Tag Archives: Jackson Senators

04 Oct

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Observations from a Tuesday locked into televised baseball:
First pitch of game one — Texas at Tampa Bay — of the four wild card series openers is at 2:07 p.m. CDT. … Christian Bethancourt, the former Mississippi Braves catcher, is not in Tampa Bay’s lineup; he played in 104 games this season. … Nathaniel Lowe, former Mississippi State standout, gets a hit in his first at-bat and scores the first run of the day for Texas in the second inning. … Brookhaven native Lance Barksdale, veteran MLB umpire, is at second base for the Rangers-Rays game. … With the bases loaded and no outs in the fifth, Lowe pops up; it’s still 1-0. … Andy Fletcher, an Ole Miss alum and Olive Branch resident, is the ump behind the plate for the Toronto-Minnesota game. He rated relatively low on ball-strike accuracy in 2023, per umpscorecards.com. … In his first postseason at-bat, ex-Southern Miss star Matt Wallner draws a walk for Minnesota in the second inning. He is stranded. … Toronto’s bullpen coach is Jeff Ware, who spent a year as a pitcher/coach with the independent Jackson Senators some 20 years ago. Ware got the bullpen job this spring, 27 years after he last wore a big league uniform as a Jays pitcher. … Texas wins 4-0; Lowe finishes 1-for-5. … Wallner, who made one error all season in 100 chances, is replaced in left field in the seventh inning. … Milwaukee’s starting lineup against visiting Arizona includes four former Biloxi Shuckers — pitcher Corbin Burnes, second baseman Brice Turang and outfielders Sal Frelick and Tyrone Taylor — and a Mississippi Braves alum — catcher William Contreras. … Minnesota wins 3-1, snapping an 18-game postseason losing streak dating to 2004. Former Jackson Mets shortstop Ron Gardenhire was the Twins manager that season. … In Miami’s starting lineup at Philadelphia is catcher Nick Fortes, the Ole Miss product who has had a tough year (.206, six homers). … The Phillies’ infield coach is Laurel native Bobby Dickerson, father of ex-USM shortstop Dustin Dickerson, now in the Kansas City system. … Taylor — the No. 9 hitter — hits a two-run homer for the Brewers, putting them ahead 3-0 in the second inning. … Milwaukee pitching coach Chris Hook, who pitched briefly for the Jackson Generals in 1998, makes a trip to the mound after Burnes surrenders back-to-back homers that tie the score for Arizona. … Cristian Pache, once a highly rated prospect with the M-Braves, makes a nice running catch in left field to record the first out for the Phillies at raucous Citizens Bank Park. … In the second inning at Philly, ESPN’s Karl Ravech talks about Phillies infielder Bryson Stott’s work with Bobby and Dustin Dickerson in the off-season in Mississippi. … Fortes, in his first postseason AB, hits into an inning-ending double play in the third; the score is still 0-0. … Burnes, a 10-game winner this year, is pulled in the fifth by the Brewers, down 4-3; rookie Abner Uribe, a 2023 Shuckers alum, replaces him. … Pache — whose first big league homer came as a rookie for Atlanta in the 2020 National League Championship Series — gets an RBI knock in the fourth to put the Phillies up 3-0. … In Milwaukee, Taylor lines into an inning-ending double play in the fifth with the bases jammed and the Brewers still trailing 4-3. D’backs veteran third baseman Evan Longoria, 37, who passed through Trustmark Park with the Montgomery Biscuits back in 2006-07, makes the crucial, leaping snag. … Milwaukee goes to its closer, former Shuckers star Devin Williams (36 saves), in the ninth. He issues three walks — around a strikeout and a caught stealing — before Christian Walker doubles to plate two more runs. … In the bottom of the ninth, Frelick makes the last out on a pop up in Arizona’s 6-3 win. … In Philadelphia, the Phillies go to ex-M-Braves star Craig Kimbrel — the occasionally erratic closer — who gets through the ninth to finish off a 4-1 victory. The last out of the fourth and final game is recorded at 9:55 p.m. … What a day. And the postseason has only just begun.

16 May

memory lane

The Jackson Senators era at Smith-Wills Stadium was short but produced some unforgettable moments. Perhaps chief among them was what occurred on this date in 2004. Tommy Bost belted two grand slams and a three-run homer in a 22-2 win over Amarillo on a Sunday afternoon. Bost, a Meridian native who played college ball at Louisiana Tech, tied the independent Central Baseball League mark for homers in a game and set a record with his 11 RBIs. Drafted out of LaTech by Cleveland in 1998, Bost was on the roster of the first Senators team in 2002, batting .304 with 15 homers. He got another shot in affiliated ball in 2003 with Florida and reached Double-A for the second time. He returned to the Senators in 2004. He played only 30 games, but one of them was unforgettable. P.S. Circle the date of May 19. This Friday will be “Scott Berry Night” at Taylor Park in Hattiesburg, honoring the school’s all-time winningest coach who announced his retirement today. The Golden Eagles, in the hunt for a Sun Belt Conference title, will play Louisiana-Lafayette at 6 p.m. following a pregame ceremony for Berry.

05 Apr

pennant fever

Friday is opening day No. 18 for the Mississippi Braves, who’ll take on the Biloxi Shuckers at 6:35 p.m. at Trustmark Park in Pearl. A championship is the ultimate goal, of course, for a franchise that has won two Southern League pennants (2008 and 2021). The 2023 roster is expected to be released today, when the team holds its first workout. The talent in Atlanta’s minor league system has been thinned out in recent years, but the organization has a true knack for scouting and development, so expect a competitive team. Jackson-area Double-A teams have won eight pennants all told, and this year marks a notable anniversary of two of those titles. Twenty years ago, the independent Jackson Senators won the Central Baseball League championship. In one of the most dramatic moments in Smith-Wills Stadium’s long history, Keto Anderson delivered a game-winning hit in the bottom of the 10th inning of the decisive fifth game against Amarillo. That Senators team included Jeremy McClain, Gerard McCall, Ryan Creek, Kenny Rayborn, Robbie Kison, Vernon Spearman and onetime big leaguer Lonnie Maclin. Thirty years ago, the Double-A Jackson Generals won the Texas League championship, the first for the franchise as a Houston Astros affiliate. League MVP Roberto Petagine was the star of that team, which also included Brian Hunter, Jim Dougherty, Alvin Morman, Ray Montgomery, Lance “Bam-Bam” Madsen and Jackson native Fletcher Thompson.

24 May

time fades away

Twenty years ago today, with former Delta State star Jeremy McClain on the mound and Meridian High product Gerard McCall behind the plate, the Jackson Senators played their first home game, drawing a crowd announced at 3,475 to Smith-Wills Stadium. They lost 7-6, but no matter. The game marked the return of pro ball to Jackson after a year without a team, and there was genuine excitement in the old yard. The Texas League franchise (Mets/Generals) left after a 25-year run in 1999, and the independent DiamondKats — a bad team that drew poorly — lasted just one season. The Senators, also an independent playing in the newly reorganized Central Baseball League, lasted four years, winning a league championship in 2003. The arrival of the Double-A Mississippi Braves in Pearl in 2005 ultimately led to the Sens’ demise. The first Senators club, managed by Dan Shwam, was a good one. The roster included Meridian native Tommy Bost — who hit the first homer in that home opener — Southern Miss product Brandon Parker, former big leaguer Jeff Ware, Kyle Hawthorne, Garret Osilka, Juan Moreno, Peanut Williams, Russ Herbert and Yuji Nerei, to name a few. They won the first-half title in the CBL East and made it to the league finals in the postseason, losing the decisive fifth game.

25 Oct

history’s path

Since the Mississippi Braves arrived in Pearl in 2005, the Double-A club has funneled literally scores of players to Atlanta, including the entire infield and the top three starting pitchers on the 2021 team that has reached the World Series for the first time in 22 years. But the Braves franchise has a largely forgotten history in Mississippi that goes back 70-plus years. When Atlanta announced it was moving its Double-A team from South Carolina to Pearl, it was actually reconnecting with the Magnolia State. From 1946-50, when the Braves called Boston home, they had a farm team in Jackson, the Senators, who played at League Park near where the Fairgrounds stands now. Those were good teams, posting winning records in four of the five seasons and finishing first in the Southeastern League standings in 1947. “It was a pretty good brand of ball,” former Senators player Banks McDowell said in a 2001 interview. “It was Class B, and baseball people would tell us later that it was comparable to Double-A today.” Minor league affiliation worked a little differently in that era; research indicates only one player from those Senators teams made the big leagues. Vern Bickford pitched in Jackson in 1946 and pitched parts of seven seasons in the majors. He was on the Braves’ 1948 World Series team and threw a no-hitter in 1950. The Braves pulled out of Jackson in 1951, and Detroit came in two years later. League Park was destroyed by a tornado in August of ’53. The team moved its games elsewhere and never returned. Jackson got a Double-A team in 1975, when the Mets moved into then-new Smith-Wills Stadium. New York’s 1986 World Series championship club featured numerous former Jackson Mets, among them Darryl Strawberry, Lenny Dykstra, Mookie Wilson, Roger McDowell and Jesse Orosco. After the Mets departed in 1990, Houston arrived with the Generals and from 1991-99 produced a bevy of big leaguers, many of whom fueled the Astros’ run of success in the National League Central in the late ’90s. When the Astros finally made the World Series for the first time in 2005, two former Generals — Lance Berkman and Raul Chavez — were still around. The Astros still have some fans in the metro area, and the M-Braves recognized that heritage with tribute nights at Trustmark Park in 2019 and again this summer.

08 Apr

make a toast

Most local baseball aficionados are well aware that this year marks the 15th anniversary of the arrival at Trustmark Park in Pearl of the Mississippi Braves, who moved from Greenville, S.C., in 2005. (Hopefully, there will be a 2020 season during which to celebrate that fact.) This year also marks the 20th anniversary of the Jackson DiamondKats’ one and only – and otherwise forgettable — season at Jackson’s Smith-Wills Stadium and the 30th anniversary of the Jackson Mets’ final season at Smith-Wills. The 1990 JaxMets, managed by Clint Hurdle, won a division title and made the Texas League playoffs, marking the 10th postseason appearance for the Double-A club in its 16 years in Jackson. This year also marks the 80th anniversary of a somewhat forgotten championship team, the 1940 Jackson Senators. Playing in the Class B Southeastern League, the Senators went a league-best 89-58 that season and crushed both the Selma Cloverleafs and the Pensacola Fliers in the playoffs, going 4-1 in each series. Managed by Footsie Blair, the unaffiliated Senators played at League Park, a stadium near what is now the Fairgrounds. (It was destroyed by a tornado in 1953.) That team was led by future big leaguer Tom McBride, a .316 hitter who topped the SL in hits with 194 (according to statscrew.com); Paul Fugit, who batted .317 with 11 homers; and 16-game winners Harry Durheim and Gordon Maltzberger, who led the loop in ERA and later coached in the majors for several years. The Senators’ championship in 1940 was the last league title celebrated in the Capital City until Davey Johnson’s JaxMets won the TL pennant in 1981.

26 Mar

idle time trivia

On what would have been Opening Day in the major leagues, here’s a few themed trivia questions to jog the memories of Jackson-area pro baseball fans. (Answers below.)
1. When the Jackson Mets played their first game 45 years ago at Smith-Wills Stadium, who was their starting pitcher?
2. What future big leaguer threw a one-hitter for the JaxMets in their 1982 home opener?
3. How many future major league players were in the lineup for the JaxMets in their 1984 home opener?
4. What future major league catcher hit a walk-off home run for the Jackson Mets in their 1985 home opener?
5. What former Ole Miss star hit a walk-off home run in the Jackson Generals’ home opener in 1995?
6. What former Tupelo High standout knocked in the winning run for the Jackson DiamondKats in their home opener in 2000?
7. What former Purvis High star was the winning pitcher in the Jackson Senators’ home opener in 2003?
8. Who hit the first home run in Mississippi Braves history in their season opener in 2005?
9. When the M-Braves played their inaugural home game at Trustmark Park, who scored their first run?
10. What three players hit home runs for the Atlanta Braves when they played a season-opening exhibition game in 2013 at the TeePee?

Answers
1. Greg Pavlick, who would go on to be a longtime major league pitching coach, beat Arkansas 6-4 with relief help from Joe Klenda, who threw four perfect innings. A crowd of 2,862 turned out on a drizzly Saturday afternoon.
2. Jeff Bittiger beat Arkansas 2-0; the Travelers’ lone hit was an infield single by Jose Gonzalez with two outs in the eighth inning. Bittiger went 12-5 that season and led the Texas League in strikeouts.
3. Eight: Lenny Dykstra, Mark Carreon, Billy Beane, Dave Cochrane, Randy Milligan, Al Pedrique, Greg Olson and Jay Tibbs. The OJMs, who would win the Texas League pennant in 1984, beat Tulsa 6-0; Dykstra was on base five times, scored twice, drove in a run, stole a base and threw a runner out at third base.
4. Barry Lyons, the ex-Delta State standout from Biloxi, went yard on the first pitch in the bottom of the ninth to beat Shreveport 3-2. Led by Lyons’ 108 RBIs, the ’85 OJMs won their second straight Texas League crown.
5. Kary Bridges, the Oak Grove product now the coach at St. Martin High in Ocean Springs, belted a three-run bomb in the ninth to beat Arkansas 7-6. Bridges batted .301 that season but hit just two more homers.
6. Willie Gardner’s eighth-inning single scored Perry Miley with the go-ahead run in a 5-4 defeat of Alexandria, one of the rare highlights of the independent D-Kats’ lone season at Smith-Wills.
7. Kenny Rayborn cruised through five innings to beat Springfield/Ozarks in a 10-3 game. Rayborn, in the seventh of his 13 minor league seasons, went 10-2 for the Sens, who won the Central League title that year.
8. Jeff Francoeur went deep – very deep — at Montgomery’s Riverwalk Stadium in a 9-8 defeat on April 7. Francoeur hit 12 more homers for the M-Braves before his July promotion to Atlanta, where he famously homered in his first game.
9. Jonathan Schuerholz, son of the former Atlanta GM, scored on an infield hit by Scott Thorman in the first inning of an 11-6 loss to Montgomery. The younger Schuerholz is now Atlanta’s assistant director of pro scouting.
10. Dan Uggla, Chris Johnson and Evan Gattis, a former M-Braves catcher whose three-run bomb in the seventh inning landed somewhere in the parking lot beyond left field. Gattis hit 21 homers for Atlanta that season, his rookie year.

16 Sep

title hungry

Congratulations to Phillip Wellman, the former Mississippi Braves manager who piloted the Amarillo Sod Poodles to a Texas League championship on Sunday, beating Tulsa 8-3 in the decisive fifth game. This is the team’s first year in Amarillo after the franchise – still a San Diego affiliate — moved from San Antonio. (Sod poodle is a pioneer nickname for prairie dog.) It was the second championship for Wellman in 19 seasons as a minor league skipper; he won the other in 2008 in the second of his four seasons with the M-Braves. … Condolences to the Biloxi Shuckers, who lost at Jackson, Tenn., on Sunday in Game 5 of the Southern League Championship Series. The Shuckers, a Milwaukee affiliate, have lost in the SL finals in three of their five seasons on the Coast. … It’s now been 11 years since Mississippi celebrated a pro baseball championship, which is beginning to feel like a drought. Over a 15-year span starting in 1981, Jackson’s Texas League clubs won five championships – the Mets in 1981, ’84 and ’85 and the Generals in ’93 and ’96. The independent Senators won a Central League crown in 2003, and five years later, the M-Braves won their lone Southern League title. Long before that, Jackson-based teams won league championships in 1908, 1913, 1925, 1927, 1931, 1940 and 1947, according to research in the Minor League Encyclopedia of Baseball. The 1913 team, known as the Lawmakers, posted an impressive 71-24 record (.747 winning percentage) in the old Cotton States League. Mississippi did not have a pro club from 1953, when the original Senators left town, to 1975, when the Mets moved into Smith-Wills Stadium.

09 Apr

trivia time

Here’s a timely trivia question: Who was the winning pitcher for the Jackson Senators in the deciding game of the 2003 Central League Championship Series? It was none other than Jeremy McClain, then a crafty right-hander for the independent Sens, now the newly named athletic director at Southern Miss. McClain enjoyed a highlight-filled playing career. The Houlka native went 45-9 at Delta State – where he is in the Hall of Fame – and still holds school records for career wins, strikeouts and innings pitched. He went 15-0 for the 1999 team that made the NCAA Division II regionals. He had a fling in affiliated ball with the Boston Red Sox, then pitched for two different independent teams at Jackson’s Smith-Wills Stadium. McClain won seven games for an awful DiamondKats team in 2000 and spent two seasons with the Senators, helping them reach the CBL title series in 2002 and claim the pennant the next year. He was the starter for the Sens’ first home opener in 2002, and in Game 5 of the ’03 finals, he came on in relief in the 10th inning and earned the victory when Keto Anderson delivered a game-winning knock in the bottom half. It was McClain’s final appearance as a player, and he said after the game that season was as much fun as he had ever had playing baseball.

06 Mar

the general idea

Cool idea by the Mississippi Braves to give a nod to the old Jackson Generals as part of the M-Braves’ celebration of the franchise’s 15th year in Pearl. The M-Braves will wear some throwback apparel when the Jackson (Tenn.) Generals (no relation to the other one) visit Trustmark Park from June 25-29. On June 28, the first 1,000 fans will receive a replica Jackson (Miss.) Generals jersey. As a refresher, the Generals were the Double-A Texas League affiliate of the Houston Astros and played at Smith-Wills Stadium from 1991-1999. That club produced a bevy of big league stars, including Billy Wagner, Lance Berkman, Bobby Abreu, Carlos Guillen, Freddy Garcia, Richard Hidalgo, Todd Jones, Julio Lugo, Daryle Ward, Melvin Mora, Brian Hunter and Scott Elarton, to name, well, more than a few. The Generals won two Texas League pennants (1993 and ’96). Of course, Jackson’s pro baseball legacy extends well beyond the Generals. The Mets – New York’s Double-A club – occupied Smith-Wills from 1975-1990, turned out an array of stars, as well (see Darryl Strawberry, Jeff Reardon, Mookie Wilson, Kevin Mitchell, et al.), and won three TL titles. And before the Mets there were a number of minor league teams that played in a long-gone ballpark at the Fairgrounds for many years up until the early ’50s. Included in that group was a Boston Braves farm team. And let’s not forget that after the Generals departed for Round Rock, Texas, two independent pro teams played at Smith-Wills: the DiamondKats (2000) and the Senators (2002-05). The Senators also won a championship. Bottom line: When it comes to pro baseball in central Mississippi, there’s a whole lot to celebrate.