Ain't Dead Yet

Tonight Rocky Mount  High with one foot in the coffin for no playoff life knock off one of the four leaders tied at the top of Big East Baseball beating Hunt 4-3 in nine innings.

Cody Smith did all he could do but gets a no decision for his pitching effort.  Josh Carter who on the night made three errors in the field but gets the winning hit in the bottom of the ninth  gets the Gryphons a much needed win.  Blake Helms in relief gets the pitching win.

The Gryphons raised their conference record to 3-4 while Hunt who entered the night in a four way tie for first drops to 4-3 with three conference games to play.  Hunt has it's next conference game at home Friday hosting Southern Nash while the Gryphons have no celebration time they travel to Fike Wednesday night in another one foot in the coffin game.
That game begins at 6pm tonight.
Tonight I was in Raleigh and went to the Campbell/State  baseball game won  by Campbell 9-0.  Boy with all the expectations N C State had and even started 14-2 they are playing like a team going the wrong way on a one way street.

I ran into Derrick Whittenburg and we spoke to each other and I asked him if he remembered me.  If you are a dedicated reader of this blog at some point I have told the story about playing basketball in an ACC All Star  traveling show way back in 1986.

To remind you of the story while living in Ahoskie I was the play by play voice of Chowan College basketball during the time Nate McMillan play there and later he played two years at State.  McMillan's senior year someone gets Nate and the Senior all stars to come to Murfreesboro high school and I am playing for the news media.

This just happens to be the first Duke team in 86 that made it to the final four and their four seniors Jay Bilas, Johnny Dawkins, Mark Allarie and David Henderson are playing as well as McMillan and McMillan brings along a friend to play in the game Derrick Whittenburg who is three years removed from college basketball.

The news media clowns are warming up shooting lay ups like a regular team would do and each all star is announced one at a time and a full house of about 800 stands and cheers but the big roar is for home town hero Nate McMillan.

The last player announced was the surprise player who is the sixth player Derrick Whittenburg.  I am just shooting a layup and I am running back to the end of the line while Whit is being introduced.  All of a sudden I feel this arm go around my shoulder and it is Whittenburg and he says to me "Hey man how you doing"?  The whole time he is leading me down to the far end of the court where the all stars are warming up.

The entire 20 yard walk he is just talking away to me still with his arm around my shoulders.  Everybody in the place thinks I'm buddies with Whittenburg.  Finally when it's time to start warming up he leans over to me and says "I need to ask you a question.  What's a fat guy like you playing in this game"?  I told him I would show him why I was playing.

I did too scored three points in the game and we loss about 139-49.  We had'em for a while.