Tag Archives: Jackson Mets

13 Jul

back in the day

Nostalgia is thick in the air at Trustmark Park when the Pensacola Blue Wahoos come to call. The field staff for the Cincinnati Reds’ Double-A club, which began a five-game series with the Mississippi Braves on Thursday, is replete with big league stars of another era. Fans of a certain age know the names well. Hitting coach Mike Devereaux, who won a ring with the 1995 Atlanta Braves, and bench coach Lenny Harris debuted in the majors in the late 1980s, and pitching coach James Baldwin broke in in 1995. And then there’s Blue Wahoos manager Jody Davis. Not only is he a former big leaguer, he is also a former Jackson Met. Davis made his MLB debut in 1981. Surely there are a few fans around who recall that two years before that, Davis had a breakout season for the Double-A JaxMets, who made their home at Smith-Wills Stadium. Davis batted .296 with 21 home runs and 91 RBIs in 1979, playing on a team that included Hubie Brooks and Wally Backman. Davis also refined his catching skills that year and was named a Texas League All-Star. He was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals (for big leaguer Ray Searage) following that season, then taken in the Rule 5 draft by the Chicago Cubs in December 1980. The next April he launched a 10-year MLB career during which he made two All-Star teams. Davis coached and managed in the Cubs’ system for several years and took the reins in Pensacola this season.

10 Jul

just stuff

Southern Miss’ Matt Wallner hit his first Cape Cod League home run on Monday, going 3-for-4 in his second game since joining the Falmouth team in the vaunted summer circuit. Wallner, a third-team All-America pick as a sophomore in 2018, had been playing for USA Baseball’s Collegiate National Team. He hit .154 in four games. … Ole Miss’ Parker Caracci is still with Team USA and has a win, two saves and a 0.00 ERA in five appearances. The team just finished a series with a club from Japan and next plays a series in Cuba. … Milton Smith Jr., former Starkville High and Meridian Community College standout, had an interesting Monday. He started for Miami’s rookie Gulf Coast League team, going 1-for-2 to boost his average to .356, then joined the Marlins’ Class A Florida State League club, also located in Jupiter, Fla., and got in the Hammerheads’ game as a pinch runner. Smith was a 22nd-round pick last month out of MCC. … Mississippi State alum Hunter Stovall followed up his two-homer pro debut (see previous post) with a four-hit game on Sunday and is now 7-for-9 for the rookie-level Grand Junction Rockies. … The Biloxi Shuckers walloped Jackson (Tenn.) 12-2 on Monday at MGM Park to become the first Southern League club to notch 50 wins. Corey Ray, a top Milwaukee prospect, drove in five runs and Zack Brown improved to 8-0. The Shuckers won the first half in the SL South and are 9-8 in the second half. … Tough year for former Jackson Mets star Ned Yost, who watched his Kansas City Royals lose their 10th straight game on Monday and fall 40 games under .500. Yost was ejected – for the first time in 2018 — in the fourth inning after disputing a third-strike call. … MSU product Hunter Renfroe, playing right field for San Diego, picked up his third assist on Monday, cutting down the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Justin Turner at second base with a great throw from the right-field corner at Petco Park. … Ex-Meridian CC star Corey Dickerson, batting leadoff for Pittsburgh, went 2-for-5 with a triple, an RBI and two runs as the Pirates beat Washington 6-3. Dickerson is batting .458 in his last seven games and .309 for the year. … Billy Hamilton is cutting it loose again. The Taylorsville High alum got his 22nd stolen base of the year – plus two hits and two runs — in Cincinnati’s 7-5 win over Cleveland on Monday. He now has seven bags, seven runs and 10 hits in his last seven games. “It’s mayhem,” Reds broadcaster and former MSU standout Jeff Brantley said of the impact Hamilton can have when he gets on base.

28 Jun

birthday props

Richard Hidalgo, Jackson Generals star of the mid-1990s, got some recognition today – his 43rd birthday – in a column on mlb.com by Joe Posnanski. Posnanski was highlighting “most surprising” major league seasons, of which Hidalgo had one in 2000. In his fourth MLB campaign, he batted .314 with 44 homers and 122 RBIs as Houston’s centerfielder, far and away the best year of a modest career. Hidalgo was a highly rated and impressive-looking Astros prospect when he played in Jackson in 1995 and ’96, hitting .280 with 28 homers over those two seasons. He could play the outfield, too, and throw and run. He spent nine years in the big leagues and finished with 171 bombs. As good as Hidalgo’s 2000 season was, it didn’t make Posnanski’s “most surprising” top 10. But former Jackson Mets star Kevin Mitchell’s 1989 season with San Francisco did. Mitchell, who played at Smith-Wills Stadium in 1983, hit .291 with 47 homers and 125 RBIs that year, winning National League MVP honors on a pennant-winning team that included Will Clark. (And, yes, that was also the year Mitchell made his famous over-the-shoulder, bare-handed catch.)

29 May

checkpoint

As they blow by the Memorial Day checkpoint, Brian Snitker holds the lead, with Clint Hurdle running second and Mickey Callaway third. Buck Showalter and Ned Yost appear to have fallen off the lead lap. Of the seven Mississippi-connected managers at the wheel of a big league club, only Atlanta’s Snitker, Pittsburgh’s Hurdle and the New York Mets’ Callaway reached Memorial Day with a winning record. Showalter’s Baltimore team, after losing on Monday, is 20 games under .500. Yost’s Kansas City team is 18 under. Toronto, under John Gibbons, is hanging tough at 25-29, and Ron Gardenhire has steered Detroit to a 24-29 mark, exceeding expectations in his first year there. To be fair, expectations weren’t high for any of these seven clubs. The first-place Braves, under former Mississippi Braves skipper Snitker, are a relatively young bunch running ahead of schedule. It’s a solid team – currently ranked No. 5 in mlb.com’s latest power poll — but they’ll be challenged in the National League East to hold off Washington, Philadelphia and perhaps even the Mets, who are in the charge of ex-Ole Miss star Callaway, brand new to the job. Despite a spate of adversity (check their disabled list), the Mets are 26-25 and just 4 games back of Atlanta. Former Jackson Mets manager Hurdle has done a fine job with the Pirates, who are contending in the NL Central even after trading away stars Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole. Meridian Community College product Corey Dickerson, acquired in a preseason trade, has been one of the Bucs’ best hitters. Gardenhire, a former Jackson Mets shortstop and veteran MLB manager, has the outmanned Tigers just 3½ games off the pace in the American League Central. Former JaxMets catcher Gibbons’ Blue Jays, while just 4 games under .500, are 12 games back of Boston in the AL East. It’s already been a long season for Mississippi State product Showalter and JaxMets alum Yost, both of whom could use an extended pit stop to make repairs. P.S. Ex-MSU star Hunter Renfroe, out over a month with an elbow issue, returned to San Diego’s lineup on Monday and went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

12 Apr

welcome aboard

Getting out of Tampa Bay, even though it came as a gut-punch, has worked out pretty darn well for Corey Dickerson. McComb native and Meridian Community College product Dickerson is batting .341 for Pittsburgh, which just beat the Chicago Cubs to improve to 9-3, tops in the National League Central. Tampa Bay, which jettisoned Dickerson – a 2017 All-Star – during spring training in an apparent salary dump, is 3-9 and last in the American League East. Dickerson went 1-for-3 with a pair of walks against the Cubs today and has a home run, nine RBIs and nine runs in 10 games this season. He’s not the only Mississippi connection enjoying the unexpected good times in Pittsburgh. Former Mississippi State star Adam Frazier (2-for-5 with a homer today) is batting .292 with four runs and two RBIs, typically as the Pirates’ leadoff batter. The Bucs are managed by former Jackson Mets skipper Clint Hurdle, now in his eighth year with the club, and the hitting coach is Waynesboro native and ex-big leaguer Jeff Branson. The Pirates, by the way, lead the NL in batting.

08 Apr

managerial matters

Seven Mississippi-connected men are managing in the big leagues this season – and not one of them holds the reigns of a club expected to be a strong contender for the postseason. Can any of them pull off a playoff appearance? It’s a race within the races that will be interesting to watch. Mickey Callaway, the former Ole Miss standout, is debuting as the New York Mets’ manager, but the others are veterans at this thing: Mississippi State alum Buck Showalter in Baltimore; ex-Jackson Mets Ned Yost in Kansas City, John Gibbons in Toronto and Ron Gardenhire in Detroit; former JaxMets manager Clint Hurdle in Pittsburgh; and ex-Mississippi Braves skipper Brian Snitker in Atlanta. Showalter and Gibbons have talented clubs but must contend with American League East heavyweights New York and Boston. Callaway’s Mets were picked by Sports Illustrated as a National League wild card team but coming off a 70-win campaign, that might be a stretch. Yost’s Royals have slipped quite a bit since their 2015 championship season, and both the Pirates and Tigers appear to be in rebuild mode. The Braves, in their second full year under Snitker, could make a push if their young talent (see former M-Braves Dansby Swanson, Ozzie Albies, Luiz Gohara, Ronald Acuna) steps up. That’s a significant if.

06 Apr

make a toast

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Jackson Mets’ first playoff team. The ’78 JaxMets beat Arkansas in the Texas League East playoffs and then fell to El Paso in the title series. Mookie Wilson was the hub of the offense, batting .292 with seven homers, 15 triples and 72 RBIs. Kelvin Chapman, another future big leaguer, hit .266 and led the club with 84 runs. Juan Monasterio batted .289, and Bobby Bryant belted eight homers. Jeff Reardon was the ace, going 17-4 with a 2.54 ERA. Neil Allen led the league in ERA. Scott Holman won 11 games and Kim Seaman 10. The ’78 season was the fourth year the Mets’ Double-A club operated at Smith-Wills Stadium, an affiliation that lasted 16 years. The OJMs missed the playoffs in 1979 but then went on a rip where they made it eight straight years and won three league titles. The ’78 JaxMets were managed by Bob Wellman, no relation to Phillip Wellman, who, 30 years later, managed the Mississippi Braves to the Southern League pennant. That remains the only title claimed by the M-Braves, now entering their 14th year at Trustmark Park in Pearl. The ’08 M-Braves featured a great young pitching staff: Tommy Hanson, Kris Medlen, Todd Redmond, James Parr, et al. Kala Ka’aihue led the team in homers (14) and RBIs (61) and swung a big bat in the postseason. But the club was defined more by the scrappiness of Matt Young and J.C. Holt, who combined for 52 steals. Wellman loved to get aggressive on the bases, and the M-Braves scored the pennant-winning run against Carolina on a walk-off double steal. … This season also marks the 25th anniversary of the first Jackson Generals team to win a Texas League title. The 1993 season was the third at Smith-Wills Stadium for the Houston Astros affiliate. Stars of that club, managed by Sal Butera, included Brian Hunter, Roberto Petagine, Jim Dougherty, Tom Nevers and Jackson native Fletcher Thompson.

31 Mar

upon further review

The emotional rollercoaster passed through Detroit on Friday, taking the Tigers from elation to anger with a final stop at dejection. Richton High product JaCoby Jones was in the middle of the dogpile in the 10th inning after delivering what was first thought to be a game-winning knock against Pittsburgh. Replay said otherwise. Tigers runner Nicholas Castellanos was ruled out at the plate, with McComb native Corey Dickerson – in his Pirates debut – getting an assist on what was a pretty sad throw from left field. Former Jackson Mets star Ron Gardenhire – in his debut as Detroit manager – was ejected arguing the reversal. The game went on, and, as fate would have it, the Pirates won in 13 innings in just under 5½ hours. Football-like weather produced a football-like score – 13-10 – on opening day at Comerica Park. The Tigers blew a save in the ninth and fell behind 10-6 before scoring four in the bottom half to extend the game. Then came the soul-crushing 10th. Jones, who entered as a pinch runner in the seventh inning, had a good day: 2-for-2 with a walk and a run. Of course, he’d have felt a whole lot better about it if he’d also gotten that RBI. For the Pirates, ex-Mississippi State star Adam Frazier went 3-for-7 and scored twice. He was aboard in the 13th when Gregory Polanco hit the game-winning three-run homer. Dickerson, the Meridian Community College alum acquired from Tampa Bay in February, had one hit and an RBI in six trips. P.S. Ex-Ole Miss standout Braxton Lee from Picayune made his big league debut for Miami, going 0-for-4 in the 17-inning win against the Chicago Cubs. … Taylorsville High alum Billy Hamilton, batting ninth for Cincinnati, was 0-for-4 with three strikeouts as the Reds opened their season with a loss to Washington.

29 Mar

play ball

Star power abounds on the Los Angeles Angels’ roster. Mike Trout. Albert Pujols. Justin Upton. Shohei Ohtani (well, maybe). Into this galaxy comes Zack Cozart, the Ole Miss alum who arrived as a free agent in the off-season with a little brilliance of his own. An All-Star in Cincinnati, where he enjoyed a career year in 2017, Cozart will debut for the Angels today in Oakland, playing not just for a new team but at a new position. A shortstop virtually all of his baseball life, Cozart, at age 32, takes over at third base for the Angels. His situation is one of the most compelling storylines to watch among Mississippians in the majors in 2018. Cozart, who hit .297 with 24 homers last year, swung the bat well in the spring (.347, four homers). He wasn’t tested much in the field, handling just 15 chances (with one error) in 16 games. The Angels are projected by many to be a playoff team; their new third baseman could be a big factor in that quest. P.S. The A’s scheduled starter is Kendall Graveman, the former Mississippi State standout who went 6-4 with a 4.19 ERA in an injury-interrupted 2017 season. … Pittsburgh’s lineup at Detroit will include State product Adam Frazier leading off as the DH and Meridian Community College product Corey Dickerson playing left field and batting fifth in his Pirates debut. The game will be the first as Tigers manager for Ron Gardenhire, the former Jackson Mets infielder and ex-Minnesota skipper. … Also making a debut today will be ex-UM star Mickey Callaway, the longtime Cleveland pitching coach now managing the New York Mets, who open at CitiField against St. Louis. The Big Apple is not the place where you want to get off on the wrong foot. … MSU product Jacob Lindgren has undergone a second Tommy John procedure and will miss the 2018 season. Now in Atlanta’s organization, left-hander Lindgren missed all of 2017 and most of 2016 after making the big leagues with the New York Yankees in 2015.

25 Jan

and yet so far …

Billy Wagner gained some support in the Hall of Fame balloting this year — but just a little. The former Jackson Generals star was named on 11.1 percent of the ballots, getting 47 votes. He was named on 10.2 percent (45 votes) in 2017. The cutoff for election is 75 percent. It would appear that Wagner, who ranks sixth on the all-time saves list, isn’t going to rise to that benchmark. The little left-hander is among five former Jackson Mets or Generals to rank in the MLB top 20 in career saves. None of the others – Jeff Reardon, Randy Myers, Todd Jones, Rick Aguilera – came close to making the Hall. With 422 saves, a 2.31 career ERA and seven All-Star Game appearances over 16 seasons, Wagner has great credentials. But tickets to Cooperstown are hard to come by, especially for closers. Trevor Hoffman, No. 2 on the all-time saves list, became just the sixth reliever to make the Hall of Fame when he was announced on Wednesday. P.S. There are no former Jackson area Double-A players — JADAPs — in the Hall of Fame, though recently retired ex-Generals outfielders Bobby Abreu and Lance Berkman surely will get strong consideration when they become eligible. And there are a couple of ex-Mississippi Braves still out there building a case, including a closer: Craig Kimbrel, who is still in his prime in Boston and ranks 29th on the saves chart. Catcher Brian McCann, nearing the end of his brilliant career, should get in someday. … Worth noting: Mississippi State alum Jonathan Papelbon, ninth on the saves list and not yet officially retired, could also be a viable Hall candidate down the road.