RSS Feed
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Sports You just never know what you will see
I was at a softball game recently. It was tournament play and for some reason a game started with just one umpire. Now that in itself is not strange or odd. But what happened in the first inning was one of those things that falls into the category of stuff you just can't make up. I forget what batter was at the plate, but all of a sudden the umpire calls timeout, steps from behind the plate and.....answers his cell phone. I could not believe what I had just seen. I have seen time called for all types of reasons, but never for the cell phone to be answered. Now in all fairness the call was to let him know another official was on the way to help finish calling the game. But still it was the funniest thing I have seen on a ball diamond in years. I actually felt sorry for the man by having to do the job by himself to begin with and then that one thing put the icing on the cake. While on the subject of the national pastime it goes without saying that we have some very good teams and some outstanding individual performers in this area. Two teams currently hold down the top spot in their respective polls as Clarke Prep is number one in the AISA and Jackson is on top in Class 4A. The Leroy Bears are ranked high in Class 2A and have reeled off about 14 straight wins. As funny as this game is, you just never know what will happen when the playoffs start. It is anyone's game then, but I think we have some folks who will make enough noise to go deep. As far as players go, you will be hard-pressed to find a pitcher rolling along better than JHS; Jon Luke Jacobs. I think the Auburn-signee is averaging about 14 or 15 strike-outs a game. In high school ball teams play seven innings so a pitcher faces a minimum of 21 batters. That means that Jacobs mows down about two-thirds of the folks he faces. On the flip side we have Thomasville's Jake Overstreet. he signed to play third base with the University of South Alabama. With the Tigers he has been forced to play shortstop, but he is still getting his hits and the Tigers will go down to the wire with Jackson for the area title. Another player is Clarke County's Hunter Cross. the junior has hit safely in 21 or 22 games this season. That is good no matter what class. Clarke Prep, even though they seemingly graduated the entire starting line-up from a statechampionship team has been led by the two-headed monster of Chad Dickinson on the mound and Clay Furrow at the plate. Dickinson, as a freshman pitched the title clinching game, is 8-0 and made former topranked Tuscaloosa look silly two weeks ago while Furrow is a double-hitting machine. He is averaging almost one per game. It is a team sport, but the individuals are called on to do their part when the occasion arises. It should be fun watching during the final month of the regular season as teams jockey for playoff positions. Each team knows that there is an awful lot of ball left to be played. Good luck in the coming weeks and hopefully we will have a chance to bring more of those gold trophies back to this area.
That's all folks......
|
for larger version       Ads have a Patent Pending. Click Here for More Information |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
