(#146)
(Title from Lee Baker, Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer, May, 1989)
The participants for the 1989 MACJC State Tournament had been decided, except for one.
The Northwest Mississippi Rangers and the Mississippi Delta Trojans were the participants from the North Division, while Hinds had the number 1 spot in the South.
But the second spot from the south had not been decided. Pearl River had finished divisional play with a record of 16-8 and Gulf Coast was 14-8 with two make-up games to go with… Hinds at Perkinston. A doubleheader sweep of the Eagles would put Gulf Coast and Pearl River in a second place tie and complicate things even more.
The state tournament was scheduled to begin Friday, May 5th at Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson. The dilemma for us was having to go back to Gulf Coast for a third time to make up these games two days before the state tournament opener.
We had traveled to Perk on Saturday, April 29th for our last regular season meeting with them and got rained out, tried again on Monday and got rained out again.
We finished our regular season at home by sweeping Jones on Tuesday.
Now we would have to go back to Perkinston, yet again and possibly play a doubleheader, which meant absolutely nothing for us, and all of this was happening with the state tournament beginning 2 days later.
Our number one starter, Freddie Hill, was already penciled in to go against MDCC on Friday night. So how should we handle the pitching in these make-up games? One of the issues we had on this team was a lack of pitching depth.
It made no difference to me who the second place team would be. Pearl River had beaten us 3 out of 4 times in the regular season and we had swept Gulf Coast earlier in the season at home, 6-5 and 7-2. Either would be poison for us.
Coach Curly Farris, who was retiring at the season’s end, actually called and tried to convince me to just throw some lesser used pitchers against them, because neither of us wanted ‘Pearl River to make the tournament.’ He desperately wanted one more shot for another state championship. At that time he was the all-time leader in games won and state championships won.
I would not get caught up in the sentimental stuff. I know he wouldn’t have. 🙂
We headed south again early on Wednesday morning. Terry Gray, who was our number 3 or 4 starter after we had lost seven game winner Kenyatta Fleet as an academic casualty. Terry would be the starter and he could pitch deep into the game and give us a good chance to win.
The goal was to win one game and go home. Nobody on our bus had any interest in playing a doubleheader that day.
I told our closer, Mark Anders, not to dress out and to “leave his uniform on the bus.” I didn’t even want to be tempted to use him because he had just pitched the day before. Now, if the game had been meaningful for us, all hands would be on deck, no matter when they had pitched.
Of course, the game went into extra innings, and we took the lead in the top of the 10th. I had told Mark earlier to go to the bus and put his uniform on and get ready to close it out because we “don’t want to play two.”
He did and we won 11-7 in 10 innings bringing Coach Farris’ career to an end. His son Cooper would take his place the following season.
Pearl River advanced to the state tournament. They beat Northwest 7-2 and we beat Delta 9-6 in the Friday openers.
After rain pushed the second round games to Monday at Mississippi College, we beat Pearl River 4-2 in the winner’s bracket game. Cedric Robinson got the win and Noah James hit a home run to tie the game 2-2 in the bottom of 6th and then a two-run homer to win it in the eighth.
We met them again the following day. PRCC had beaten Delta 13-10 to make it back to the championship game. Steve Blaylock got the start for the Eagles and pitched into the seventh and left with the game tied at 3-3. Jeff Showah singled in the go-ahead run, scoring Doug Thomas and on the very next pitch when no one on the Pearl River defense expecting it, Matt Fouchard delivered a surprise suicide squeeze bunt scoring John Stewart to add an insurance run and literally dove over the plate and bunted the ball with both feet in the air.
Anders closed it out to pick up the win. The final score was 5-3. It was our second state championship in three years.
This tournament was the first phase of a magical post-season with the ultimate destination being the JUCO World Series in Grand Junction, Colorado. Next up? The Region 23 tournament in Meridian, and another opening round game with Mississippi Delta. Delgado would play Pearl River. The winner would advance to the Eastern District Tournament in Greenville, South Carolina.
Rick Clarke's Diary of a Mad Baseball Coach 