the road ahead

Anthony Alford, once rated the 36th-best MLB draft prospect in the country, has some catching up to do. The former Mr. Baseball from Petal High, who recently left the Ole Miss football team to return to pro baseball, has played just 25 minor league games, none since 2013. Alford, an outfielder, will spend a couple of weeks in Toronto’s Instructional League camp in Florida and then head off to the Australian Baseball League, according to the National Post of Toronto. Because of his commitment to football — he originally signed with Southern Miss — he slipped to the third round in the 2012 draft. Toronto signed Alford with the intention of letting him continue to play college football while spending the summers in pro baseball. In two limited stints in the low minors, Alford has a career .200 average with a homer and six steals. Alford, who was also the state’s Mr. Football in 2011, has tremendous potential on the diamond. This is a guy who hit .483 with four homers, 31 RBIs and 14 steals as a senior at Petal. It’ll be interesting to see if he can get back on the prospect track. P.S. In addition to Bobby Abreu (see previous post), there was one other ex-Jackson Generals star still playing in 2014, though not in the major leagues. Daryle Ward, now 39, began the 2014 season in Mexico and finished in the independent Atlantic League. The lefty-hitting first baseman batted .239 with eight homers for Somerset, which recently was eliminated from the APBL playoffs. Ward, who hit 90 homers over his 11 MLB seasons, last played in the majors in 2008. He had a huge year for the 1997 Gens, batting .329 with 19 homers and 90 RBIs in 114 games before moving to Triple-A. And, of course, he famously hit a foul ball that blasted a hole in the outfield fence at Smith-Wills Stadium.