Smith-Wills Stadium Archives - Page 2 of 10

27 Jun

hello and good-bye

From the That’s Just Too Weird file: On this date in 2003, Matt Miller, Leland native and Delta State alum, made his major league debut for Colorado. Also on this date in 2003, former Southern Miss star Kevin Young played the last game of his MLB career for Pittsburgh. As fate would have it, the Rockies were playing the Pirates at PNC Park that day. And in the sixth inning, Miller came on in relief. The third batter he faced was Young, pinch-hitting for the Bucs. It was his final AB. Miller struck him out, his first career K. Miller would go on to make 99 more MLB appearances, posting a 2.72 ERA. (He is also the answer to a great trivia question: Who threw the last pitch of the 25-year Texas League era at Jackson’s Smith-Wills Stadium? Miller recorded the final out for Tulsa against the Generals on Sept. 4, 1999.) Young, one of the best players to come out of USM, played 12 years in the majors, all but one with the Pirates, for whom he debuted in 1992. He batted .258 with 144 homers, second only to Brian Dozier (192) among USM alums in the majors.

26 Apr

collision course

If momentum means anything, Mississippi College might have an edge against Delta State when the NCAA Division II rivals hook up in Cleveland this weekend (today-Saturday). The Choctaws (20-22, 10-17 Gulf South) are coming off a walk-off win — courtesy of a Caleb Reese home run — and have won four of their last six. Delta State (25-20, 16-11) has lost five in a row and six of seven, though the Statesmen have clinched a berth in the GSC Tournament while MC is on the outside looking in. MC has some power bats — Reese and J.T. Vance have 14 homers each and Wesley Sides has 12 — and some speed — 80 steals, 15 by Cole Drake — but has been dragged down by its pitching. The staff ERA is 6.46 and no pitcher has more than three wins. Cooper Gadman is 3-1 with a 3.92, and reliever Michael Sutton has a 3.86 and two saves. Dylan Coleman has been the offensive bell cow for DSU, batting .364 with 13 homers and 45 RBIs. Brett Burrell is at .346. No. 1 starter Drake Fontenot is 6-3 despite a 5.66 ERA, while reliever Josh Hill is 4-0 with six saves and a 3.79. If history means anything, DSU might be favored to take the three-game series at Ferriss Field. The Statesmen lead all-time 50-14 according to DSU records, 46-14 per MC’s. Of course, it’ll probably come down to which pitching staff can get the clutch outs. P.S. In the GCAC Tournament at Jackson’s Smith-Wills Stadium, Rust beat top-seeded Wiley (Texas) on Thursday and is 2-0 heading into a winners bracket game today against Talladega (Ala.) at 5:30 p.m. Tougaloo stayed alive Thursday by beating Oakwood (Ala.) and meets Wiley in an elimination game today at 2 p.m.

23 Apr

attention, please

Jordan Westburg might not be the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of the star-studded Baltimore Orioles lineup, but the former Mississippi State standout certainly grabbed some attention last week. Westburg batted .478 with two doubles, a triple, two homers and eight RBIs in the week that ended Saturday and was named the American League’s Player of the Week on Monday. The second-year big leaguer, who has started at three different positions this season, is batting .320 with five homers, 18 RBIs and 14 runs in 21 games for the O’s, who lead the AL East with a 15-7 record. He even got some MVP votes in an mlb.com poll announced Monday. Westburg saw a nine-game hit streak end on Monday, when he went 0-for-3 with a walk in a 4-2 victory at the Los Angeles Angels. He had five multi-hit games during that hit streak. A first-round pick in 2020, Westburg batted .260 with three homers and 23 RBIs in 68 games after a midseason call-up in 2023. P.S. The Gulf Coast Athletic Conference Tournament, featuring Rust and Tougaloo, begins with four games Wednesday at Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson. Fifth-seeded Rust opens the double-elimination event against Southern-New Orleans at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. Tougaloo, the 6-seed, opens against Dillard (Fla.) at 4 p.m. The top seed is Wiley (Texas), which went 18-3 in the NAIA league. Second-seeded Talladega (Ala.) finished 17-3. Third-seeded Dillard enters the tourney with a 10-game win streak.

10 Apr

simply the best

As yet another era of Double-A baseball in the Jackson area enters its final chapter, raise a glass to the seven championship teams produced over the years. The JaxMets won Texas League titles in 1981, ’84 and ’85. The Generals (a Houston affiliate) won TL pennants in 1993 and ’96 at Smith-Wills Stadium. The Pearl-based Mississippi Braves won the Southern League title in 2008 and the Double-A South crown in 2021. The best team among that bunch arguably would be the ’84 JaxMets, who could run out a starting nine made up entirely of future major league players. That club, managed by Sam Perlozzo, featured Lenny Dykstra, Billy Beane, Al Pedrique, Mark Carreon, Greg Olson, Randy Milligan, Calvin Schiraldi, Randy Myers and Floyd Youmans, among others. They went 83-53 overall and won both halves handily in the TL East. Schiraldi was 14-3 with a 2.88 ERA and was the league’s pitcher of the year. Dykstra led the league in runs with 100 and stole 53 bases while batting .275. Beane, in what he called his “junior year” in Jackson, had a breakout season: .281, 20 homers, 72 RBIs, 26 steals. Pedrique led the league’s shortstops with a .961 fielding percentage. Bill Max, who never made the majors, had a TL-best 16 game-winning RBIs plus 11 bombs. All told, 19 players who appeared on the JaxMets’ roster in 1984 made it to The Show. P.S. Jackson teams also won championships in various low-level minor leagues in 1908, 1913, 1925, 1927, 1931, 1940 and 1947 — according to the Minor League Baseball Encyclopedia.

06 Apr

trending …

Hot: Delta State has won six straight games, beating Christian Brothers 9-7 at Ferriss Field in Cleveland on Friday. The Statesmen (22-14, 13-6 GSC) rallied from 7-1 down to go ahead on three-run homer in the eighth inning by Dylan Dendy. Noah Magee got the last four outs, all via strikeout. … William Carey University has won five straight and 12 of 13 after whipping Brewton-Parker 11-4 at Wheeler Field in Hattiesburg. Jake Lycette and Bailee Hendon drove in three runs each for the Crusaders (23-10, 13-6 SSAC).
Not: Ole Miss fell to top-ranked Arkansas 8-3 at Fayetteville and has lost six in a row, including five straight in SEC play. The Rebels (18-14, 3-8) have surrendered 59 runs during the losing skid. … Mississippi College lost to Valdosta State 7-5 at Frierson Field in Clinton and has dropped 10 of its last 12. Starter Holland Townes (3-4) yielded seven hits, four walks, two HBPs and five runs in 5 2/3 innings for the Choctaws (14-18, 6-13 GSC), who have a staff ERA of 6.35.
Friday firsts in MLB: Former Mississippi State star Justin Foscue got his first big league at-bat and flied out for Texas in its romp against Houston. … Ex-MSU standout Brent Rooker, now with Oakland, hit his first homer of the season in another loss by the A’s. … Ole Miss alum James McArthur got his first save of 2024 and former MSU star Chris Stratton his first win as Kansas City beat the Chicago White Sox.
P.S. The Legacy League, a wood-bat developmental league, will begin play in June, 2025, at Jackson’s Smith-Wills Stadium, according to a press release from Tim Bennett, who operates the Hank Aaron Sports Academy at Smith-Wills. The Legacy League will have 10 teams, comprised of college players as well as players from other countries, in its inaugural season, per the announcement. The teams will represent local communities and play a 40-game schedule. The league website lists Dusty Baker, Andruw Jones, Brian Jordan, Ralph Garr and Deuce McAllister among its owners/members. There are a large number of college summer leagues around the country, including the Cape Cod League, Texas Collegiate League, Coastal Plain League, Appalachian League, Perfect Game League, Southeast Collegiate League, Valley League and the New Albany-based Cotton States League, which once operated in Jackson.

14 Mar

clearing the bases

Anthony Alford hit his first home run of the spring Wednesday for Cincinnati in the Cactus League. The two-run shot by the former Petal High star, in Reds camp as a non-roster invitee, came at the expense of former Mississippi State standout Ethan Small, who yielded five runs (two homers) in two innings in San Francisco’s 19-11 loss. Small, trying to earn a spot in the Giants’ bullpen, has a 9.53 ERA this spring. … Southern Miss alum Matt Wallner hit his first homer of the spring for Minnesota in the Grapefruit League. Wallner, USM’s all-time homer leader, belted 14 in 76 games for the Twins last year. … Aaron Downs, a junior out of Heritage Academy, delivered an 11th-inning walk-off single for MSU in a 2-1 win over New Orleans at MGM Park in Biloxi. It was the first RBI of the season for Downs. The Bulldogs (13-5) play defending national champion LSU in Starkville this weekend to open SEC play. … Ole Miss (13-5 with seven straight wins) launches SEC play Friday against nationally ranked South Carolina in Oxford. … Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson will host a pair of SWAC series over three days this weekend with Mississippi Valley State playing Bethune-Cookman and winless Alcorn State meeting Grambling State in three-game sets. … In the first regular season NAIA coaches poll released on Wednesday, William Carey — preseason No. 4 — fell out of the Top 25. The Crusaders, who made the NAIA World Series in 2023, are 13-9 and 4-5 in the SSAC. Blue Mountain Christian (18-5, 5-4 SSAC) did not get any votes in the new poll. … East Central Community College, ranked No. 1 in NJCAA Division II, beat No. 15 Meridian 7-5 and 4-3 to improve to 27-0 and 4-0 MACCC. … Jackson Prep, 18-2 and ranked No. 2 in the state by Prep Baseball Report, beat ninth-ranked Sumrall 7-2 to finish a 3-1 run through the Battle at the Beach. Patriots star — and LSU commit — Konnor Griffin threw six one-hit innings with 12 strikeouts and got two knocks in the Sumrall win. Lewisburg, ranked No. 1 by Prep Baseball Report, plays in the four-team Southeastern High School Baseball Classic at Trustmark Park this weekend. … MaxPreps’ latest state rankings have Hartfield Academy No. 1, followed by Lewisburg. Prep is fifth in that poll.

09 Jan

going, going … gone

It is not a shock to those who follow local baseball that Pearl is losing its Southern League franchise. You could see this coming. The Mississippi Braves have not drawn well at Trustmark Park during most of the club’s 20-year run there. The average attendance over the last three seasons, since the minor leagues came back from the lost year of 2020, has been about 2,300, ranking near the bottom in all of Double-A baseball. (And that 2,300 is an announced figure, not an actual turnstile count, which would be significantly lower.) The real surprise was that the city of Pearl got a team in the first place back in 2005. Nearby Jackson, which hosted a Texas League franchise for 25 years, lost its team in 1999 because of declining attendance — and rising operating costs — at Smith-Wills Stadium. As Con Maloney, the former TL franchise owner said just after he sold the club, “There are a lot of good baseball fans here — just not enough of them to support a minor league team.” The Double-A Generals, a Houston Astros affiliate, averaged roughly 2,500 fans in their best season, 1996. (The turnstile count that year was 1,866.) In their final, lame-duck year of 1999, the team drew 1,416 per game — though 4,367 turned out for the final game that year. The independent DiamondKats moved in in 2000, drew about 700 a game and promptly folded up shop. The independent Senators arrived at Smith-Wills in 2002 and averaged about 1,700 per game for four years, opting to fold after the 2005 season, when the Braves began playing — to much initial fanfare — at Trustmark Park. It took an odd confluence of events and the involvement of some powerful people to get Trustmark Park built and get the Atlanta Braves to move their Southern League franchise from Greenville, S.C., to Pearl. But it happened. The team drew relatively well at first: over 3,500 per game (announced) the first three seasons at the 5,500-seat TeePee. But attendance dropped under 3,000 a game in Season 5 and was down to 2,600 per in 2010. They averaged 2,378 in 2023; the national MiLB average last season was 4,076. Rocket City (Huntsville, Ala.) led the SL at 4,911 per game. Bottom line, the M-Braves are averaging roughly what the Generals averaged in their best years — and that wasn’t enough to sustain the franchise. For the record, the Jackson Mets, who preceded the Generals at Smith-Wills (from 1975-90), never averaged more than 2,000 a game in announced figures. So, with the Trustmark Park lease up after this season, Diamond Baseball Holdings, which bought the franchise from Atlanta in 2021, is moving it to Columbus, Ga., into a renovated ballpark that — oddly enough — once housed the Astros team that moved to Jackson in 1991. Going back to 1953, when the original Jackson Senators pulled up stakes after their downtown stadium was destroyed by a tornado, central Mississippi has been jilted by six baseball teams. Will there be a seventh marriage?

19 Sep

seven flags

With the playoffs in the three Double-A leagues beginning tonight, it’s an appropriate time to toast the seven Double-A champions from Mississippi. (There won’t be one in 2023.) The Jackson Mets won three Texas League titles back in the 1980s, the Generals won a pair in the ’90s and the Mississippi Braves have claimed a couple of Southern League titles since arriving in Pearl in 2005. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the M-Braves’ first title. The 2008 team, managed by Phillip Wellman, beat Carolina in a dramatic and deciding fifth game at Trustmark Park. That was a club built around pitching and speed. Matt Young (30 steals) and J.C. Holt (22) led five players with double-figure stolen base totals, and two others swiped eight. Todd Redmond (13-5, 3.52 ERA) was the ace of a staff that also included Tommy Hanson, Kris Medlen, James Parr and closer Luis Valdez (Jairo Asencio). Kala Ka’aihue was the top slugger with 14 homers. Jason Perry, who flashed through for 38 games, hit 13 bombs. The top prospect at the beginning of the season was Jordan Schafer, who was hit with a drug-related suspension at the start and then underperformed most of the way, finishing at .269 with 10 homers and 12 steals. The M-Braves wouldn’t win another pennant until 2021. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Generals’ first Texas League crown, which came in the Houston Astros affiliate’s third season at Smith-Wills Stadium. The Sal Butera-managed Gens, who went 6-1 in the postseason and swept El Paso in the league finals, featured TL player of the year Roberto Petagine, who batted .334 with 15 homers and 90 RBIs. Brian Hunter hit .294 with 35 steals and played a great center field. Lance “Bam-Bam” Madsen belted 23 homers, and Jackson native Fletcher Thompson hit .294 with 23 bags. Jim Bruske (9-5) and Alvin Morman (8-2) were the top starters, and Jim Dougherty led the league in saves with 36. … Though neither of Mississippi’s two Southern League clubs made the postseason this year, there are state connections among the four clubs still playing. In the SL North, Chattanooga meets Tennessee, which features Southern Miss product Walker Powell (11-6, 3.68). Former Generals slugger Daryle Ward is Chattanooga’s hitting coach. In the SL South, ex-Mississippi State star Tanner Allen (.274 in 17 Double-A games) leads Pensacola against Montgomery, which features former MSU standout Colby White (0.00 ERA in eight Double-A games) in its bullpen. McLaurin High and Meridian Community College alum Davis Bradshaw is on Pensacola’s injured list.

05 Sep

touch ’em all

Take pause today from the MLB division and wild card races to honor the life of Doug Shanks, who had a far-reaching impact in baseball — and politics — in the Magnolia State. Jackson native and Provine High alum Shanks, who died Monday at 76, was instrumental as a City Commissioner in the 1970s in getting the New York Mets to move their Double-A team to Jackson and getting Smith-Wills Stadium built as their home. Three different pro teams that played there won six league titles from 1975-2005. Shanks coached youth baseball, including the Jackson 96ers, for many years; won state championships at University Christian School (now Hartfield Academy); and coached 14 seasons at Mississippi Valley State, where he won five division titles, reached the SWAC Tournament championship game and famously hosted Notre Dame for a three-game series in 2010. After retiring from Valley in 2015 — and being honored by the state Legislature — he took the coaching job at Central Hinds Academy. Shanks also launched the Cotton States League, a collegiate summer league that played its games at Smith-Wills in 2001, when the city didn’t have a pro team. The league still operates in New Albany. And he played a key role in getting the Dizzy Dean Museum built in Jackson in the mid-’70s; it is now housed in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum adjacent to Smith-Wills. Shanks’ son Fred, a state Representative, said this in a Facebook post: “He lived a full life and was a bit of a Forrest Gump.”

06 Aug

the only one

Al Jones, a tall right-hander from Charleston, made his big league debut for the Chicago White Sox on this date in 1983, becoming the first and to date only Alcorn State alumnus to make The Show. On in relief against Baltimore at old Memorial Stadium, he gave up two hits, got Cal Ripken Jr. to hit into a double play, then was pulled after walking the next batter. He wound up being charged with a run but got a hold in a game the White Sox won 6-4. Jones pitched only 26 more games in MLB, finishing his career in 1985 with a 3.77 ERA and five saves. He stayed in the game, pitching until 1999 in the Chinese Professional Baseball League, where he had a 3.69 over six years. Alcorn’s program, which has fallen on hard times in recent years, has produced some good players, foremost among them Bill Foster, a Negro Leagues legend from the 1920s and ’30s who is enshrined in Cooperstown. The Braves have had 13 players drafted, including Jones (13th round in 1981), Corey Wimberly, Angel Rosa, Marcus Davis and John Harrington. Greg Daniels hit .545 for the 1983 Braves, the second-highest average ever by an NCAA Division I player. Current Atlanta star Michael Harris II’s father played at Alcorn. But Jones is the only one to reach the big leagues — 40 years ago today — and there are no Braves alums currently in affiliated ball. P.S. Up in the Cape Cod League, Southern Miss’ J.B. Middleton got the win and Kros Sivley the save as Hyannis beat Falmouth on Saturday to advance in the playoffs. USM’s Will Armistead pitched the ninth inning in Hyannis’ win in Game 1 on Friday. … Yarmouth-Dennis, with Braden Montgomery (Madison Central alum) and Hunter Hines (Mississippi State) on its roster, faces a decisive Game 3 today against Brewster. Montgomery is 2-for-9 with a homer in the series; Hines, the CCBL home run champ, didn’t play in a win in Game 2. … The semi-pro Hattiesburg Black Sox went 2-2 in the NABF Major Division World Series in Michigan, bowing out in Saturday’s quarterfinals. … The Smith-Wills Stadium-based Hank Aaron Sports Academy is holding its Fantastic 44 “Winner Take All” game today at 6 p.m. The 44 participating players are from high schools all over the state and were selected by coaches and instructors that oversaw three showcase events this summer at the Jackson facility.