Tag Archives: Mississippi Valley State

20 Aug

celebration

The Mississippi Braves in conjunction with Jackson State will pay tribute to the Negro Leagues during tonight’s doubleheader against Pensacola at Trustmark Park in Pearl. The M-Braves will don the uniform of the 1938 Atlanta Black Crackers. JSU officials, as part of their Family and Friends Night celebration, will also honor former Tigers players who went on to big league careers. The M-Braves’ Negro Leagues tribute was originally planned for 2020, marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro National League, but the season was canceled by the pandemic. Cool Papa Bell, a National Baseball Hall of Fame member, is the most recognizable former Negro Leagues star from Mississippi; the entrance road into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum and Smith-Wills Stadium is named after the Starkville native. But an array of others from the Magnolia State also made a mark in black baseball. Here’s a few names to know: William Foster, who grew up in Rodney and attended and coached at Alcorn State, is also in the national Hall of Fame and is widely considered the best left-handed pitcher in Negro League annals. He starred on three pennant winners with the great Chicago American Giants teams of the late 1920s and early ’30s. Howard Easterling, from Mt. Olive, was a five-time All-Star and won a Negro League World Series title with the 1943 Homestead Grays. Jonestown native Luke Easter, the first black Mississippian to play in the majors, got his start in the Negro Leagues. The legendary slugger played until he was 49 and hit 385 career homers, 93 in the majors with Cleveland. Sam Hairston, from Crawford, won a batting Triple Crown with the Indianapolis Clowns in 1950 and played briefly for the Chicago White Sox in 1951. He is the patriarch of MLB’s first three-generation black family. Rufus Lewis, a Hattiesburg native, was a star pitcher from 1936-50 and won 18 games plus Game 7 of the Negro League World Series for the 1946 Newark Eagles. JSU officials will give a nod to Kelvin Moore, the first school alumnus to make it to the big leagues. Among those who followed are Oil Can Boyd, Dave Clark, Marvin Freeman and Wes Chamberlain. HBCU notes: Mississippi Valley State has named Milton Barney Jr. as its new coach. The former Gulfport High star and Alcorn State assistant coach replaces Stanley Stubbs, who resigned after one season reportedly due to health concerns. Barney is the son of Milton Barney Sr., a former Alcorn State football star, and grandson of Pro Football Hall of Famer Lem Barney, who starred at Jackson State. … JSU lost longtime assistant coach and former player Chadwick Hall, who has taken the reins at Tuskegee. … JSU recently added a power bat to its roster for 2023 with the signing of Peeko Townsend from Northwest Mississippi Community College. The 6-foot, 230-pound outfielder hit 11 homers in 42 games for the Rangers and belted eight in 18 games in the Cotton States League this summer.

27 Jul

odds and ends

Stanley Stubbs, who won championships at two colleges in Georgia and coached at Rust College the last two years, will be named coach at Mississippi Valley State on Wednesday. Stubbs succeeds Aaron Stevens, fired after an 0-20 season. Stubbs is a Booneville native who played at Northeast Mississippi Community College and was an assistant coach under Bob Braddy at Jackson State for several years. Rust, an NAIA program, finished 13-20 in 2021. Alcorn State has yet to name a replacement for Brett Richardson, who was not retained after a 7-20 season. … The Mississippi Braves are riding an eight-game losing streak as they head into a 12-game road trip that begins tonight at Pensacola. The Double-A club’s longest losing streak since it arrived in Pearl in 2005 is nine. At 40-32, the M-Braves no longer have the Double-A South’s best record. … Whatever happened to Corey Dickerson? Well, the former Meridian Community College star is expected to begin a rehab assignment this week for the Toronto Blue Jays. Dickerson was on the injured list (foot) with Miami when he was traded on June 29. The veteran outfielder hit .260 with two homers in 62 games for the Marlins. … No surprise really that the top two teams in the Cotton States League North feature the college summer league’s top two pitchers. Will Cook, of Holmes Community College, is 4-0 with a 1.38 ERA for the Tupelo Thunder, 13-6 heading into the season’s final weekend in New Albany. Camron Wright, a lefty from Itawamba CC, is 3-1, 1.66 for the North Delta Dealers, also 13-6. The Dealers took two of three from the Thunder back in June, with Cook notching Tupelo’s lone win. Wright pitched well in the rubber game but didn’t get a decision. … Among the array of stars who’ll be formally inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday night are two baseball icons: former high school coach Jerry Boatner and renowned stadium architect Janet Marie Smith. In addition, Con Maloney, longtime owner of Jackson’s Texas League franchise, will receive the Rube Award, which recognizes lifetime contributions to Mississippi sports and is named in honor former sports museum director Michael Rubenstein.

30 Mar

theory of relativity

Frustration is relative. Mississippi State is hurting, having been battered in three straight games at home by Arkansas. “We got manhandled,” a downcast coach Chris Lemonis said in his postgame video conference. One Bulldogs player called the performance “embarrassing.” State, a consensus national top five last week, slipped to 17-7, 2-4 in the SEC and tumbled in the polls. Suddenly, the Bulldogs have things to prove. Comes now a game tonight at Dudy Noble Field against Mississippi Valley State, where frustration is at a whole ’nother level. The Delta Devils are 0-9, 0-6 in the SWAC. They’ve scored just eight runs all season. Their pitchers are struggling to get outs (.380 batting average against), but so is their defense (35 unearned runs allowed). Valley is 0-27 all-time against State. If there was ever a good time for the Devils to catch the Bulldogs, tonight isn’t it. Frustration is relative.

09 Mar

spotlight on …

Of all the wins racked up by Mississippi colleges over the weekend, none was more significant than Millsaps College’s conquest on Sunday of nationally ranked Birmingham-Southern. The Majors, coming off the worst season in coach Jim Page’s long tenure, were 5-7 heading into their Southern Athletic Association opening series on the road against the No. 8 team in NCAA Division III. BSC is the defending SAA champion and D-III College World Series runner-up. The teams split a doubleheader to begin the series, setting up Sunday’s rubber game that the Majors won in blowout fashion, 12-7. Behind home runs from Fritz Walker III and Chris Hart, the Majors bolted to a 10-1 lead. Erstwhile football player Walker, batting .362, leads the team with four homers and 18 RBIs. Hart, a Northwest Rankin High product, entered the game just 5-for-45 on the season. He banged out three hits, including a grand slam that was his first homer of the year. An unsung hero for the Majors was freshman Brady Davis, who recorded the last five outs to snuff out any BSC comeback hopes. … Meanwhile, tough times continued for Mississippi Valley State, which was swept in a home SWAC series against Alabama State to fall to 0-13. Two of the Delta Devils’ six SWAC losses were by one run and two were by two runs. Valley hasn’t scored more than four runs in any game and has managed that total only twice.

15 Mar

measuring stick

The Magnolia State’s NCAA Division I schools should get some good barometer readings this weekend. Mississippi State, 16-1 and ranked in everybody’s top 10, gets its first true road test of the season when it opens SEC play at nationally ranked Florida (14-5). Nationally ranked Ole Miss (12-5) starts league play with a home series against Alabama, 16-2 but unranked. Southern Miss, wobbling a bit at 8-6, begins defense of its C-USA regular season title at Louisiana Tech (11-5), which features a bunch of Mississippi connections, including coach Lane Burroughs, a former USM assistant. And at Magnolia Field in Itta Bena, Jackson State and Mississippi Valley State, both still feeling their way, will lock up in a big SWAC series. JSU is 5-13 (1-2 SWAC) against a schedule that has included Boston College, Mississippi State, UNO and Miami (Fla.). Weather issues have limited Valley to six games; the Delta Devils are 1-5 (0-1 SWAC), including an 8-1 loss at Memphis on Tuesday, and have not played a home game. Equon Smith leads JSU hitters with a .348 average and has scored 15 runs. Raul Hernandez is at .309 with two homers and 16 RBIs. Wesley Reyes (.208) and Dezmond Chumley (.190), preseason All-SWAC picks, have yet to click. Morgan Lomax is hitting .409 for Valley, and Billy Leflore checks in at .381. Neither club has pitched particularly well, and that’ll probably be the key to the series. JSU has a 5.89 ERA, though Kevin Perez (2-1, 3.38) and Garth Cahill (2.18 in nine appearances) have been solid. Valley is at 9.56, having only once held an opponent to fewer than eight runs. Aaron Barkley has the lone win and a 1.50 ERA in six innings of work.

27 Feb

making news

Mississippi Valley State finally got on the field Tuesday for its first game of the season after a couple of postponements. The Delta Devils lost 4-2 at Arkansas State, giving up a lead in the eighth inning. The bigger news from the Delta on Tuesday comes from Cleveland, where Delta State beat Arkansas Tech 9-2 to improve to 13-0 – matching its best-ever start – and also learned that it has jumped to No. 1 in the NCBWA’s NCAA Division II poll. The Statesmen returned just one regular position player from the outstanding 2018 team, but Mike Kinnison has kept the green machine humming, as he always seems to do. DSU is hitting .301 with 87 runs, led by David Herrington (.431), Darek Sargent (.340, 17 RBIs) and the remarkable Jake Barlow, who hit for the cycle on Sunday, belted a grand slam on Tuesday and is batting .412 with three homers and 15 RBIs. Not to be overlooked by any means is DSU’s pitching staff, which has a ridiculous 0.90 ERA. Hunter Riggins is 4-0 with an 0.33, Seth Hougesen 3-0, 0.73 and Melvin Frazier 3-0, 1.29. The Statesmen play Arkansas Tech again today at Ferriss Field, then head to Georgia for a weekend Gulf South series against Shorter.

13 Apr

doing the math

You don’t have to be a sabermetrician to figure out that this weekend’s Jackson State-Mississippi Valley State series doesn’t favor the host Delta Devils. JSU, which sits atop the SWAC East at 12-3, leads the league in batting. Valley ranks last. JSU leads the league in ERA. Valley ranks last (with a 9.40!). And yet, the Delta Devils have managed to scare up six wins in 12 conference games, including one against the Tigers in Jackson last month. So maybe the stuff on paper won’t mean that much when the two old rivals hit Magnolia Field in Itta Bena, where they’re slated for single games today, Saturday and Sunday. Still, it’s hard to get away from the numbers. JSU trots out a lineup that features the SWAC’s leading hitter, Raul Hernandez (.398), and several others over .300. (Valley has one.) The Tigers’ Jesus Santana is one of the top sluggers in the conference with eight homers and 33 RBIs. (Valley has three homers total.) JSU’s Kevin Perez tops the SWAC in wins with seven and Jose Tirado in saves with nine. (Valley has eight wins all told.) What the Delta Devils could use is another Aaron Barkley or two. (Or three.) The sophomore catcher from California is the team’s lone .300 hitter (at .303) and also carries a 1.59 ERA with a win and two saves in nine relief appearances. Go get ’em.

15 Feb

other guys

You know these names: Wallner, Rolison, Pilkington. They’re the stars at the state’s Big 3 Division I schools, the centers of preseason attention. Here are some names from outside the spotlight, lesser-heralded players who could have significant impact this season, which begins Friday. At Southern Miss, there’s Luke Reynolds, a transfer from Mississippi State, which the Golden Eagles meet in the opener in Hattiesburg. Forest native Reynolds is expected to replace Taylor Braley at third base for USM. Reynolds batted .304 at State in 2015. He left the program in 2016 without playing in a game but still had to sit out last season. He did play summer ball, batting .306 with four homers in the New England Collegiate Baseball League. In 2014, Reynolds was the star on the Hinds Community College team that made it to the NJCAA Division II title game. He hit .376 that year. … At Ole Miss, which opens against Winthrop in Oxford, there’s Tim Rowe. The Hernando native, a senior outfielder/DH who batted .254 with three homers and 20 RBIs in 2017, has some power in his bat, something the Rebels need with top sluggers Colby Bortles and Tate Blackman having moved on to pro ball. Two years ago at Itawamba Community College, Rowe hit .418 with eight homers and 48 RBIs. … At State, there’s Ethan Small, a sophomore left-hander who missed 2017 after Tommy John surgery. Konnor Pilkington sits atop the Bulldogs’ rotation and Riley Self and Spencer Price man the back end of the bullpen. Small is one of the other pieces – and he could be poised for a breakout campaign if he can harness his nasty stuff. A two-time prep All-America pick in Tennessee, he pitched sparingly as a freshman in 2016 but is penciled in as the No. 2 starter now. P.S. Alcorn State again starts its season in the Andre Dawson Classic (formerly the MLB Urban Invitational) in New Orleans. The Braves’ first game is against Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Friday. Mississippi Valley State hosts South Dakota State in Itta Bena. Jackson State opens on Feb. 20 at the University of New Orleans.

04 Apr

come together

Players roll out from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Canada, Curacao, South Africa, Venezuela, the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands. Sounds like a World Baseball Classic event has convened, but it’s just an everyday occurrence at Jackson State. Coach Omar Johnson’s multicultural team, which also includes eight players from good ol’ Mississippi, is showing signs of coming together after an uneven start. The Tigers, who take their show on the road to Biloxi tonight for an exhibition game with the minor league Shuckers, blew away Mississippi Valley State in a three-game series over the weekend. By beating the Delta Devils 10-3, 16-5 and 19-9, JSU moved its SWAC record to 6-3 (after an 0-3 start). Overall, the Tigers are 17-11. Jesus Santana (Puerto Rico) hit three home runs, two of them grand slams, in the Valley series and leads the team with nine homers and 37 RBIs. Such production was expected from Santana, a preseason player of the year candidate in the SWAC. Also contributing good stuff is catcher Carlos Diaz, another Puerto Rico product who is raking at a .451 clip; pitcher Miguel Yrigoyen, a Venezuela native who is 4-2; Canadian Jesse Anderson, who has three saves; and C.J. Newsome, who hails from Columbia, the city in south Mississippi. Newsome was drafted by Miami out of CHS last summer but elected to play at JSU. Tiger Nation should be thrilled. The 5-foot-9 outfielder, who had eight hits, six RBIs and six runs in the Valley series, is hitting .382 with 31 runs.

01 Oct

three of a kind

At some point during Instructional League in Florida, the Toronto Blue Jays could trot out an outfield of three Mississippians. (Since no box scores are available from this league, it may already have happened.) The Blue Jays have former Petal High star Anthony Alford, Stone County product D.J. Davis and Mississippi Valley State alum Kalik May in their Dunedin camp this fall. All three have multiple tools and, presumably, bright futures. Alford, a third-round pick in 2012 who gave up football last year, is the most advanced. The 6-foot-1, 205-pound right-handed hitter batted .298 with four homers, 35 RBIs and 27 steals at two levels of A-ball. He was anointed by Baseball America as the best player in the Toronto system. Not far behind is Davis, 6-1, 180, a left-handed hitter drafted in the first round in 2012. He had a strong second year at low Class A Lansing: .282, seven homers, 59 RBIs and 21 bags. He is rated the No. 12 prospect in the system by mlb.com; Alford is No. 3. May, 6-2, 205, was just drafted in June, in the 33rd round. More project than prospect at this time, the switch-hitter batted .261 with two homers, 12 RBIs and 10 stolen bases in the Gulf Coast League — not a bad start. As a senior at Valley in 2015, May hit .335 with four homers, 33 RBIs and 22 steals. He was a standout at East Central Community College in 2012-13 (where he played with Chicago White Sox prospect Tim Anderson). Obviously, the odds of Alford, Davis and May reaching the big leagues with the Blue Jays at the same time would have to be pretty long. But, hey, stuff like that happens in baseball. The three Alous in San Francisco. The Young, Frank and Stynes outfield in Cincinnati. … Note, also, that the Blue Jays have a fourth Mississippi-connected outfielder in their system but not in the IL: Alcorn State alum Earl Burl III, a 30th-round selection in June who batted .216 at short season Class A Vancouver.