the timber line, and go look at the guitar.

Dolly Parton died Tuesday, at 80. Flags are at half-staff through the weekend.

She was not from here, but this coast claimed her anyway, and the claiming ran both directions — through the books. Every winter the Mockingbird Café in Bay St. Louis throws Dolly Should, a look-alike contest and a 9-to-5K wrapped around a children's book drive that has put thousands of books into kids' hands in her name. That's the thing about Dolly on the Gulf Coast: the tribute was always a book drive.

Two places to go this weekend. Dolly Day at Neighbors Tap & Table, 1307 25th Ave in Gulfport, Saturday — sing-along, drag show, wigs encouraged. And the Mockingbird, Saturday morning, where the run starts and where somebody will almost certainly take a book off your hands.

EIGHT75 is back at the Beau. The lounge reopened August 15 after four months and a multimillion-dollar renovation — 3,000 square feet, a 41-foot marble bar, a stage, and live entertainment seven nights a week. The design brief was "Southern parlor," which on this coast is either exactly right or a real risk. Open Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

A coffee shop closed, and then it didn't. A Latte Friends in D'Iberville shut its doors this month. The nonprofit behind it, A Latte Opportunities, employs adults with disabilities — and rather than fold, they're launching Sunshine Sips, a mobile coffee cart opening at the Mississippi Antique Galleria in mid-September with ten interns working it. Their executive director on the last day: "There were lots and lots of tears, especially that last day, and that last day was probably one of our busiest days." One of their interns, on what happens next: "It was really hard for that to close, but we're getting back on our feet."

Gautier broke ground on Lark Park. $1.5 million in state money — basketball, tennis, pickleball, a playground and a splash pad, opening January 2027.

Downtown Biloxi is running a tailgate. Twenty-eight downtown businesses are going in together on a football-season tailgate. Details are still coming together; if you're downtown on a Saturday this fall you'll find it.

Coming to the Coast: The Book Porter and Ashiro — an independent bookstore and a farm-to-table restaurant, both landing this fall at The Collective, 401 Porter Ave, Ocean Springs. And Claw Daddy's at the Bayou, which bought the old Blow Fly Inn on Bayou Bernard in June and said a soft opening was coming. It hasn't been announced yet. We'll tell you the day it is.

And a fix from our own pages: we've had Anthony's Ristorante in Bay St. Louis filed under "coming soon." It isn't coming. It's been open on Court Street since last September. Go eat.

Freddie Mac PMMS, week ending Aug 20: 30-year fixed 6.65% · 15-year fixed 5.95%

Three weeks of easing now — 6.69, 6.67, 6.65. Which is to say rates are doing what they've done all summer: drifting in the mid-sixes with no clean trend and no drama. Sam Khater at Freddie Mac made the only point worth making about a move that small — borrowers can save thousands by shopping around, because right now the spread between lenders is wider than the spread between weeks.

The thing actually moving on this coast isn't the rate. It's inventory. There are more homes on the market across all three counties than there were in the spring, and price cuts are showing up everywhere — including on this week's House of the Week, which came down $26,000 last week. Buyers have more leverage than they've had in three years and most of them don't know it yet.

🏠 If you're thinking about selling. The number in your head for your house is probably from 2022. Let me build you a home value report on your actual address — not an automated guess off a website, but a real comparative market analysis out of the MLS: what's active near you, what's pending, and what has actually closed in the last five months, which is the only window that tells you anything. Free, no obligation, and you don't have to be selling this year to want to know the number.

🔑 If you're thinking about buying. I can represent you on any home on this coast, including this week's House of the Week, which is not my listing. I'll set up the showings, tell you what I actually think while we're standing in the kitchen, and write the offer when it's the right one. And before we go looking, we run your numbers — I'm a Ramsey-trained financial coach and I've led Financial Peace University classes at my church in Ocean Springs, so I'd rather tell you honestly what you can carry than help you buy a payment that eats you alive for thirty years.

Either way you're talking to me, not a call center. Reply to this email or call or text 228-325-1502.

— Rob

Robert Recio · Licensed Real Estate Salesperson, MS #S-62221 · REAL Broker, LLC · Serving Hancock, Harrison & Jackson counties. House of the Week is a market feature, not our own listing unless noted. Equal Housing Opportunity.

It means your lender probably won't force you to buy it. That's not the same question.

Zone X is FEMA's designation for land outside the high-risk flood area. If a property sits in Zone X, a federally backed lender generally won't require a flood policy as a condition of the loan. On this coast, where a required policy on a beachfront house can run into real money, that's worth something — and it's why you see "Zone X" in listing remarks in bold type.

Here's the part nobody puts in the remarks. Roughly a quarter of all flood claims nationally come from outside the high-risk zones. Zone X isn't "won't flood." It's "FEMA modeled this parcel and put it below the one-percent-annual line" — and FEMA's maps on this coast are old enough in places that they predate developments which changed how water moves through a neighborhood. Water does not read maps.

The practical version: because the policy is optional in Zone X, it's also cheap. A preferred-risk policy on a Zone X house is often a few hundred dollars a year, not a few thousand. So the honest advice is the boring one. Buy it anyway. Get the quote before you're under contract, not after, and get the elevation certificate while you're at it.

And whatever a listing says about the flood zone, verify it yourself. Listing remarks are written by people, and people get this wrong constantly. FEMA's Map Service Center is free and public, and your insurance agent will pull it for you in about four minutes.

11 Japonica Drive, Pass Christian

You come off the road onto a circular drive, and the first thing that happens is the light changes. There are live oaks over this house that were doing this job before anybody currently living in Pass Christian was born, and they've turned an ordinary approach into something closer to a tunnel. Then the drive opens onto a brick courtyard with a fountain in it, and a front porch running the width of a Southern house that knows exactly what it is.

Inside is 3,479 square feet across three bedrooms — a primary suite with a renovated spa bath, two more bedrooms sharing a jack-and-jill, and a kitchen built for somebody who actually cooks. The cladding, the roof and the HVAC are all new, which on a Coast house is the difference between a project and a purchase. Out back there's a 658-square-foot guest cottage with its own bath, which quietly solves a mother-in-law problem, a work-from-home problem, or a short-term-rental question depending on which one you have.

It's in Oak Hurst, it's a short walk to the beach, and there's no HOA. Worth knowing: there's no garage, and the 2025 tax bill was $7,603.

The numbers: $899,000 · 3 bed / 2.5 bath · 3,479 sq ft plus a 658 sq ft guest cottage · $258/sq ft · 0.36 acres · reduced from $925,000 on August 19 · MLS 4154999

Listed by Amy Wood Properties, Pass Christian

And the line everybody's going to ask about: the listing says Flood Zone X. If that holds up, it's an unusual thing to find this close to the water in Pass Christian, and it changes the monthly math significantly. But it's a listing remark, not a determination. Pull the FEMA map yourself, get the elevation certificate, and get an actual quote before you fall in love. (See this week's Reader Question, which is about exactly this.)

Sunshine

Somebody registered this dog, and then nobody came back for her.

That's the whole story on Sunshine's paperwork, and it's the least interesting thing about her. She came in as a stray last October, about a year old, a Lab-and-Boxer mix, medium-sized and brindle, heartworm negative, microchipped, current on her shots, and — according to everyone at the shelter who's met her — constitutionally incapable of having a bad day. The staff's own write-up leads with "Just a little ray of sunshine!", the kind of line you'd normally discount, except they also put her in the photo wearing rainbow bunny ears, so you can see they mean it.

Here's the part worth knowing. Sunshine is a Project Dog — the shelter's designation for an animal a specific staff member has taken on personally, spending extra one-on-one time with her every single day on training and confidence. It's a program most people don't know exists, and it means the dog coming home with you has had somebody in her corner every day she's been there. In the shelter's words: "That staff member absolutely adores her, and Sunshine returns the favor by being a constant source of smiles and good moods."

She's dog-friendly and they'll want a meet-and-greet with any dog already in the house. She's lived in a home before, so they believe she's housebroken. She'll be spayed as part of the adoption.

She's a year old. She has a decade of Saturdays in her.

Humane Society of South Mississippi · 2615 25th Ave, Gulfport · (228) 863-3354
Tue–Fri 10–5, Sat 10–4. Closed Sunday and Monday. Adoptions stop about thirty minutes before closing — earlier if it's busy — so a Saturday visit really means getting there by 3:30. No appointment, first come first served, bring a photo ID. Dogs ten months to five years start at $20, which includes spay/neuter, vaccinations, microchip and tag, a free vet exam within a week, and a starter bag of food.

And Leo is still there.

Fourth time we've asked. The 13-year-old Black Mouth Cur mix at the Jackson County shelter in Gautier — the one who ought to be, in the shelter's own words, "supervising snack time from a fluffy dog bed" — has now spent his entire summer in a kennel. He's neutered, vetted, still has pep in his step, and can go home today. Jackson County Animal Shelter, 4400 Audubon Lane, Gautier, (228) 497-6350, $50. Virginia, the Lab found as a stray in Moss Point, is still waiting too.

We are not going to stop bringing him up.

"He finally got a badge that means something. It gets him into the vendor hall."

SudsyCo Rentals · MapPulse Agency · Cornerstone Numismatics

Want to reach the Coast? [email protected]

Forward this to somebody who'd use it. New readers can subscribe at theseawallms.com. Venue owners, shelter folks, and anybody with something happening: [email protected], by Tuesday noon.

A ballgame every night, a free concert on a river, a museum that turns off the cash register for one evening, a walk that starts at a coffee shop, and a room full of people in wigs singing for Dolly. The last weekend of August on this coast has never needed much help — it just needs you to keep one eye on the sky.

Pick something. Take someone with you.

— The Seawall