July 10, 2025 - All Mississippi Baseball

here it comes

Strap in, seamheads. An action-packed stretch of star-quality baseball is coming up, and Mississippi connections abound. The rundown:
Friday: The HBCU Swingman Classic at Truist Park in Atlanta features Jackson State’s Robert Tate Jr., Jordan McCladdie, Joseph Eichelberger, Eric Elliott, Nkosi Didder and Erick Gonzalez, Jaylon Burrell of Alcorn State and Kade Wood of Mississippi Valley State. They are among the 50 HBCU players chosen for the third annual all-star game, set for 6 p.m. CDT and televised on MLB Network. Former Alcorn star Corey Wimberly is one of the coaches for the game.
(Also on Friday in Niigata, Japan, are Games 3 (and 4) of the USA vs. Japan Collegiate All-Star Championship Series. Mississippi State’s Ace Reese and Ryan McPherson are on the Team USA roster.)
Saturday: The All-Star Futures Game (3 p.m., MLB Network) at Truist Park. Konnor Griffin (Jackson Prep), Braden Montgomery (Madison Central) and Jurrangelo Cijntje (MSU) are among the highly rated minor league prospects invited to this annual showcase. Former Jackson State star Marvin Freeman is a coach on the AL staff.
Sunday: The MLB draft begins with Rounds 1-3 (5 p.m., MLB Network). Mississippians JoJo Parker, J.B. Middleton and Landon Harmon, all ranked in the top 48 of MLB Pipeline’s latest draft prospect chart, are potential first-round picks. Former Ole Miss players Liam Doyle and Andrew Fischer, who played at Tennessee in 2025, could also be first-rounders.
(Game 5 of the USA-Japan collegiate series will played in Tokyo.)
Monday: The Home Run Derby at Truist Park (7 p.m., ESPN). Ex-MSU slugger Brent Rooker is in the field, along with former Mississippi Braves star Ronald Acuna Jr., who’ll be hitting in his home park in the ATL.
(The MLB draft continues — and if past is prologue, a slew of Mississippi products will be picked on Day 2.)
Tuesday: The 95th All-Star Game at Truist Park (7 p.m., Fox). Rooker and Ocean Springs’ Garrett Crochet are on the American League roster. Acuna and fellow former M-Braves alum Freddie Freeman (Los Angeles Dodgers) were voted in as starters for the National League, and former Biloxi Shuckers Josh Hader (now with Houston) and Freddy Peralta (Milwaukee) and M-Braves alum Max Fried (New York Yankees) will also be there.
Wednesday: The Frontier League All-Star Game at Troy, N.Y. Brian Williams, Victor Diaz and Travis Holt of the independent Mississippi Mud Monsters have been invited.

land of giants

Fueled by a pair of former Mississippi prep stars, the San Jose Giants are the behemoth of the California League. Niko Mazza, former Madison-Ridgeland Academy star, allowed one run over six innings and Dakota Jordan, ex-Jackson Academy standout, hit his ninth home run to power San Jose to a 3-1 win over Fresno on Wednesday night. The Low-Class A Giants are 13-4 in the second half, the best record in the loop, and won the first-half title in the CL North with a 42-24 mark, also a league-best. Mazza, an eighth-round draft pick in 2024 out of Southern Miss, is 3-2 with a 2.36 ERA in 14 starts this season. The right-hander, the MAIS 5A player of the year in 2021 at MRA, won nine games, including a regional complete game, for the Sun Belt champion Golden Eagles in 2024. Jordan is on a real tear. He is riding a nine-game hit streak during which he has blasted four homers and on the year is batting .302 with a league-leading 67 RBIs plus 60 runs and 27 steals. He was the state’s Gatorade player of the year at JA in 2022 and was the Ferriss Trophy winner at Mississippi State in 2024. San Francisco got him in the fourth round of last summer’s draft, potentially a major steal. P.S. Tim Elko was recalled by the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday and went 0-for-3 (three strikeouts) in a 2-1 win against Toronto. The Ole Miss alum is just 9-for-61 with four homers in his big league time but is batting .315 with 16 homers in Triple-A. … Austin Riley, Nathaniel Lowe and Matt Wallner all homered in MLB games on Wednesday, closing in a bit on all-Mississippi home run derby leader Brent Rooker, who hit his 19th for the A’s on Tuesday. Riley has 14 clouts for Atlanta, Lowe 14 for Washington and Wallner nine (in just 51 games) for Minnesota. … On this date in 1979, ex-MSU star Del Unser tied a major league record with a home run in a third straight pinch-hit appearance. Unser, playing for Philadelphia, connected for a three-run walk-off bomb against San Diego’s Rollie Fingers to tie the record set by Lee Lacy in 1978. A noted pinch hitter, Unser posted a .356 career OBP in that role over 15 major league seasons.