Monthly Archives: March 2011

The Jackson Generals produced quite a few standout major leaguers during their time at Smith-Wills Stadium (1991-99), but only two former Gens made MLB Network’s all-time single season Astros lineup. Lance Berkman (for his 2001 Houston campaign) made the team as the left fielder and Richard Hidalgo (2000) as the center fielder. An ex-Jackson Met, Mike Scott (1986), was picked as the pitcher. Many of the Generals alumni made their mark with other clubs (see Bobby Abreu, Julio Lugo, Melvin Mora, Freddy Garcia). Berkman was the last of the former Generals hanging on with the Astros when he was traded away last summer. But there are still some Mississippi ties in Houston. Former Jackson Mets shortstop Al Pedrique is the bench coach for manager Brad Mills, and Dave Clark, the ex-Shannon High and Jackson State star, coaches third base. And on the field, there’s Nettleton’s Bill Hall. Hall, signed by Houston to add pop to their lineup at second base, hit his first homer of the spring on Tuesday. This came a day after he had a verbal confrontation with Philadelphia pitcher Cole Hamels, who brushed Hall back with a pitch after the previous batter had homered. Hall was staunchly criticized by the MLB Network crew for his antics, and rightly so. The Astros are Hall’s fourth team in three years. That’s usually a bad sign. He might want to keep his mouth shut and just play the game. Otherwise, this particular Mississippi-Houston connection might start to break up.
P.S. Southern Miss’ B.A. Vollmuth belted his sixth homer of the year on Tuesday. The junior shortstop, a third-team preseason All-America pick by Baseball America in 2010, didn’t make their 2011 list despite hitting .386 with 20 homers a year ago. Seems odd. He also wasn’t among BA’s top 50 draft projections for this June. Vollmuth, who goes 6 feet 4, 200 pounds, was a 32nd-round pick (by Houston) coming out of Biloxi High in 2008. It’ll be interesting to see how much higher he goes this summer.

So much for Ole Miss overlooking Jackson State (see previous post). Matt Tracy struck out 11 over seven innings as the Rebels whipped the Tigers 8-0 in Oxford tonight. … Meanwhile, there was an upset of sorts tonight in Jackson, where Millsaps pounded defending NCAA Division III national champion Illinois Wesleyan 15-4 in a 6 1/2-inning, 10-run rule contest. Of course, 11th-ranked Illinois Wesleyan was playing its second game of the day, having beaten Mississippi College 7-5 in 10 innings in Clinton in a matinee. Millsaps, ranked No. 24 in D-III, and the visitors from the north play again Wednesday.
P.S. Among Delta State’s 2011 Sports Hall of Fame class are Dee Haynes, who won an NCAA Division II national player of the year award in 2000, and Jason Page, a D-II All-American in 1996. The inductees were announced today. The ceremony is April 1 in Cleveland.

If there is such a thing as a “trap game” in baseball, tonight’s Jackson State-Ole Miss clash might qualify. Ole Miss is 13-4 coming off a weekend sweep of Lipscomb and has to be thinking about this weekend’s SEC-opening series against Alabama. Jackson State is coming to Oxford (6:30 p.m. first pitch) with a 7-7 record. The Tigers, from the unsung Southwestern Athletic Conference, are 0-4 all-time against the Rebels. While Rebels fans stifle a yawn, they might want to remember that JSU beat Mississippi State 3-1 last year. JSU was the preseason favorite to win the SWAC this year and has some quality arms, one of which is likely to throw against Ole Miss. UM will go with erstwhile outfielder Matt Tracy, who has a 6.14 ERA in limited pitching appearances this spring. (He is hitting .348, which happens to lead the club.) So, it could get interesting in Oxford. Then again, probably not.

On a day packed with noteworthy wins by Mississippi colleges big and small, don’t overlook what happened in Hattiesburg. William Carey, which has been scuffling, posted a doubleheader sweep of NAIA ninth-ranked Southern Poly State at Wheeler Field. The Crusaders did it with pitching, holding their Southern States Athletic Conference foe to three runs and 10 hits over 17 innings. Scotty Reese threw a five-hit shutout over seven innings in a 2-0 win in the opener, and Kody James, on in relief of Taylor Martin, threw 2 2/3 hitless innings in a 4-3, 10-inning win in Game 2. Carey improved to 11-8. The games did not count in the SSAC standings since the teams are in different divisions. Carey’s first SSAC West Division games are next weekend against Loyola-New Orleans.

Two shining moments from Friday: Ole Miss’ Matt Crouse throws a four-hit shutout to beat Lipscomb 8-0; and Belhaven’s Derek Tortorich belts a two-out, two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to beat Truett-McConnell 3-1. Gotta know more. Crouse is a 6-foot-4, 183-pound junior left-hander from Haymarket, Va. He spent a year at Young Harris Junior College in Georgia before transferring to Ole Miss for the 2010 season. Crouse was 5-1 with a 3.74 ERA last year; so far in 2011, as the Rebels’ new No. 1 starter, he is 4-0 with a 1.67 and 22 strikeouts (nine on Friday) in 27 innings. He has issued only two walks. That’s command. Tortorich is a 6-1, 200-pound senior from Picayune by way of Pearl River Community College. He shared catching duties last year on the Blazers’ NAIA World Series team and hit .257 with five homers and 27 RBIs. For 2011, he’s hitting .333 with two homers and 11 RBIs. Few homers at spacious Smith-Wills Stadium are cheap, especially now with the new bats. That makes Tortorich’s walk-off blow Friday all the more impressive.

Millsaps is on its way to San Antonio today for an always compelling series against Trinity. Regardless of the sport, something interesting is bound to happen when these Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference rivals get together. This weekend’s baseball series — single games Saturday and Sunday — matches teams tied for first in the SCAC West at 6-1. “We’re heading into the lion’s den,” Millsaps coach Jim Page said. “But it’s always fun playing those guys. If you’re not looking forward to a game against Trinity, you shouldn’t be doing this.” Page’s Majors are 11-5 overall, which has the coach a little disappointed. “We really haven’t played well yet,” he said. “You gotta think that when we start to play better, maybe it’ll be something special.” He has no complaints about the pitching. The staff has a 3.60 ERA. No. 1 starter Aaron Williams is 3-0 with a 3.10 ERA, and fifth-year senior Jason Riggins has been a revelation as a utility arm, posting a 2-0 record, one save and a 1.26 ERA in six appearances. “He’s really been a critical factor,” Page said. Defense let the Majors down in a 3-2 home loss to Huntingdon on Wednesday, but Page feels OK about the gloves. It’s the bats that need to wake up. The Majors are hitting just .287 overall with the new, toned-down sticks. Senior Will Hawkins is raking at a cool .464 clip, but many are scuffling. Page has always liked to play aggressively on the bases, and that tactic is paying off in a big way this spring. The team has 52 stolen bases, led by Hawkins with 14. Six players have four or more steals. “Seven of the nine in our lineup are a real threat to steal,” Page said. The running game could loom large against Trinity, which sports a 17-2 record and, like Millsaps, has designs on an NCAA Division III Tournament bid.

This is a spring of some import for Chris Coghlan in the Florida Marlins’ camp. The onetime Ole Miss star is coming off knee surgery and moving from left to center field. He was the National League rookie of the year in 2009, when he hit. 321 with nine homers, 47 RBIs and 10 steals in 121 games. After a sluggish start last season, he was hitting .268 with five homers and eight steals in 91 games when he tore up his left knee during some postgame hi-jinks. His wheels are everything. He’s the Marlins’ leadoff batter in addition to his new duties patrolling the middle in the outfield. The Marlins are proceeding with caution this spring. Coghlan started back-to-back games for the first time Sunday and Monday, took Tuesday off and isn’t in the lineup today. He told mlb.com on Tuesday that his repaired knee is making “steady improvement.”

Mississippi College appears to have found its stride, scoring 63 runs during its current four-game win streak. The Choctaws, scheduled to begin American Southwest Conference play this weekend at Louisiana College, are 7-6. Senior outfielder Brandon Benton was named the ASC East hitter of the week after going 9-for-15 with three homers in four games last week. The well-traveled Benton, a Pearl High alum who has also played at Hinds Community College and Belhaven, is hitting .435 for the season in eight games. … Millsaps swept Austin College in a Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference series over the weekend to improve to 11-4 overall and 6-1 in the league. The number that jumps out for the Majors: 51. That’s their stolen base total. Leading the way is senior Will Hawkins, better known for his power, with 13 steals. … Belhaven (14-5) took Monday’s rubber game against Loyola-New Orleans to move to 2-1 in the Southern States Athletic Conference. Josh Clarke, from Clinton via Hinds CC, got his third save in Monday’s 6-3 win; he could be a key piece down the stretch for the Blazers. … On the junior college front, Pearl River improved to 12-2 with a sweep of East Mississippi on Sunday. The Wildcats rode the pitching of Buck Bernard and Robert Marzoni. And Hinds (11-3) split a Monday doubleheader against defending national champ LSU-Eunice; the Eagles let a 3-1 lead get away in the seventh inning of Game 1 but bounced back for an 11-8 win in Game 2, getting a home run from Morris Grant.

We’re one month out. Opening day for the Mississippi Braves is April 7 at Trustmark Park. New manager Rocket Wheeler takes the reins of a club that has made two postseason appearances in its six years of existence, the last in 2008. This could be a contending team, possibly featuring the United Nations Rotation (Colombia’s Julio Teheran, Panama’s Randall Delgado, the Dominican Republic’s Arodys Vizcaino and Americans J.J. Hoover and Brett Oberholtzer — all top 10 prospects in the system) and some promising young position players (shortstop Tyler Pastornicky, outfielders Mycal Jones, Cory Harrilchak and Adam Milligan and second baseman Phil Gosselin). So, watch the standings. But watch the attendance figures, too. Not so much opening day, which will be a big number, but Games 3, 4 and 5 of that first series. Official attendance at the TeePee dipped to 2,620 last season. The regular season average has fallen each year since the club drew 3,847 in 2005. That’s not good. M-Braves officials have made a concerted effort this off-season to boost ticket sales, hoping to reverse that trend. The first homestand might give an indication of where the number is headed.
P.S. Rashun Dixon, the former Terry High star, put up some numbers in a split squad game for Oakland on Sunday. Dixon, the A’s No. 28 prospect, had a hit, scored a run and drove in two against Milwaukee. He played in low-A ball last year, so he’s a few years away from The Show, but his career track bears watching.

The schedule serves up an appetizing slate of games for many of the state’s colleges this weekend. (Weather permitting, of course. It’s March in Mississippi, so anything can happen and probably will.) Still, here’s the best of the menu: Ole Miss hosts Tulane for a three-game set starting tonight that could test the nationally ranked Rebels’ mettle. Alcorn State is at Mississippi Valley for a three-game Southwestern Athletic Conference series that begins with a Saturday doubleheader. Jackson State is at SWAC rival Alabama State for single games on Saturday and Sunday. Belhaven and William Carey play their first Southern States Athletic Conference games, the nationally ranked Blazers (12-4) visiting Loyola-New Orleans today and Saturday (twinbill) and the Crusaders (8-6) traveling to Truett-McConnell for a game today and two on Saturday. Mississippi College, off to a scuffling start at 3-6, faces a non-conference road series against McMurry. The main dish for the weekend is cooking at Twenty Field in Jackson, where Millsaps will host Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference foe Austin College for a three-game set (two Saturday, one Sunday). The Majors are 9-4, 4-1 SCAC, and 5-0 at home. Will Hawkins, the senior thumper from Nettleton, is hitting .456 with two homers and 20 RBIs. Another appealing entree will be served up in Raymond, where Hinds Community College is hosting the Wes Cliburn Memorial Tournament. Nationally ranked HCC (10-2) is scheduled to play defending NJCAA champion LSU-Eunice (8-3) on Saturday at 6. Anybody hungry?