Good pitching...some timely hitting helps my middle school team to hard-fought win

My middle school girls softball team received a complete-game, seven-inning performance from a gutsy righthander and put together a couple of key hits in the bottom of the second inning, and again in the bottom of the fifth, to score eight runs and escape with a 10-6 victory in their final home game of the season. The victory evens the girls record at 2-2 on the season with two away games looming, one on May 4 and the finale on May 11. The season-ending tourney is set for May 14. At this point we are battling for a second or third seed in the tourney. Last year, we were the fourth-seeded team and picked up the third-place trophy. With just two weeks left in the season, we need to get the bats going down the stretch. Team-wise, we are batting a cool .247 with just 22 hits in 89 at bats. The opposing pitchers have been tough on us again this year. The good news: We lose only three players to graduation this year and our B team is a surprising 3-1, after winning 18-16 yesterday. The B team will complete its season with two home games, while the A team is away. Wish us luck.

My middle school girls take it on the chin...

My middle school girls have been getting the short end of the stick in recent games. After starting off the season with a convincing 12-0 win, the girls have now dropped two games by a combined score of 23-17. To be fair, it has been a combination of misinterpretation of league rules by the men in blue and the lack of key hits on our part. We have had 7 hits in two games. That's not good. But despite the lack of hitting we have comeback in both games and have had our chances to do some damage offensively and be competitive to the very end. The big problem, and what is frustrating, is my girls are caught up in what is called a no-cut, everyone plays policy. For instance, I have 17 girls on my roster and they all get playing time in every game. Case in point, the top team in the league shows up at our place with nine girls (10 I guess, their coach says one was on the injured list). That particular team has been a powerhouse in the league for years. How do they do it? Well, the school is twice the size of ours, yet they bring just enough A players to field a team. I, on the other hand, have 35 girls in our program (50 last year)and with the no cut policy we are forced to divide the girls into two teams, A and B...and everyone gets their share of playing time. As for the men in blue, well they blew one in our second game of the season when the game was called in the middle of the last inning with our team down two runs and we were coming to bat. The inning should have been completed and was not. So we ended up on the short end of the score, 14-12. Our 9-5 loss yesterday was equally as frustrating, but for different reasons. Oh well, that's middle school softball for you. We will regroup and try to even our record at 2-2 with another game this Wednesday.

The journey to my old college town...

It is Friday, just two days shy of Easter Sunday, and my family is in town and will be taking a short two-hour trip to a location new to them, but very nostalgic for me. We're packing up and heading 128 miles to the southeastern part of Arizona to the small farm town of Safford, or, to be a little more specific, the college town of Thatcher, home of Eastern Arizona College. Would you believe that I graduated from Eastern 46 years ago? And now, in just a few minutes, I'll be heading out of our driveway enroute to EAC with my grandson (with the same name as me: Danny Price) and by late morning he should be signing on the dotted line and will officially become a Gila Monster (that nickname will never change...still, it is a lot better than the Artichokes from Scottsdale Community College,which is located just outside of Phoenix). What is so ironic is the fact that I played baseball at Eastern Arizona and graduated from there in 1965. It was that spring when my collegiate team and I played two games against the Arizona State Sun Devils freshmen team, which by the way had a very fast, very athletic home run hitter named Reggie Jackson. Jackson hit a couple of home runs off of us and stole at least one base while I was playing second base. The young Jackson slid into base and spiked me. He also knocked the ball loose...and was safe! Every once and a while, I look at my left ankle to see if the little scar is still there. Talk about reliving the past. And now my grandson will be playing baseball for the next two years under the direction of EA head coach Jim Bagnall. My grandson will be housed in a dormitory, which is within 200 yards of Mark Allen Hall, my residence in 1964-65. My grandson currently lives outside of Grand Junction, Colorado (town of Parachute) and is finishing up his senior season at Grand Valley High School, a 2A school, located about midway between Grand Junction and the town of Rifle. Danny plays third base and pitches for the GVHS Cardinals. He's currently batting .400 on the season and has an ERA of 2.0. By the way, he's 6 feet 2 and weighs in the neighborhood of 200 pounds. For the record, I was 5-8 and 165 pounds when I played for the Gila Monsters. Danny has black, curly hair. I'm, of course, a little on the grey side...more like white. We, my family and I, will then meet up with my former baseball coach, Dalton Overstreet, for lunch at his Mexican food restaurant, The El Charro,in Safford. It should be a fun day!

Umpire takes his check and goes home!

You gotta love middle school sports! In my girls softball game today, the umpire checks his watch and calls the game in the middle of the inning. Just moments after my middle school girls team had rushed off the field for their final at bat of the game. The ump stops the game and takes away our at bat. We were the home team! He says it is a two-hour time limit. "But!"I said. "No," says the man in blue. Down 6-0 in the first inning, my girls battle back, but end up on the short end of the stick, 14-12. The ump takes his check from our athletic director, tips his hat and heads for the parking lot. My girls are now 1-1 on the season.

The luck of the draw...

When you coach and head up a middle school girls softball program things can change from year to year. As a coach you may find yourself in the middle of a rebuilding year or years, and, on the other hand, you may find yourself in the midst of a roll when the talented players keep coming, causing a reloading mechanism to unfold, instead of that dreaded rebuilding scenario, which forces you to take a deep breath before every game and just go with the flow. This year, my middle school girls are on a roll and can be compared to a beautiful Stallion , galloping up hill and preparing,gracefully, for his downhill, all-out run to the bottom of the valley. The girls are that good. Where do these 11 to 14 year old, talented girls come from? Of course, many of them are representing their Tucson-area school, after four to five years of "Club Ball" --the future, so to speak, for the young, local athletes -- all with their own hopes and dreams of playing ball for the University of Arizona, the most powerful women's softball program in the country. We won yesterday, 12-0, in our season opener. Sure, I gave the normal hand signals from the third base coaching box...but it was as if they knew what was coming and were prepared to sprint toward the base in front of them with or without the sign from the ole coach. Bottom line: We stole 25 bases...seven alone by our lead-off hitter, and we sprinted to an easy win. Needless to say, the coach is smiling. It was a comfortable ride home on the yellow school bus.

The season begins...

Today is April 13 and it is not a Friday, think goodness! This afternoon my middle school girls fast-pitch softball teams open their season. The A team will hop on the little yellow school bus and hit the road for a 25-minute drive, while the B team has its season opener at home. In about 12 hours, I hope to be home, back on my old laptop, reporting some good news. The girls have had only three weeks of practice under their belt (that's middle school for you), so ready or not here we go.

Softball Update: How sweet it is! A team gets it done with a 12-0 shutout -- called by the mercy-rule after five innings , while the B Team follows up with a surprising 30-10 victory in a two-hour marathon. A great start to the season!

No Hollywood ending at NCAA title game...

The movie the Hoosiers was better. Gene Hackman is no Jim Calhoun, of course, and I didn't see Barbara Hershey spring to her feet and cheer as the final seconds ticked away in the NCAA title game last night, won by the UConn Huskies, 53-41,over the Butler Bulldogs. No dramatic moments to speak of in this finale. Heck, our own Arizona Wildcats could have, and did, script a movie-like performance in its down-to-the-wire loss to the Huskies over a week ago, but hats off to UConn -- the lone survivor of March Madness, 2011. As for Hackman and Hershey, well us old time movie buffs grew up watching Hackman perform. From the tough-as-nails basketball coach in Hoosiers, to "Popeye" Doyle in The French Connection, to the sheriff in Unforgiven...a five-time Academy Award nominee...a fabulous actor, Hackman can carry a movie from start to finish. If you love movies, you'll definitely get your money's worth if Hackman is starring in it. Hershey, on the other hand, changes faces constantly, in my opinion, and is one of those movie stars you need a second look at and say to yourself, "Is that the girl...from the movie?" Hershey was the bad girl that shoots Robert Redford in The Natural. She portrayed Chuck Yeager's wife in The Right Stuff, Bette Midler's girlfriend in Beaches...and the list goes on...and more recently, the talented actress portrayed the overbearing mother in Black Swan. Here I go again, mixing sports and movies, together. It's time for another cup of coffee! By the way, Hackman is 81 and Hershey is 63, this is 2011 and UConn's Kemba Walker is 20 years old. Now you know how my mind works!

April rolls in...

As April rolls in we (referring to sports fans in general) prepare ourselves for such things as the end to the NCAA Basketball Tournament; opening-day and the first full week of major league baseball; the end of the regular NBA season (the playoffs are just around the corner) and many of us (sports fans), reluctantly, will scatter our separate ways and begin to focus on everything from college baseball and softball, to the PGA Tour, to NASCAR, to the NHL...well you (my readers) get the idea.

And so it goes, the end of the Spring Season, so to speak, and the beginning of those long, hot days of summer (for us Tucsonans, that is) are just around the corner...or, may I say, could those days already be here? After all, it was a cool 96 on Saturday.

Later this evening on national TV a winner will be crowned, a trophy will be raised and one team only -- the underdog 8-seeded Butler Bulldogs or the 3-seeded UConn Huskies will raise the hardware high over their heads and celebrate the finality of it all. The end of March Madness.

For us Arizonans, we can now focus on our Diamondbacks, a team, which as of this writing find themselves with one win, one loss, and a cancelled game due to (would you believe) a rainy, mixed with snow, chilly day in Denver yesterday. Our Phoenix Suns are done! The Suns are destined for an under .500 season, unless they can put together four wins in the next six games. As for our 'Cats, the ladies are rolling along with a 32-6 record and Kenzie Fowler has recorded 20 wins already this season. Fowler has matched the Arizona baseball team in wins as the Wildcats dropped a 3-game series yesterday to the Oregon State Beavers to fall to 20-7 on the season.

Finally, and after just three cups of coffee this morning, let's talk about the MLB box scores. The one box score, which has me shaking my head this morning. The Baltimore Orioles are 3-0. The Orioles third baseman, Mark Reynolds, went 2 for 4 yesterday, a run scored, two RBI...and no strikeouts!

Check those box scores...there's a story somewhere in most of them. Oh well, it is on with the month of April.

Just how close where the Wildcats to the Final Four...

Just how close where the Arizona Wildcats to the Big Dance...the NCAA Final four...the ultimate goal for a college basketball program?

Very! The only team to beat the Wildcats in this year's heart-stopping, jaw-dropping, upsets-in-the-making tourney was the UConn Huskies. And that occurred, of course, when the Huskies escaped with a two-point win over the Wildcats in the Sweet Sixteen contest in Anaheim over a week ago.

The 3-seeded Huskies had their hands full with the Wildcats, and yesterday afternoon eked out a one-point win over Kentucky to reach the championship game, setting up a showdown Monday night with 8-seeded Butler to decide the best collegiate basketball team in the country for 2011. The Huskies' play, in their win over the Kentucky Wildcats, is shockingly similar to their victory over own 'Cats.

We, as in the Arizona fans...and the team from Tucson that left it all on the court -- just a week ago, came all so close to the BIG DANCE.

First week of middle school softball practices end...

The first week of softball practice with my middle school girls is history. It was a cool 96 degrees yesterday. Too hot for me, the coaches, and the 36 girls. Why does it have to be so hot? After practice, I had my "A" team come off the playing field and I told them I wanted to finish up practice by having them run five laps around the field.

I waited two seconds to see their reaction and then I said, "April Fools!"

Diamondbacks Win!

I didn't see the game. There's just too much going on in my life right now. But, it was nice to read in the paper this morning that the Arizona Diamondbacks edged the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field in Denver yesterday, 7-6. It wasn't exactly a right-on, inning-by-inning preview of the season opener that I had predicted (see my previous post, dated Sunday, March 27). But the outcome and my brand of humor...well, you can draw a few comparisons.

Hey, the Diamondbacks are 1-0 with 161 games to go!

Oregon win CBI tourney...

The last Pac-10 team standing in college hoops this season turns out to be the Oregon Ducks.

The Ducks edged Creighton, 71-69 to win the College Basketball Invitational on their goofy-looking court last night in Eugene. An over and back call on Creighton resulted in a Ducks' possession with 17 seconds remaining. Oregon's E.J. Singler banks in the winning shot as the Ducks play 39 games this year and finish with 21 wins and 18 losses.

The Ducks can dive into the pool and take a break now.