Legion Home Tonight

Tonight's Legion game game has been postponed until another date can be set.  That also includes Wednesday trip to Cary on Wednesday.  Both Cary and Rocky Mount have had high school teams in their districts playing in the State playoffs.  Post 58 will start this weekend at Mount Olvie College in a Wayne County Tournament.

Coleman Pitt Post 58 will open their 2013 summer baseball season tonight at the Rocky Mount American Legion Field.  First pitch is scheduled for 6pm.  Cary will be in town as tonight's opponent.   If there is magic  with this team this year as has happened a couple of time in the last five years or so  then Post 58 just might qualify for the State Tournament which this year will be in near by Fleming Stadium in Wilson.

Earlier this summer I made an afternoon run to Murfreesboro to Chowan College to the Whitaker Library there where I went on their Microfiche machine to look up old copies of the Ahoskie paper the News- Herald which are now stored in the library.  I went there to look back at the 1963 American Legion season for Ahoskie Post 102.  This year is the 50th anniversary of that team winning it's only legion title ever when they won the North Division.

I was there every step of the way that season as a ten year old bat boy.  I have talked to all 14 surviving players and asked them of their experiences  that summer and have written 10,000 words which I turned over to the News-Herald in Ahoskie.  They are trying to decide now what they can do with it if anything as part of Post 102 50th anniversary that they are going to have sometime this summer.

Ahoskie and Rocky Mount met four times that season.  The first one was in Rocky Mount and Post 58 won 3-2 in ten innings.  The second meeting was in Ahoskie and Post 102 won 1-0 in ten innings. Game three was the only blow out as Ahoskie won in Rocky Mount 11-5.  The final game of the season was played in Ahoskie with both teams tie for first and Post 102 won in the bottom of the ninth innings 4-3.  They played four times in 1963 and three of the four games went down to the last pitch of the game.

All four games Post 58 started Jim Best and Post 102 started Jim Hunter.  Danny Talbott was on the mound for Post 58  in  the ninth inning of the last game.  Ahoskie beat Rocky Mount three times in 1963 and I don't think they have beaten them three times since.

Cousin Lauren Doughtie got her second pay day on the LPGA Tour Sunday.  She finished tied for 53rd which is her best finish so far on tour.  The golfing tours most of the time on weekend play with the top 70 and ties.  This week those 70 and ties make for quite a few extra players who cashed in on the money.  Earlier this season when Lauren finished in the high 60's she collected more money than yesterday .  The good news is she got a check.

Prime Time For State-Carolina This Week

The brackets and times of all of the ACC baseball games that begin Wednesday have been announced and during the first four days of the tournament UNC and NCSU will be the head liner in the 7pm prime time game in three of the four days.  You can find all games either on Fox Sports South or ESPN2

State gets prime coverage Wednesday as they as the #4 seed play #5 Clemson.  Friday night Carolina plays under the lights as they will also take on Clemson.  Then hopefully with a chance to play for the ACC championship they both collide Saturday night.

Carolina as ACC regular champs is the number one seed in the tournament and are the head of bracket A.  State seeded fourth and Clemson seeded fifth and Miami as the #8 seed all will play each other the first four days.  Bracket B has #2 Florida State, #3 Virginia,#6 Virginia Tech and #7 Georgia Tech.  the two bracket winners will play each other Sunday for the ACC Championship.

I find it hard to believe that the college world series can have a better set of teams.  Carolina is 2nd in RPI, Virginia 3rd, Florida St 4th, N C State 9th, Clemson 12th, Virginia Tech 15, Miami 21st and Georgia tech 22.  This sounds like what the ACC Basketball use to be.  If the RPI is the magnifying glass of who you have played and how you did I don't understand completely.  Cal State Fullerton is 8th in RPI but 50th in strength while State at 9th in RPI is 10th in strength of schedule. All eight ACC teams playing in ACC Tournament had no worse than 20 in strength of Schedule and that is Florida St.

UNC Wilmington is 26th in the RPI and Campbell 43rd.  That should keep both in the NCAA Regional regardless of the outcome of upcoming conference tournaments. UNCW is 47 in strength of schedule but here is where Campbell will be nervous this week until the 64 teams are announced their strength is only 242.

Post 58 American Legion baseball kicks off Monday night AT HOME.  One of the real challenges of making a schedule is high school playoffs and yes RMA just finishing up yesterday hinders Post 58 but many other Legions have the same problem so games get moved around many times.  So if you have one of the early schedules Monday shows on the road to Cary but it is home Monday night.

Eagles Just Could Not Stop Wildcats

Game two of the the 2-A Independent high school state championship goes to the defending champions West Chester of High Point.  Game two on West Chester's home field saw  the Eagles serve as the home team in game two and West Chester plated a run in the top of the first.  RMA responded with three in the bottom of the first but from then on when ever they needed to hold the Wildcats they couldn't.  Trailing 7-4 heading to the top of the 6th West Chester score seven times in the last two innings to win 14-4 in a game closer than the final score.  Rocky Mount Academy will finished second  in 2-A Private school baseball.  Sunday night on the All New Sports Show on WHIG-TV you can see their win over Faith Christian which was played Tuesday night that got them to this weekend games against West Chester.

This past Thursday night Rocky Mount High School held their Athletic awards banquet honoring all athletes from all 2012-2013 sports.  The Triple Crown award winners  combining athletics, Classroom as well as all areas of life were Lindsey Warner and  Alexis Threatt.  The best male athlete was Mason Hines.  The best female athlete was J'Kyra Brown.  Mason Holt won the Juan Chesson award  honoring former Gryphon Juan Chesson.

Since we are talking about awards I can't go without mentioning my favorite Gryphon baseball player in Dillon Cockrell.  Dillon Graduated from Carolina last weekend and he won the 2013 Dashiell-Thurstone Award for having the best Thesis of all the graduating seniors at UNC.

Dillon did his Thesis on  the F-MRI.  The F-MRI  can detect the brain waves of children with autism.  Dillon's research  was on the different colors of the MRI and what effect those colors have in the brain's performance of Autistic Children.

Dillon was just short of graduating with a 4.0 four year average.  Not bad  for a student who was the supervisor of recreation at UNC and one of the main players for the Carolina Club baseball team.  Graduation day  Dillon had to make one of his first choices of  adult life whether to go to graduation or play in the Club Regional finals.  He chose to go to graduation where he received his award and Carolina lost the Regional without him.

Dillon hopes to go to Medical School but next year he will spend a year working  research at Duke University.   Dillon is proof that you can be a good athlete and still get good grades.  Congratulations Dillon

Wildcats Clip Eagles In Game One

Game one of the best of three title series in the Independent 2-A State Championship goes to West Chester Country day 7-2,  Game two is scheduled for 11am Saturday pending on the weather.  The State -Duke series scheduled for 2pm has already been moved to noon.  Since RMA could force a third game in the series and second game on Saturday at 3.30 by winning the first game  don't be surprised if they play earlier than 11.

J'Kyra Brown has been named as a member  of the East-West All star basketball game scheduled for July 22nd in the Greensboro Coliseum.  That week is the high school coaches convention and part of the entertainment is all the All Star games in football, soccer, and basketball.   This will be the last game for the Rocky Mount Gryphons all time leading scoring in women's history.  Next year she will be playing B-ball in Greenville for ECU.

The East-West all Star football game will feature several players from the area. Jarrod Richardson the 5ft 11inch linebacker from Nash Central will play for the East along with Tarboro's Travonne Marshall.  Marshall the 5' 11" linebacker will join Richardson.  Hunt High has two players that will play.  Josh Joyner the All Conference tailback and and Dayquan Barnes a 6'2" tight end will all play for the East squad.

I hope you had a chance to see Tom Suitors  Extra Effort Award this week on WRAL-TV.  Nash Central's Lindsey Sharpe was the featured student.  Sharpe who played volleyball, was the swimmer of the year in the conference and lead the Nash Central softball team winning 17 games and losing only two as their pitcher.

Cousin Lauren Doughtie is playing in her 7th LPGA Golf event of the year.  She has played on the weekend only once until this weekend .  This week's event is in Mobile Alabama and she has shot a 68-71 which is good for 25th heading into Saturday which means a pay day is coming Sunday.

College baseball regular season ends Saturday and North Carolina is the Coastal Division champion after coming from behind Friday night to beat UVA.  N C State can win the Atlantic Division if State beats Duke Saturday and Clemson beats Florida State.

Eagles Try To Soar

Rocky Mount Academy begins what they hope is a two game sweep winning the  2-A Independent State baseball title tonight and Saturday. They will be in High Point to play the defending champs West Chester Wildcats on their home field.

West Chester is smack dab in the middle of the Triad of North Carolina in High Point-Kernersville- Winston Salem area.  They have about 450 students compared to about 250 for RMA.  The Wildcats return eight starters off last years team so to say the least  the Eagles have a handful  for this weekend.

The success that RMA has had this spring is not good for American Legion.  Hank Jones the head Legion coach is of course the RMA assistant coach and Pat Smith the head coach of RMA is assistant of the Legion.  Now if you were involved in a state championship run which one would you pay attention too?  Even the second assistant Ben Fish is tie up right now with Campbell baseball as they won their 44th game of the season last night.  The Fighting Camels certainly will be in a regional  which will be coming the first weekend in June.  Good luck to Hank, Pat  and the Eagles we will worry about Legion when they get back.

Speaking of Legion, Monday night is opening night and any one who has a schedule it says and away game Monday and a home game next Wednesday.  Got an e-mail from Joe Bell the Athletic officer of Post 58 and the games have been flip-flopped.  Post 58 first home game is Monday night at 7.oopm  at the Rocky Mount American Legion Field.

The last weekend of the ACC baseball race is underway and North Carolina got clipped by Virginia in Chapel Hill.  If the Wahoos win all three they will steal the Coastal division from the Tar Heels.  The Tar Heels need one this weekend.  N C State beat Duke in game one and they need to sweep Duke and hope Clemson wins two of three at Florida St.  They got half of it last night as Clemson wore out FSU.  The Wolfpack needs FSU to win once while they sweep Duke and if that happens they win the Atlantic Division.

That rain out game between  Carolina and State a couple of weeks back could help both or it could hurt both by the end of Saturday.

The Spurs ended Golden State's season last night and the Knicks a team much like the Dallas Cowboys (lot of hype) survived to play at least one more playoff game beating Indianapolis.

It is A Matter Of Integrity

There seems to be a lot of blown calls by those who are suppose to regulate sports control while sporting events are in progress the umpires or referees.  My text lit up Tuesday night from Nash Central fans livid over a fair or foul called  during the last inning of the Lady Bulldogs softball playoff game.

The game report in the Rocky Mount Telegram by writer Nick Protrowicz says the ball was clearly fair by at least a foot.  I have worked many games either in a pressbox or sidelines with Nick since he  has been reporting for the Telegram and I have never heard him in any way root for any of our local teams.  I can't say that about myself but for all the guys at the Telegram they are true reporters and not supporters of those that they covering.  I have been told by others that Nick was standing along the left field line so he was as close to the ball as you can get without being on the field.

The first question I would have about a call which seems to be clearly blown was why could the right call not be made?  Was the umpire blocked off from being able to see the play say the catcher standing up in front of him?  If that happeneed did the umpire defer help from the umpire covering the base?  If  he saw the play and thinks it was foul then I have to ask the question can the umpire see?

Having umpired softball games in the past I know that the umpire on the bases should be strattled the right field foul line with no one on base.  Once the ball is hit he should be moving toward the area behind the pitchers mound and close to second base so he should be following the flight of the ball  on anything hit to the outfield and if it hits fair he should be in position to help the homeplate ump if needed. Since I was not there did the home plate umpire ask for help?  If he didn't why didn't the field umpire over rule a wrong call?  One of the worse thing any umpire does is if they do see it called wrong they hate to step up and tell his partner in front of everyone you blew it.

Baseball of all sports can be controlled by umpires who think they are more important than the players.  I think we all know there are times after the catchers catches a pitch that we all hold our breath because we have no idea how the umpire calls balls and strikes.  I have been known to holler at umps to flip his coin faster when making up his mind.

You know we all have memories of whether in the Rocky Mount Regional final whether there was a Webb foul on Rocky Mount's last shot or even goal tending and even further whether when the ball went out of bounds off Webb.  I know many Northern Fans still moan about whether Rocky Mount crossed the goal line in football several years ago.

There are not many fans that attend any sporting event just to go watch for the enjoyment.  95% of all people who watch sports are pulling for one side or the other.  In our support of our teams we tend to see fair balls when we need a hit and a foul ball when we don't want the other side to get on.  I have been on line to the Brunswick Beacon newspaper in Shallotte just to see their version and there is no mention of the play at all.  That's what umpires and referees are there  for  to make sure that both sides have a fair chance.  All any of us can ask for is for umpires to do the best they can and if they don't know for sure ask for help.

Those that are in it for the $70 a game or think people came to the game to see them umpire need to find other activities.  I have been to many professional games, college, high school, little league  and such and I have never gone to a game yet to see the umpire.  You know the best umpires are the ones you don't know are there.

Today the sun came up again this morning so the outcome of any sporting event will not stop the world.  It is time to move on to the next blown call.  I only hope that call goes for me next time. Truly all anyone can ask for  as players and fans  is that when we leave the game every thing was done to make sure both sides got a fair shake.  Our society has become one to blame somebody else because it wasn't my fault.  The umpires have to ask themselves too.  Did I do all I could to make sure both sides got an equal chance. Umps just like teams get to move forward in the playoffs on their performance.  I wonder if this crew advanced?

"Boys We Got Practice Tomorrow"

Wrapping up his after the game speech to his player coach Pat Smith started going through the routine.  "Somebody get the bases, clean up this dugout", it was normal talk any coach gives to his team after a home game but he ended his talk with "we got practice tomorrow" because in a do or die game Rocky Mount Academy had beaten their arch rival Faith Christian 4-1 and earned a right to play another weekend.

The game pretty much was decided in the first inning after Faith pitcher Chase Roupp walked the third and fourth hitters of the first after getting the first two batters out.  Adam Bayless hit a fly ball and as I broadcast the game for a Sunday Night TV game it looked to me as if the ball once it left the bat was going to be short of the fence.   The question was could center fielder Luke Roberson or left fielder Braxton Varnell chase it down and catch it.  The answer was no as the ball kept going and going until it cleared the fence for a three run homer and  RMA had all they would need to knock off their Arch rival.

That didn't mean that a great defensive play wasn't needed as left fielder Andrew Weatherly scooped up a two out hit with a runner on second and fogged a one bounce throw to catcher Allen Hicks  who put the tag on what could have been run #2 for Faith but no. Eagle shortstop Trey Medlin was involved in two 6u-3 double plays which help Bayless' pitch count greatly 

Faith out hit RMA eight  to five but 1-0 in home runs.  Bayless also pitched a complete game for RMA who now travels to High Point Friday to play a weekend series for the State Independent  2-A title against West Chester Day of High Point.  West Chester is the defending 2-A winners from last year where they won it at Rocky Mount Academy who hosted the state title last year.

The news is not good anywhere else from around the area as Nash Central lost their second round softball game at home 1-0.  Hunt lost their second round baseball game 3-0.  The Big East baseball teams scored five runs in five playoff games this year.  They were 1-4 in the playoffs.