Little League Falls In Opener

The Rocky Mount Senior Tar Heel Little league all stars lost their opening game Thursday night 4-3 against Coates. Both the fifth and sixth innings Rocky Mount had two runners on with less than two outs but failed to push across what could have been the lead runs. Coates scored with two outs in the bottom of the sixth.

The losers bracket means Friday can be a long tough grind for the RM all stars as they must face Hildebrand at 4.00pm today and if they win that game play again at 6.30. Hildebrand one of the local teams played Jacksonville on Thursday and Jacksonville won convincingly.

Joe West a Magor league umpire who lives in Greenville umped his 4,000th major league game this week. West known as the "Singing Cowboy" is in his 25th year umpiring. During the days when we could see the Braves Everyday, West was seen almost weekly doing Braves games and Skip Carey one of the Brave announcers use to always mention Joe and and call him the "Singing Cowboy" daily when announcing the umpire line up. West has cut several CD's of country music.

The Phil Ford Golf Classic is Saturday morning at Birchwood Country Club. Sports stars from local talent Danny Talbott to James Worthy will be putting on their golfing ability on display.

High school football practice officialy starts Saturday morning at 8.00am. It is not like it use to be when August 1st was the real start of practice. Teams now days practice three times a week in the summer called conditioning.

Three area teams will have new coaches this year. Andy Jackson at Rocky Mount Academy. Mickey Crouch at Northern Nash and Dickie Schock.

The new 3-A Conference this year has Hunt high school joining the league. Fike has a new coach so their are only two coaches in place that were in the NEW-6 last year. Nash Central's Kevin Crudup and Southern Nash's Brian Fosterare the only hold overs . All new league and all new coaches.

Golfing Weekend

The Phil Ford Golf Classic returns to Rocky Mount and Nashville this weekend in support of the Boys and Girls clubs of the area.

Saturday Morning at Birchwood Country Club you will have an opportunity to see several stars and former stars of NBA basketball show case their golfing skills. It is all for $10 and it all benefits our local kids.

Friday night is a big shindig at the Gateway Center being hosted by Charlie Neal who right now works as a announcer for ESPN. I believe Charlie Neal was the first black play by play announcer to hit national tv back in the 70's.

I ride by the sports complex every day and it looks as if the soccer portion of the fields are ready to use. This summer they have been watering the new grass on the fields and yesterday for the first time I notices soccer goals are in place.

It looks to me as if there will need to be a access made on Airport Road to get to the soccer fields. It will be a long walk from the parking lot unless they cut a street from Airport Road into the soccer fields.

Good luck tonight to the Rocky Mount Tar Heel 11/12 year old baseball team. They begin play in Valdese in the State tournament. Their first game is 8.00pm

Rowan County beat Shelby last night in Greenville to win the State American Legion baseball title. Shelby beat Rowan 7-3 yesterday afternoon to give both teams one loss and Rowan prevailed last night to win it all 5-3.

One More Local team Still Playing

Thursday the Tar Heel Senior Little league all stars (11-12) from Rocky Mount start their state tournament in Valdese North Carolina. If you are asking where in the world is Valdese?, it's near Hickory.

They are the last team still playing from our area. How long can tomorrow be for this team. If they leave on Thursday morning they don't play until 8.00pm Thursday night.

Long ride, Long Day!

The Tar Heel association finishes at the State tournament level so in reality this is the last weekend of baseball for the summer for all of our teams.

Baseball is finishing up and how convenient is it that High schools begin football practice and other sports on Saturday. All three of our public high schools start practice at 8.00am Saturday morning.

I am trying to put together a football preseason show for the "Stretchlon Sports Show" in a couple of Sundays. Will try to have the area coaches on to discuss their team for 2009. Rocky Mount and Northern have brand new coaches and this will give you a chance to see them if you haven't already met them.

I can see it now, four or five weeks into the NFL season a quarterback gets hurt and Brett Farve to the rescue. He said yesterday he just doesn't think his body can take the whole season. If you can believe any thing that he has ever said concerning his retirement, to me sounds like, I'll be ready after summer camp.

NFL camps are starting this week. Exhibitions games start in ten days.

NFL Decisions

Yesterday NFL commissioner Roger Goddell reinstated Michael Vick, well almost.

I think one of the biggest travesties of our world is our court system. People commit crimes and most of the time they get probation. The next time they wind up in court and mostly they get a slap on the wrist. If you are on probation and commit a crime why would you not be sent to jail to serve the first crime as well as the second.

Michael Vick served his time for his crime. I understand that the NFL is an honor to be able to play and not a right. If Vick does anything stupid while he is in the NFL for as long as his career last he will pay by losing his privilege to continue to play.

I wish our court system was that way.

Plaxico Burress keeps putting off his court dates hoping to play this year in the NFL before he goes to jail for firing a gun in New York City in which he shot himself by acccident. If Goddell keeps up his policy of acting like a professional then he must suspend Burress regardless of whether he has a trial this year or not.

The District Attorney of New York with knudging from the mayor is going after a three year jail sentence. I don't think there is any doubt of Burress guilt. He even admits it. He hopes to play this year realizing that three years in jail and his career is done.

Goddell needs to suspend him now.

Finally, there is the other jail sentence. Brett Farve. It seems as the last five years Farve keeps himself in the media, I may Retire, I may comeback. If there was ever an athlete that needs attention it's Brett Farve. Please end our jail sentence and either play or quit for good.

I always thought Farve was over rated. Took to many chances. When you take chances you are a hero sometimes and a goat most of the time. The news media has always ignored his low quarterback rating because he has one Super Bowl win.

Please Brett Farve ends this misery that you are putting the fans through. Play or retire.

The world will go on with or without you.

Legion Had Excellent Season.

The start was auspicious. Northern's playoff run went almost to June. Matt Bryan Post 58 head coach who is an assistant at Eastern Wayne played right up to the last game of the playoffs. Several scheduled games had to be cancelled or moved until finally the season got under way around the 5th of June.

Lost the very first game with by the ten run rule with only one practice as a team. There on this team play like champs.

I spoke early that I didn't see that the pitching staff was strong enough. I visualized that there would be playoff games where the ace of other teams would shut down our hitting and our pitching would not win the 5-4 or 3-2 playoff games which we didn't this past weekend.

If there was a strong point in Greenville it was our pitching. It was the hitting that lead us to a quick exit from the State Tournament.

You know we went further in the playoffs than what I thought we could, even the Cary series in which we saw better pitching than we had seen all year our hitting was better than their pitching.

Our hitting was not better than the two pitchers we saw in the State Tournament in Greenville.

When we look at the facts this team won four playoffs series. Three of them they won three games to none. In the only series to go five we were down zero games to two and came back and won the series. In fact game five we were down two runs in the bottom of the ninth and won.

So this team displayed magic and had a fine season at 20-6. Made it to the Area one finals for the first time since 1995 and back to the Championship finals for the first time since Post 58 won it all in 1973.

We can all complain of what could have been if all the all stars from this area had of played Legion ball. I think not having all of the all stars of the area really shows you how good this team was with what we had.

I enjoyed being th PA man following this team.

I think everyone should thank Joe Bell as he is the master mind behind keeping Post 58 alive with baseball. He didn't have a child on the team, but he was dedicated to keep it alive so when Spencer gets there next year there will be a team.

Without him there may not have even been a team this year to enjoy.

Midgets Finish Second In State-Legion Ousted

Facing the loser bracket on Sunday the Rocky Mount Midget (9/10 Year old Tar Heel Little League team) won their first game of the day beating Hickory 10-0 in a four inning game.

Logan Pearce and Landon Roup hit homers in the first inning that proved to be all the runs the Rocky Mount All Stars would need.

The advantage of being in the winners bracket is while others are out on the field playing in the hot sun just to be able to play in the next game the winners bracket team and in this case that was Lee County can just sit back in a motel room and wait in the air conditioning.

Beating Hickory gave the Rocky Mount Midgets the chance to play Lee County again and the results were worse that the 9-7 score yesterday. Lee county wins the State Tar Heel Midget Championship with a 11-0 win in four innings.

The Rocky Mount Midget all stars bring home a second place trophy.

Coleman Pitt Post 58 also found themselves in the losers bracket and the punishment for being in the losers bracket is playing on Sunday at Guy Smith Stadium instead of the brand spanking new 4,500 seat Clark-LeClair Stadium at ECU.

Guy Smith is the home of Rose High school and compared to Northern Nash which has short fences Guy Smith is even smaller.

I figured with the wind blowing out that the losing team would probably score ten today. Not so fast My Friend, as Shelby threw a submarine pitcher and Brandon Denton took the hill for Post 58.

The final score Shelby 3 and Post 58 2. Shelby hit two homers to Post 58 one. Each team had a two run homer and Shelby had a solo shot which was the difference.

Shelby hit their solo homer in the first inning to take a 1-0 lead. There was a thirty minute rain delay while we were batting with two outs in the fifth inning. Once the game resumed Collins Cuthrell walked after having a three balls and one strike count on him when the rains came. Xavier Macklin then hit a home run which was last seen rolling toward Memorial Drive near the hospital and Post 58 lead 2-1.

Shelby would get all the runs they needed in the seventh when they got a single and then one of those bloop Guy Smith home runs and they took the lead 3-2. Post 58 got one single in the eighth and ninth but never threatened.

Adam Izokovic pitched complete game six hitter. Both days of this tournament Xavier Macklin got three of our six hits and hit a home run each day.

Brandon Denton went all the way for Post 58 which was eight innings and like yesterday for Alex Pearce the pitching for Post 58 was good but the other sides pitching was better. Denton gave up nine hits but walk only won batters. He struck out five but didn't get enough help from his hitting mates.

Post 58 finishes the season 20-6 and made it to the State finals for the first time in 36 years.

Midgets and Legion Lose

Today was a tough day for baseball in Nash-Rocky Mount area as both the Rocky Mount Midgets (9/10) year old all stars lose 9-7 in Erwin. In Greenville, Post 58 met maybe the best pitcher in the Legion tournament in Nick Lomascolo from the NCHSAA 3-A State Champs Lake Norman and lost 5-4.

The Little leaguers lead at one point 7-5 but were beaten in the winners bracket game 9-7. They will play again at 2.00pm Sunday against Hickory.

There are three teams left in Erwin and Lee County the team that beat Rocky Mount today will wait for the winner of the Rocky Mount- Hickory game. Who ever wins that game meets Lee County in the second game Sunday afternoon. Lee County wins it's all over or if the Rocky Mount/Hickory winner beats Lee County they will come back and play the championship game Monday.

In Greenville Alex Pearce got the start for Post 58 and Pearce walked a couple of batters and a critical error and one timely hit gave Mooresville a 2-zip lead in the first. The further Pearce pitched the better he got and he made it all the way to the first batter in the eighth inning.

Xavier Macklin lead off the bottom of the third slapping a line shot down the left field line for a double. Ben Fish hit a fly ball to left that was deep enough to get Macklin to third base. LoMascolo unleashed a wild pitch and Post 58 was on the board.

Up again in the bottom of the fifth Xavier Macklin hit a home run into the ECU Jungle minus the ECU students but regardless of how many were there the game was tied after five innings.

The opening batter of the eighth inning walked on four straight pitches and Matt Bryan took Alex out of the ball game. Bill Clark came in and the first batter greeted him with a swinging bunt that never traveled more than fifteen feet but was beat our for a hit. A sacrifice and a single and Mooresville lead 4-2. Another post 58 error allowed one more run to score to give Mooresville a 5-2 lead that held until the bottom of the ninth.

Xavier Macklin lead off with a single and Ben Fish follow that with the second home run of the game for Post 58 to cut the lead to 5-4. Two easy outs brought us to the last batter.

Dillon Cockrell had no balls and two strikes and somehow wriggled into a walk. Mike Smith got konked between the shoulders. Mooresville then made a pitching change. Mike Williams struck out on three pitches. There was magic in the ninth but not enough.

Lomascolo struck out fourteen Batters in pitching eight and two thirds innings. He allowed six hits and walked two and hit a batter.

Alex Pearce took the loss giving up just four hits and struck out four in seven innings, but he did walk six batters. Only two of Mooresville five runs were earned.

Post 58 plays at three pm at Guy Smith Stadium in the losers bracket against Shelby who lost 11-7 to Wimington.

Just before the start of the fourth game tonight there was an opening ceremony with all the teams on the field and there was to be a first pitch delivered. But during the ceremony one of the umpires who was line up like the players passed out on the field. Rescue came on the field and while they were working on the UMP a Player for Cherryville passed out. The fourth game was delayed more than a hour before the final game of the day got started between Cherryville and Greenville Post 39.

Even worse news to report as while the rescue was on the field a fight broke on in the stands and between1-3 fans were removed from the game depending on who's story you believe. All three fans regardless of how many were from Cherryville.

Last word that neither the ump or player was taken to the hospital.