wait for it …
Oxford High’s Jason Barber, the Gatorade Player of the Year in Mississippi in 2015, has officially signed with Ole Miss, which announced a boatload of early signees this week. Mississippi State inked highly regarded Magnolia Heights products Riley Self and Dustin Skelton, among others, for its 2017 team. Southern Miss picked up juco stars Colt Smith and LeeMarcus Boyd from Northwest Mississippi Community College. Barber had a tremendous 2015 season: 10-0, 0.00 ERA as a pitcher, .337, eight homers as a hitter. Boyd’s numbers suggest an impact player: .330, 18 steals, 42 runs, 29 RBIs in 49 games at NWMCC. Of course, there is a catch. The “excitement,” if it can be called that, of the early signing period in college baseball is always tempered by the realization that the best of the signees may never put on the uniform of their chosen school. The MLB draft tends to snap them up. See Austin Riley, State signee from the fall of 2014, now a hot prospect in the Atlanta Braves’ system. It’s a quirky issue the other major sports don’t have to deal with. P.S. Conference USA might have scored a hit with its decision to hold its tournament at MGM Park, the new home of the Double-A Biloxi Shuckers, in 2017 and 2018. The Coast, with its casinos and beaches, might just draw some big crowds. Dates for the events haven’t been announced, but they’ll fall somewhere in mid-May.