Tag Archives: Smith-Wills Stadium

20 Sep

glory days

It would be remiss to let September end without another nod to the 1984 Jackson Mets. Thirty years ago this month, the JaxMets won the Texas League championship, the second of five pennants the franchise would claim during its 25-year run at Smith-Wills Stadium. The ’84 OJMs (from the “Our Jackson Mets” pregame intro) went 83-53 overall and won both halves handily in the TL East with a roster that included, at one time or another, 19 players who made it to the big leagues. There were so many players who made huge contributions that season it’s hard to note them all. Calvin Schiraldi went 14-3 with a 2.88 ERA and was the league’s pitcher of the year. Lenny Dykstra led the league in runs with 100; he also stole 53 bases while batting .275 with six homers and 52 RBIs. Billy Beane, in what he called his “junior year” in Jackson, had a breakout season: .281, 20 homers, 72 RBIs, 26 steals. Bill Max, who never made the majors, had a TL-best 16 game-winning RBIs plus 11 bombs. Al Pedrique led the league’s shortstops with a .961 fielding percentage. He also hit .285. Dave Cochrane led the team with 22 home runs. Ed Hearn — a platooning catcher — batted .312 with 11 homers and 51 RBIs. Randy Milligan hit .275 with nine homers and 34 RBIs in half a season before being injured. Joe Graves had 17 saves and nine wins out of the bullpen. Jeff Innis notched eight saves. Floyd Youmans won six games and fanned 87 batters in 86 innings. Other pitchers of note included Jay Tibbs, Randy Myers, Rick Aguilera and Roger McDowell. There was even a Mississippian on the club: ornery left-hander Rich Pickett, of Crystal Springs, who went 5-0 with four saves and a 2.27 ERA in 23 appearances. The JaxMets beat a very good Beaumont team — a San Diego Padres affiliate that went 89-47 that season — in six games in the TLCS. Sam Perlozzo earned TL manager of the year honors. The next year, he took a very different club (led by Biloxi’s Barry Lyons) and won the pennant again. Those truly were the glory days at old Smith-Wills. P.S. Props to Williams Perez and Kyle Kubitza for being named by the Atlanta Braves as the pitcher and hitter of the year at Double-A Mississippi. There were several others who could have won the awards on a very talented club that missed making the Southern League postseason by a hair.

20 Aug

say it ain’t so

The 40th anniversary of the first game at Smith-Wills Stadium comes next April. What a shame it would be if the Jackson ballpark is no longer standing at that time. Reports are out there that the old yard may be demolished. To make way for a Costco. A Costco on Cool Papa Bell Drive? Squeezed in between the Sports Hall of Fame and Museum and the Murrah High baseball field? Smith-Wills still serves a purpose. Not only does Belhaven University play there, but in recent years so have junior colleges, high schools, youth teams and semi-pro squads. Heck, maybe Biloxi’s homeless Southern League team could move in there next season. Smith-Wills has an unappreciated history. It has been nine years since the last pro game was played there and 15 since the final Texas League game. People forget. They should be reminded. This was a place where stars came out, from Lee Mazzilli to Selwyn Langaigne. Darryl Strawberry called it home, and Mookie Wilson and Jeff Reardon and Lenny Dykstra and Gregg Jefferies. And Billy Wagner and Bobby Abreu and Lance Berkman. Fernando Valenzuela made a visit there, and Pedro Martinez and Mark McGwire and Roberto Alomar and Johnny Damon. The list goes on. Will Clark and a host of other Mississippi State and Ole Miss stars played there, too, in the old Mayor’s Trophy Game. Max Patkin and the San Diego Chicken performed there. And the Silver Bullets and The King and His Court and two U.S. Olympic squads. Six pro teams won league pennants while playing there. These things should not be forgotten; they should be celebrated. They want to take this tradition and put up a wholesale store? Carole King ought to write a song.

24 Jun

seeing stars

Former Mississippi State star Hunter Renfroe, who already has reached Double-A in his first full pro season, will play in the All-Star Futures Game at Target Field in Minneapolis on July 13. Renfroe, an outfielder drafted 13th overall by San Diego last summer, was batting .295 with 16 home runs and 52 RBIs at high Class A Lake Elsinore when he was promoted to Double-A San Antonio last week. The Crystal Springs native is 2-for-18 in five games but does have a home run. … Mississippi Braves second baseman Jose Peraza will play for the International team in the Futures Game. P.S. The 78th Texas League All-Star Game will be played tonight at North Little Rock, Ark., with former Mississippi Braves skipper Phillip Wellman, now with the Arkansas Travelers, running one of the clubs. More noteworthy here, however, is that it was 30 years ago this month when Billy Beane homered in the bottom of the ninth inning to win the TL All-Star Game in Jackson. Beane, then with the Jackson Mets, now general manager of the Oakland A’s, was not picked for the game initially but came when called because, he said, he felt like he owed it to the fans in Jackson. He was in his third year with the JaxMets in 1984 and would end that season in the big leagues. His home run in the All-Star Game rates as one of the greatest moments in Smith-Wills Stadium’s long history.

12 May

see how they run

Expect the Belhaven Blazers to kick up a lot of dust during this week’s NAIA opening round tournament. Well, they won’t actually be kicking up dust because Smith-Wills Stadium has an artificial surface — but the Blazers’ feet will be flying. That’s their game. The team has stolen 194 bases in racking up 40 wins. Five BU players have swiped double-figure totals. Reagan Rutledge has 59 bags (in 63 attempts), Paul Pickerrell 35, Emilio DeSilva 33, Dominick Francia 26 and Tyler Akins 11. This is not a team of mashers. Akins, the former Madison Central High and Hinds Community College star, leads the club with four home runs. Homers are hard to hit at Smith-Wills, especially with today’s bats. Stealing bases helped BU win 31 of 35 games there. Of course, you need some pitching depth, as well, to have postseason success, and the Blazers have a nice stable of arms. Boomer Scarborough, the Southern Miss transfer, won nine games with a 3.55 ERA. Preseason All-America pick Chris Good went 4-2, 3.73 and Ben Allison 6-0, 2.32. Austin McCann has a 1.98 ERA in 32 relief appearances, and Akins has notched a school record 17 saves. BU will try to dash past Oklahoma City today at 2:30. Oklahoma Wesleyan, which will play in today’s third game, is the top seed in the five-team regional.

09 May

remember the time

Some nights at the ballpark stay with you. Here’s one: It was May 9, 1996. The Jackson Generals were playing host to the Wichita Wranglers in a Texas League game at Smith-Wills Stadium. There was a player photo giveaway that night: Russ Johnson, the former LSU star who was playing shortstop for the Houston Astros’ Double-A club that season. And wouldn’t you know it: Johnson put on a show. He hit for the cycle, one of baseball’s rarest feats. It was the first time a Generals player had done it in the six years the team had been in Jackson. Johnson, who would go on to play in the big leagues, scored three times and drove in a run as the Generals won 8-4. Former Ole Miss star Kary Bridges also played for the Gens in that game, as did Richard Hidalgo, Chris Hatcher, Donovan Mitchell, Tim Forkner and Dennis Colon. Doug Simons got the win. The announced attendance was 2,284. Still have the box score and the photo. And the memory.

16 Apr

smith-wills gets the call

It seems fitting somehow that Smith-Wills Stadium, in its 40th year of hosting baseball, would be chosen as one of nine sites for opening round competition in the NAIA national tournament. Belhaven University, which calls the old Jackson yard home, will get an automatic at-large bid as host of the regional. The five-team, double-elimination event will start May 12. “This takes a lot of heat off us,” Blazers coach Hill Denson said in a school release. BU is 33-14 and ranked 23rd, so it stood a decent chance of playing its way in, as well. The Blazers hosted a regional at Smith-Wills in 2010 and won it, advancing to the NAIA World Series. (William Carey hosted an NAIA opening round at Wheeler Field in Hattiesburg last season.) The Blazers bounced back from getting swept at Southern Poly over the weekend to beat Millsaps 4-1 on Tuesday in a Maloney Trophy Series game. Tougaloo visits Smith-Wills today.

24 Feb

fight to the finish

It’s probably a little early in the season for a defining moment, but Belhaven University might have had one — or even two — on Saturday at Smith-Wills Stadium. The Blazers dug out of early holes to beat William Carey in extra innings in both games of a doubleheader. Perhaps we should expect such games when longtime intrastate rivals and iconic coaches (Belhaven’s Hill Denson and Carey’s Bobby Halford) square off in an historic ballpark. The Blazers’ Reagan Rutledge delivered a two-out game-winning hit in the opener, a 6-5 win. In Game 2, Jo Jo Richards’ infield hit, combined with a Carey throwing error, scored Walt McCullough from second base for a 5-4 victory. BU, which had dropped the series opener (yet another one-run game) on Friday, improved to 11-3 and 2-1 in the Southern States Athletic Conference. Carey, ranked 24th in the NAIA preseason poll, is 7-8, 2-4. Jeremy Ferguson, a senior from Pontotoc, had a big series for the Crusaders, going 4-for-7 with six RBIs. The teams could meet again in the SCAC Tournament. If they do, memories of Feb. 22 will certainly be dancing in the heads of all involved.

01 Feb

opening acts

And so it begins. Belhaven University got the college baseball season started on Friday with a 6-1 loss to LSU-Alexandria at Smith-Wills Stadium. The Blazers, anticipating a big year, didn’t look sharp, managing just four hits, committing three errors and getting an uneven start from Southern Miss transfer Boomer Scarborough (seven hits and four earned runs in five innings). The Blazers and Generals play a twinbill today. William Carey, ranked No. 24 in NAIA, was rained out Friday in its scheduled opener at Webber International in Florida. The Crusaders had a pair of games slated for today at Babson Park, Fla: Embry-Riddle and then Webber International again.
Other Magnolia State lid-lifters:
Blue Mountain, now in the Southern States Athletic Conference with BU and Carey, opens today at home against Union University.
Tougaloo starts Feb. 4 against Belhaven at Smith-Wills.
Millsaps plays Feb. 7 against Randolph-Macon in Huntingdon, Ala.
Delta State, ranked as high as sixth in NCAA Division II, opens Feb. 7 against Palm Beach Atlantic in Florida.
Mississippi College rolls out on Feb. 18 at Belhaven.
The NCAA Division I schools start on Feb. 14: Mississippi State, ranked as high as No. 2, hosts Hofstra; Southern Miss hosts Stony Brook; Ole Miss is at Stetson in Florida; Jackson State hosts Texas Southern; Alcorn State hosts Bradley; at Mississippi Valley State is at Dallas Baptist.

10 Jan

three weeks notice

Brace yourself. The baseball season in Mississippi begins on Jan. 31 when Belhaven University hosts LSU-Alexandria at Smith-Wills Stadium. The NAIA teams will play a doubleheader the next day. This will be the 40th year that baseball in some form or another has been played at Smith-Wills, which opened in 1975 as the home of the Double-A Jackson Mets. A celebration of some form or another ought to be in order. P.S. Baseball America reports on its minor league transactions page the re-signing of Ole Miss product Justin Henry by Boston and ex-Rebels star Matt Tolbert by Philadelphia and the signing of Alcorn State alumnus Corey Wimberly by Minnesota. Henry batted just .210 in Triple-A for the Red Sox in 2013. Tolbert, a one-time big leaguer, hit .327 in 46 games in the lower minors last year as he battled back from injury. Wimberly, who spent some time in Atlanta’s system in 2013, will be entering his 10th pro season with his seventh different organization.

17 Oct

october memories

Kirk Gibson’s dramatic home run in the 1988 World Series has been garnering much attention of late. The 25th anniversary of that moment, and of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ last world championship, fall in this month. Gibson’s homer came in Game 1 of the Series, which underdog LA won in a rather anticlimactic five games against Oakland. Much more compelling that October was the ’88 National League Championship Series, which fans of the New York Mets — and the Jackson Mets — remember but not fondly. The Mets, two years removed from their last world title, won 100 games in 1988 and were arguably the best team in the NL. There were 12 former Jackson Mets on the NLCS roster, and former JaxMets skipper Davey Johnson was the manager. Darryl Strawberry hit .300 in that series with a homer and six RBIs. Lenny Dykstra batted .400 (with six runs), Gregg Jefferies .333 and Wally Backman .273. Randy Myers picked up two wins working out of the bullpen, and Rick Aguilera posted a 1.29 ERA. But the Mets lost the series, which may have turned at Shea Stadium in Game 4, in which they blew a 4-2 lead in the ninth inning and lost in 12 (on a Gibson homer off Roger McDowell). That squared the series. New York won Game 6 to stay alive. But in Game 7, the Mets committed two costly errors, watched Ron Darling get KO’d in the second inning and managed just five hits off Orel Hershisher in a 6-0 defeat. That was really the last hurrah for that core group of Mets, so many of whom had passed through Smith-Wills Stadium. The team fell to 87 wins and missed the postseason in 1989, and Johnson was fired early on in 1990. Coincidentally, that was the last year of the Jackson Mets. The honeymoon that began in 1975 was over. The Smith-Wills to Shea pipeline closed. P.S. Willis Steenhuis, a fixture in Jackson-area baseball for many years, will be formally inducted into the Hinds Community College Hall of Fame today. Steenhuis was a standout pitcher for the Eagles in the late 1950s and went on to play at Mississippi College and in pro ball in the Baltimore Orioles system. He became a very successful high school coach, winning a state title at Wingfield, and remains involved in the state semi-pro organization.