Injuries

Just maybe the greatest relief pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball Mariano Rivera was injured this week while the Yankees were taking batting practice just like every team every where does before any game.  I have heard so many comments about how silly that is that he would be shagging fly balls in the outfield during batting practice.

Major League teams play practically everyday.  The only time they get to practice is before a game starts.  Most of the time that happens before the gates open and in some parks the home team has finished batting practice before the paying public is allowed into a stadium.

The home team gets forty minutes that starts by who ever is the starting line up with the lead off batter first  gets their cuts. He gets about ten swings before the second batter gets his cuts. Then those on the bench take a few swings.  While there is someone in the cage  coaches are hitting ground balls to the infielders and they either throw the ball over to first or back to a designated area.

  There is always a screen setup for whoever is pitching batting practice in most cases it is a coach.  The screen is there to protect him on line drives hit directly back at him because just as fast as he can let one pitch goes he is winding up to throw another.  There are other screens set up for first  base, second and any where a player may be catching a ball thrown from  a different direction from where the hitters are.  Once the home teams forty minutes is up the visitors get their forty minutes

I once went to see the Braves play way back  in the 80's in Atlanta and as we walking on to the stadium grounds several pitchers were actually running around the stadium.  I remember two of them were Rick Camp and Tommy Green so that dates how far back that was.  Pitchers run wind sprints in the outfield while batting practice goes on while other pitchers who may have finished their running are shagging fly balls like Rivera was doing.

It doesn't  matter how valuable you are to the team everyone has to get in the necessary work before a game in order to be in shape to play six months a baseball everyday.  Baseball is not like football where you play a game and practice five times before you play again.  I believe  the players play 20 out of 21 days so they only get one day off every three weeks. 

In the movie Bull Durham Crash  created a rain out by cutting on the sprinkler system and letting it run all night.  Don't you know players hate rain delays that make the games go five hours or more.  You also got to know they love it when a game gets rained out before they leave for the ball park.  Days off are precious.

Consequences Of Life

This week one of the Icons of the NFL of the 90's  Junior Seau who had his greatest years with the San Diego Chargers shot himself and ended his life.  The world we live in today where we are not responsible for anything we do, it is always somebody else's fault.   The blame is being laid at the hands of concussions in the NFL. It very well be part of the cause but before we get carried away and have a rally in Rocky Mount to end the NFL let's try to find reason to keep sanity afloat.

Do you think the Seau ever used enhancement drugs at anytime in his playing career?  If he did what part of the blame can we point  in that direction?  If any anytime in his life did he ever used any drugs of pleasure? If he did what part did that play.  Did he ever get a concussion while playing and never told anyone for the fear of if I don't play someone could take my place?  Who's fault is that if it happened.  Was he in any financial trouble do to the fact that 70% of NFL players are broke five years after their careers end.   Did he miss the limelight so much that he was depressed because he wasn't on sports center every night any more. 

You know most athletes that reach the professional level in any sport are patted on the back from the moment we realize that they can play any sport really well  and you know as well as I do when they do wrong most of the time they are told " Thats ok, just don't do that again".  Athletes other than practice time in their sport where they sweat  to become great  get life handed to them on a silver platter.  Just maybe his platter wasn't silver anymore.

The NFL has a major perception problem because  the game is being played where the head is a spear. Yes in recent years they have started fining player who hit with the helmet first or go after a player head high only.  Even this weeks players were suspended because they were paying bounties to other players to take players out of the game.  Is that football when you play to hurt.

The answer to head hunting is take away the helmet.  You know up until about 1950 they wore a rubber cap and only started putting nose guards on helmets because broken noses was the main injury in football.  There is one advantage to not wearing a helmet.  Everyone could see your face and there would be no need after a tackle to run five yards out in the open and tell everybody to look at me.  That has no place in sports either.

The facts are at this point we have no idea why Junior Seau took his on life.  There are many things in life we need to know what the facts are before we hang someone  or in this case an  industry.

Trouble On The Horizon

More than 83% of the schools that turned in their ballots voted  to kick the big three Christian Private schools out of the NCHSAA .  The only thing that saved  Charlotte Catholic, Bishop McGuiness and Cardinal Gibbons from extraction,  more than 100 voting members failed to turn in ballots.   If all the abstained voted had of voted to keep the schools that would still be 60% that voted against.  I doubt if this is the last word on this issue with so many voting against.   The only way to solve the problem is any student who goes to a private school on scholarship is not eligible to play sports.  Without someone else paying for it they wouldn't be there in the first place.

Hunt won the Big East Baseball Tournament 10-8 over Nash Central.  Hunt's Big inning they score eight times while Nash Centrals biggest got only five.  The second week in a row Fike has beaten Rocky Mount at Rocky Mount 2-1 to win the Big East Soccer Tournament. Glover Park hosted the Big East Softball Tournament and  Nash Central won 6-3 over Southern Nash.

Paul Lilly won four long distance event to take the MVP of the Big East Track and Field Championship Wednesday.  Do you know how hard it is to win in four events when there are times there is not much time between events to catch your breath.  Paul is a very talented long distance runner and has shown since soccer season ended in November that when he devotes his energy to running he can excel.  I don't however blame him one bit for dividing time in the fall to soccer and cross country.

Both the Rocky Mount track teams took the conference titles.

Like to past along a congratulates to Wes Bradshaw as he became a papa earlier this week.  I know it is hard for many of you to even think of Wes as married an now a father!  It's a girl.

Big East This Year's Power In Tennis

Yes Northern Nash knocked of Eastern Wayne yesterday in the opening round of the tennis playoffs but the #2 seed from the Big East Southern Nash went to South Central and pinned the Falcons with their third loss of the season.

Both Northern and Southern advance to the second round where both will be on the road.  The second round is next Tuesday when Northern travels to South Brunswick and Southern skips over to C B Aycock.  This weekend the sectionals in individual tennis will be held in Wilson.

The Big East Soccer tournament finals will be held at 5pm Thursday afternoon at the Rocky Mount soccer field Rocky Mount the conference regular season champs take on Fike who finished third in the regular season but knocked off #2 Hunt Tuesday night to take on the Gryphons.  Next Tuesday is the first round of soccer playoffs  and Rocky Mount will be at home and it just might be the last sporting event ever played on the old campus.

Baseball Finals are Thursday night at Hunt where the regular season champs Hunt Host #2 Nash Central. Both finished 1 and 2 during the regular season and the seeding in next week's playoffs are already determined.  The state playoff don't start until next Thursday and the coaches didn't want  to finish the regular season and take two weeks off before the playoffs so that is the main reason there was a tournament this year.

One of the good things about Glover Park in Nashville is that it is a perfect place to hold the Big East softball Tournament.  Just like all other sports softball has come down to the top two teams that actually tied for the title during the regular season and they square off Thursday night at Glover Park for the tournament title.  There is one big thing the winners gets by winning the tournament.  They get the #1 seeding in next weeks playoffs so this game is more important than either the soccer finals or baseball.

It is official the the Big East will stay with the six existing team for the next four years.  The Big East is one of the few conferences in the state at any level that doesn't either lose a team or gain a new one member.  The 2013-2016 realignment was voted on today at the NCHSAA Athletic Director conference..  The vote will be announce tomorrow on how all the schools of the NCHSAA voted on keeping Private Schools as members.

Northern Tops Eastern Wayne In Tennis

 Northern Nash has lost only two tennis matches all season and today they played the opening round of the state tennis playoffs going on the road to play the team that has put the two L's on their record in Eastern Wayne.  The bad news for the Knights is their #1 player Michael Brackett lost his match in a tied breaker but even without that point Northern Nash has put the first loss  of the season on the #3 tennis team in North Carolina in Eastern Wayne.  The final was 5-3 Northern.  Eastern Wayne finishes 17-1 while Northern is now 16-2 and up next for them a journey to South Brunswick in the second round of the playoffs.

It took all of twenty seconds for the Lady Gryphons to take the lead that they would never give up on the way to a 5-1 win over the Lady Knights of Northern Nash in the semi finals of the Big East soccer tournament played this afternoon  at the soccer field on the campus at Rocky Mount.  Casey Cooke scored the opening goal added another later and Sydney Browder added two goals plus another from Evie Hunter.

The Lady Gryphons will try to win both the Regular season and tournament championship Thursday afternoon as they are the only sport left that still can play matches at Rocky Mount High.  The Tournament Championship is at 5.PM Thursday and regardless of the outcome they host a first round playoff game next Tuesday.

The Big East Baseball Tournament went as expected tonight as both of the top seeds Hunt and Nash Central won to move on to play each other Thursday in the championship finals at Hunt at 7pm.  Hunt scored five in the second and had an 9-0 lead in the seventh until Rocky Mount scored four times  to make the final 9-4.

Nash Central jumped out to an 8-0 lead on Northern Nash and I am sure the Bulldogs thought for a moment about giving up a 8-1 lead to Rocky Mount after Northern score four times to cut the lead in half.  Nash Central holds on for and 8-4 win.

I would like to say congratulations to Meridith Davis of Nash Central who this past weekend won the Rocky Mount Distinguished Young Woman  Pagent.  This was formally known as the JR Miss.  If you have ever heard her sing and play all types of instruments you known she is a very talented young woman.  I guess it is in her genes a her dad  Paul plays the piano at the American Music Jubilee in Selma.

Tears and Prayers

Went to the Lady Gryphon softball tonight since it was probably going to be the last game that Morgan Doughtie was a manager for Gryphon sports.  It was as Northern Scored 8 runs in the bottom of the fifth to beat Rocky Mount 11-1.  There are times when winning and losing  don't matter and tonight I was glad to have been there at what took place at the end of the game.

Today a student at Northern Nash Alex Tweedy was kill in a car wreck on the way home from school.  As the teams were shaking hands they made their way to the pitcher's mound where all the players and coaches of both teams formed a circle around the pitcher mound.  Alex was a member of the Northern band and many players on both teams knew her very well.  Team players took their turn talking about Alex and when they had all cried Gryphon catcher Precious White lead both teams in prayer.  I can tell you now that there was not a preacher anywhere that prayed on Sunday any better that what Precious did.  There were tears from parents listening.

The score of the game doesn't matter.  A life has been lost and two teams who are bitter enemies on the playing field took time together to start the healing process.  As bad as we feel the world is today it is refreshing to see that our youth know what's important.  Join me please in praying for a grieving family who has lost their only child.                                                                     Amen

The first game of the Big East softball tournament was won by Fike 7-2 over Hunt.  They will play Southern Nash at 5pm Tuesday.  Northern will play Nash Central at 7pm both games are at Glover Park in Nashville.

Northern Nash beat Southern Nash in soccer 5-0 and will now play the top team Rocky Mount at 5pm Tuesday in the soccer semi's  at Rocky Mount.

Rocky Mount traveled to Southern Nash and beat the Firebirds 6-2 to advance to the semi's in baseball.  They will travel to Hunt Tuesday night at 7pm.  Northern Nash down 9-3 scored seven unanswered runs to knock off Fike 10-9 .  They now play  Nash Central Tuesday.

There is a monumental  tennis match Tuesday at Eastern Wayne as the #6 ranked team in North Carolina Northern Nash collides with the #3 ranked Eastern Wayne.  Man what a way to start the playoffs.

Going Out In Style

His first three years at UNC Pembroke were squatting behind the plate.  Finally in his senior season Alex Pearce was move sixty feet six inches and now peers down from the mound at the man squatting behind the plate.  Early in the season he got knocked around but as his experience grew Alex Pearce has become the best pitcher on a UNC Pembroke team that failed by one game making their conference tournament and there by their season ended last night.

What would be his twelfth start of the season Alex saved his best for last as the Braves finished their season against the #1 home run hitting team in Division II baseball in Wingate.  Pearce went eight innings held Wingate  to a single run on three hits and beat Wingate 2-1.  Alex finishes his season and career at 8-4 on the season and after last night his ERA dipped to 3.86.  Not bad for a catcher  to wind up the best on the team.

Since we were speaking of a former Rocky Mount Legion baseball player in Alex Pearce this is a good time to announce try outs for this years team will be held Saturday May 12th at 3.00pm at what right now is Gryphon Stadium.  The city of Rocky Mount will be taking control of the field this summer and it will be interesting what the name might be.

All players for Senior Legion are eligible if born on or after 1/1/1993.  Those interested in Junior Legion you must be born on 1/1/95 or later to play.  This will be a Pro-day try .  Bring all of your equipment in order to perform and all catcher must bring all catching equipment needed.

Hank Jones will be back to lead for the third year in a row and the season will kickoff near May 20th.  High school baseball's regular season is over and the playoffs are starting so it's time to get the high school all stars together from this area and Coleman Pitt Post 58 will begin another Legion Season in hopes of returning to the State Tournament which they have done two of the past three years.