10 Sep

eyes on prize

Having collected one championship on Thursday night, the Mississippi Braves can claim a more significant prize tonight at Trustmark Park in Pearl. A win against Montgomery would give the M-Braves the Double-A South regular season title and home-field advantage in the best-of-5 league championship series set to begin Sept. 21. The M-Braves (64-40), who have won 19 of their last 23, beat the Biscuits 4-3 on Thursday to clinch the league’s South Division title (which doesn’t mean an awful lot). The league’s top two teams by winning percentage, regardless of division, make the playoffs. The M-Braves will be one of those teams. Birmingham currently leads the North Division with a 59-52 mark, but several other teams are still in the race for the second spot. Now playing their 16th season in Pearl, the M-Braves have won one league pennant, way back in 2008, when it was known as the Southern League. The current club, which features 11 of Atlanta’s top 30 prospects (per mlb.com), leads the league in ERA and is second in home runs, a nice combo. Freddy Tarnok (No. 12 prospect) gets the start for the M-Braves tonight; he is 2-2 with a 2.86 ERA. Shea Langeliers (No. 2 prospect) figures to be behind the plate; he leads the team with 19 homers.

10 Sep

for history buffs

The first East-West Game, an All-Star contest featuring the best players in the Negro Leagues, was played on this date in 1933, with Starkville native Cool Papa Bell batting leadoff for the East and former Alcorn State player and coach William (Willie) Foster throwing the game’s first pitch for the West. Before a crowd of about 20,000 at Chicago’s old Comiskey Park, Bell flied out in the matchup of Hall of Famers. The West won the game 11-7, with Foster going the distance and allowing just two earned runs, per retrosheet.org’s box score. He also had a hit. Bell went 0-for-5 but scored a run. Foster, raised in Rodney, is considered perhaps the greatest left-hander in Negro Leagues annals, while Bell, who played in roughly a dozen East-West Games, is regarded as one of the fastest players of all-time. They are the only Magnolia State-connected players in Cooperstown. The 1933 East-West rosters also featured such notable names as Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, Oscar Charleston, Willie Wells and Mule Suttles, who hit the lone home run.