Baseball Front And Center

I understand that Luke Cockrell freshman baseball player for Faith Christian hit a grand slam home run Thursday night for the Patriots. That was only a small part of his night.  He went 5-5 and drove in 10 runs.  Now you have to understand Luke as a freshman you will probably never have another game in your life better than this one.  Luke is the younger brother of former Gryphon Dillion Cockrell who I think is a sophomore at Carolina and plays on the Club team but is out of action right now with broken ribs.  He got drilled by a Wolfpack pitcher  in a recent series with the Wolfpack club team.

Lander University came to Pembroke for three very important games in Division ll College baseball.  One of Landers coaches is former Gryphon "Baseball" Britt Johnson  who I think as some point in time coached Alex Pearce in Babe Ruth Baseball.  Pearce pitched the rubber game of the three game series Saturday as they played one on Friday and a double headed today.  Pearce continues to win games for UNC Pembroke and he has done it by having runners on base all the time today.  Pearce makes it into the eighth inning but gave up 13 hits but still won the game 7-4.  Alex has won four games in a row and his record is now 6-3 for the Braves.

Speaking of Babe Ruth Baseball.  The North Carolina Baseball Museum located down the 3rd baseline in Fleming Stadium in Wilson will soon be adding to it's baseball collections. Wilson County over the last ten years or so have hosted more Babe Ruth World Series than any other place.  The Museum will be adding Babe Ruth baseball section in honor of Wilson hosting over the years so many events with Babe Ruth Baseball.

Brian Goodwin has started off his pro baseball career as if he doesn't like being in Hagerstown Maryland.  You may have seen on the Gryphon Grapevine that he homered in his first game.  Friday night was not quite as good but from the lead off position he walked four  times in five trips to the plate.  He has been on base seven of his ten at bats as the lead off hitter for the Suns. Double A here he comes if he keeps this up.

All during the spring training I have not heard one word on Xavier Macklin.  Does anybody know what the deal with X man is?  Is he hurt, traded to another team or what?  He is not listed on any of the A's minor league rosters.

Couch Potato

I would like to thank the engineers at Capitol Broadcasting (WRAL-TV) for their invention of HD TV.  CBS likes to advertise that the Masters Golf Championship is like no other and brother that's the Truth.  The Azaleas may have already bloomed in Augusta, but boy is that a pretty place just to look at.

Whatever edge Tiger use to have over everyone else is gone.  Just a few shorts years ago if Tiger hit a bad shot he would walk up to where ever it landed and hit it again.  Most of the time it would be in putting  distance.  Friday you didn't have to see it land all you had to do was watch Tiger and he would tell you in his reaction how  bad the shot was. He dropped his clubs, cussed, winced in disgust. bent over as if praying but we knew he wasn't doing that.  Matter of fact he looked about like me when I use to play golf.

If you have Direct TV they actually have six or seven channels dedicated to the Masters.  You can watch ESPN's coverage and Saturday and Sunday on CBS. They followed the last two groups of the day with every shot . Another channel was showing every thing going on at hole 15and 16.  There is so many channels to watch I wore my clicker out.

Direct also has every baseball game being played this weekend on for free. They are trying to entice you to buy the all year long MLB baseball package for a trillion dollars.  I guess I just take advantage of this weekend and go back to one or two games on TV next week.

Tyler Joyner is fast becoming the ACE of the Pirates of ECU pitching staff.  Tonight in Greenville the Pirates beat Houston 16-1.  Joyner went seven innings gave up six hits and struck out five.  His ERA is near 2.5 on the season and after Friday night his record is now 5-0.  The game was stopped after seven innings as I assume they must have a 15 run mercy run in C-USA as Tyler got credit for his second complete game in a row.

DVD Came Today

We ordered a copy of the Gryphon State Championship basketball game against Hickory from Time Warner Cable the company that did the State wide coverage of all the Championship games in March.  Our copy came on Thursday and Morgan text me to say she was watching the game.

Once I got home we watched it again and once Pat got home we all three watched it another time.  The quality of the broadcast was excellent.  Patrick Kinas the play by play man of the Carolina Mudcats, sometimes N C State baseball and Wolfpack Women's basketball did the play by play.  He did a fine job but in the first half he called Rocky Mount the Griffins.  Somebody got to him at the half and he said the Gryphons every time in the second half.

Since I watched it twice the one thing that stands out in my mind  was that Rocky Mount played a tremendous defensive game from start to finish.  One advantage Rocky Mount has all game long was when ever they got a rebound every player with the exception of Donte Battle could take off and dribble the ball up court by themselves.  K J Peoples , Terrill Hilliard Rocky Mount's so called forwards could run up the court and Hickory's  forwards could not keep up to play defense.

All of this talk  about the one and done players have started a new trend with Kentucky having the NCAA National Championship. I doubt that will happen.  You know timing means so much regardless of what you do in life.  It just so happened that Kentucky had a group of freshman that liked playing with each other.  If Austin Rivers had of played at Kentucky I doubt that they would have won it all.  Every thing fell into place for the Wildcats just like it did for the Gryphons.

Since I have been watching basketball all night I need to go watch my  recording of the Masters.  I have managed to stay clear of all the scores during the day and I can now watch the tape without knowing what happened.

The World is Changing

It use to be during the summer players would attend coaches camps and take part in drills that the coaches did with their teams during the regular season.  Those camps still go on but a whole new crops of camps have jump up and your ability to show you athleticism off to a whole slew of coaches in one day is the new wave.

People like Nike whole camps  where prospective high school football players could go and run drills and get timed  and you can bet every coach in America has access to  the info recorded on each player.  Theses camps are just like the NFL combines without the Wonderlic Test.  You can bet if you can run under 4.5 in the forty everybody in America knows about you.

This morning's Telegram told of us Quay Mann the Northern Nash rising senior safety who had gone to a Duke event where they brought in all of their invited prospect to see Duke.  For Quay a call to coach David Cutcliff's office lead to an offer to play football at Duke in 2013.  Early this week Quay accepted the Duke offer and in 2013 will be a Blue Devil.

Scenes like this go on practically every weekend in every sport.  I know of several more local football players that are weighting their options on where to go play college football.

I know everyone is interested  in the coaches search at Rocky Mount and I have told you in the past you know as much as I do.  The rumor mill is saying interviews are in progress but I have nothing factual on that.

This past weekend the North Carolina American Legion held their Hall of Fame ceremonies for this year.  A friend from Ahoskie Johnny Farmer was inducted.  Post 102 went from about the late 60's to the mid 90's without Legion Ball and Farmer was one of the leaders in getting baseball going again at Post 102.  Even today he does the PA at 102 games.  Speaking of Legion Baseball, it is almost time again by late May.