Hinchliffe Stadium Archives - All Mississippi Baseball

not so fast there

Reports of the Chicago White Sox’s demise may have been greatly exaggerated, to borrow a phrase. And Mississippi products have played key roles in the club’s recent revival. The ChiSox won their third straight game Sunday and have won 12 of their last 20. They are just 19-29, fourth in the American League Central, but are only 6 1/2 games back in what’s considered a weak division. Talk of a fire sale that began during a 10-game losing streak has quieted down. Ole Miss product Lance Lynn, who got off to an awful start this season, went six innings to beat Kansas City on Sunday at Guaranteed Rate Field and is 3-1 in May. The veteran right-hander is 3-5 with a 6.28 ERA overall. Mississippi State product Kendall Graveman has not allowed a run this month and has posted three saves in his last eight games. Ocean Springs native Garrett Crochet, who missed the entire 2022 season, has come off the injured list and worked 1 1/3 scoreless innings in two appearances. The young left-hander could be a key bullpen arm, as he was in 2021. Ex-East Central Community College star Tim Anderson, the shortstop and leadoff batter, hasn’t yet found his swing. The former batting champion is batting just .252 without a homer in 29 games; he did a long stint on the IL in late April. He has been the subject of trade rumors, but the team’s turnaround may alter that narrative. (For the record, former Taylorsville High standout Billy Hamilton was briefly with the White Sox earlier this month — to serve primarily as a pinch runner and defensive replacement — but went on the IL on May 10.) P.S. In the rain-delayed grand re-opening of historic Hinchliffe Stadium (see previous post), ex-Columbia High star Ti’Quan Forbes homered for the host New Jersey Jackals in their win Sunday against Sussex County in the independent Frontier League.

historic connection

Ti’Quan Forbes, the former Mr. Baseball from Columbia High and a longtime minor leaguer, will be part of an historic event tonight in Paterson, N.J. Hinchliffe Stadium, one of only two Negro Leagues home ballparks still standing, will host a professional baseball game for the first time since 1950 when the New Jersey Jackals — Forbes’ current team — play the Sussex County Miners in an independent Frontier League contest. A ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday attracted celebrities, politicians and baseball dignitaries Willie Randolph, Joe Maddon, Harold Reynolds and Tony Clark. Hinchliffe, which had fallen into serious disrepair, has undergone an extensive renovation project that, per reports, has restored the look it had in the 1930s and ’40s, when it hosted Negro Leagues games and major league exhibitions featuring some of the sport’s biggest names. Among the black stars who played there back in the day are Mississippi natives Cool Papa Bell, Howard Easterling and Rufus Lewis. Lewis, from Hattiesburg, played for the Newark Eagles, who used Hinchliffe as a secondary home field in the mid-’40s. Two New York-based teams also played home games at the park, and it hosted a variety of other sporting events and concerts. … Forbes is in his first season with the Jackals, who have moved into Hinchliffe from Little Falls, N.J. A second-round draft pick by Texas in 2014, Forbes played in the minors for eight years, peaking at the Double-A level. The 6-foot-4, 225-pound third baseman has a .253 career average with 39 homers and 44 steals.