11 Feb

crank her up

The lawnmower doesn’t always crank the first time for that first mow of the season. Some sputtering and stalling out can occur. Delta State’s baseball team knows the feeling. The Statesmen’s engine didn’t turn over for the start of their season. They scored just five runs (and stranded 24 baserunners) in three straight losses to Nova Southeastern in Florida over the weekend. Next up is Arkansas-Monticello today. Look for DSU to rev it up against the Boll Weevils. William Carey also got off to a sluggish start, losing its first five games before finally notching a victory. But there were no such problems for Belhaven, Mississippi College and Hinds Community College, to mention a few. BU is 6-2, including a win over NAIA defending national champion Cumberland, and winds up its nine-game season-opening homestand today against winless Tougaloo. Emilio DeSilva and Joey Harris are both humming along at .400 for the Blazers and have combined to drive in 24 runs. MC mowed over Tougaloo three straight by a 51-9 cumulative score and then chewed up equally outmanned Lemoyne-Owen 21-1 and 7-0 on Tuesday. Former Starkville Academy star Hunter Bolin is batting an eye-popping .588 with eight RBIs and nine runs for the Choctaws. Hinds, ranked No. 2 in the juco polls, beat Mineral Area (Mo.) in a pair of doubleheaders last weekend as Chase Lunceford cranked out six hits in 10 at-bats with a homer, two RBIs and five runs.

07 Feb

eye on …

For most young players, a non-roster invitation to major league spring training is just ceremonial. They’ll get a look and a taste of big-league life, but they aren’t a real threat to make the 25-man cut for the start of the season. But Jacob Lindgren, the former Mississippi State and St. Stanislaus High star, definitely bears watching in the coming weeks in the New York Yankees’ camp. Despite having pitched only 24 2/3 innings as a pro, the 5-foot-11 left-hander is being mentioned as a viable candidate for the Yanks’ bullpen. Lindgren was almost unhittable at State last year: 0.81 ERA, 100 strikeouts in 55 innings. The Yankees took him with their top pick — 55th overall — and Lindgren moved swiftly though four levels of the minors last summer. He recorded a 2.19 ERA, 48 strikeouts and 13 walks and did not allow a home run. He throws in the mid-90s and scouting reports say his slider may be the best in the Yankees’ minor league system. The Yankees have a strong bullpen, including veteran lefties Andrew Miller and Justin Wilson. But there is always room for another quality southpaw. P.S. Another ex-MSU lefty, MLB veteran Paul Maholm, recently signed a minor league deal with Cincinnati and will be in the Reds’ camp. Maholm pitched for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2014.

06 Feb

something new

With a roster chock-full of newcomers, Mississippi College enters a brave new world this season. Ready or not, MC starts play in NCAA Division II and in the Gulf South Conference. Actually, MC has been here before, but that was 20 years ago. There is some catching up to do. The Choctaws open Friday against an NAIA foe, Tougaloo, at Frierson Field in Clinton. Though still in transition from non-scholarship D-III to D-II, MC will play a full slate of GSC games, starting with a series at Christian Brothers next weekend. “We’ve been putting (the players) through the ringer the last few weeks, trying to get ready,” said Choctaws coach Brian Owens, the former Mississippi State pitcher now in his ninth season as the head man in Clinton. MC returns 11 lettermen from last year’s club, which went 21-19 (18-15 in the American Southwest Conference). Pitchers Brooks Fortenberry (4-4, 2.21 ERA) and Jayme Monroe (5-5, 3.28) and position players Marty Stringfellow (.362) and Hunter Bolin (.298, 13 steals) head the cast of returnees. There are 26 newcomers on the roster, and how they mesh together while also adapting to the D-II level will tell the tale on MC’s season. … Old MC rival Delta State, also sporting a remade roster, opens Friday against Nova Southeastern in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The Statesmen, under veteran coach Mike Kinnison, were pegged by league coaches to win the ever-tough GSC, this despite losing six regular position players and five key pitchers from a 38-13 team. Among the missing is Will Robertson, who led the league in hitting (.388) in 2014 but reportedly will miss this season with an injury. Landon Thibodeaux (.327, five homers, 31 RBIs) and Jonathon Moody (9-4, 2.98), both first-team All-GSC in 2014, are back. … Also of note: West Florida, picked to finish third in the GSC, has added some Mississippi flavor to its roster: former East Mississippi Community College star Ladarious Clark and ex-Jones County JC standout Jordan Stark.

04 Feb

here and there

Cody Satterwhite, on the comeback trail from a variety of injuries, has received a non-roster invite to the New York Mets’ big league spring camp. The former Ole Miss standout from Jackson, now 28, notched 15 saves with a 2.33 ERA at Double-A Binghamton in 2014. It wouldn’t be a shock to see him land a role in the Mets’ bullpen. … Former Mississippi State ace Chris Stratton, San Francisco’s top pick in 2012, has a non-roster invite to the Giants’ camp. Stratton, from Tupelo, reached Double-A last season. … Belhaven University, 4-0 after whipping Tougaloo 16-2 on Tuesday, will host the BU Invitational starting Thursday at Smith-Wills Stadium. The Blazers will play Culver-Stockton; NAIA nationally ranked Missouri Baptist, which swept William Carey three straight last weekend; and NAIA national champ Cumberland University. … Tougaloo’s game at Belhaven on Tuesday marked the coaching debut of former Jackson State star (and onetime Jackson Generals pitcher) Earl Sanders. … Blue Mountain went 1-2 last weekend at Georgia Gwinnett despite allowing 36 runs. … Hinds Community College, the No. 2 team in the national juco polls, has moved its opener to Friday (from Saturday) in Raymond. The Eagles will play two against Mineral Area (Mo.). … Also opening on Friday are Mississippi College, which will take on Tougaloo at Frierson Field in Clinton, and Delta State, which travels to Nova Southeastern in Florida. … The NCAA Division I schools start on Feb. 13. Both State and Ole Miss are ranked in various national polls. … Also slated to start on Feb. 13 is Division III Millsaps, which hosts Ozarks (Ark.) at Twenty Field on its Jackson campus.

02 Feb

the rope

If there were questions about whether Bob Boyd could handle major league pitching, he answered them in his first career at-bat. The Potts Camp native delivered a game-tying pinch single for the Chicago White Sox on Sept. 8, 1951, at old Comiskey Park. He would go on to bat .293 over parts of nine big league seasons. In recognition of Black History Month, let us sing the praises of “The Rope,” one of the first black Mississippians to make the majors. Boyd, who earned his nickname for his knack for hitting line drives, starred in the Negro Leagues before getting his shot in MLB. He batted .362 over a four-year span with the Memphis Red Sox in the late 1940s and played in two East-West All-Star Games, according to the Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Leagues. He was the first black player signed by the White Sox in 1950, three years after Jackie Robinson’s debut. A left-handed hitting first baseman, the 5-foot-10, 170-pound Boyd didn’t have a lot of power, but he could put the ball in play. He hit .342 (and stole 41 bases) in the Pacific Coast League in 1951 and .320 in that high-caliber league in 1952. He was 31 when he got his first call to The Show and 37 before he became a regular, batting .318 for the 1957 Baltimore Orioles. He hung around the majors until 1961 and played in the minors into his mid-40s. Boyd died in Kansas in 2004.