A friend tells a story: It was close to eight years ago when he coached a fall baseball team that competed in a wood bat league in Las Vegas. The team added an eighth-grader as a pickup player for one tournament, a kid who arrived with a reputation in town for being incredibly talented.
The difficult part, for once, is coming down hard on Bud Selig and Major League Baseball. But before handing the sport’s top executives gold stars for drawing a line when it comes to chasing those cheaters that still exist on the base paths, know that situations like this are always defined by an underbelly of political strategy.
They once gave Pete Reiser last rites at the ballpark. It must have been after one of the 11 times he was carried off a baseball field on a stretcher. Just brought a priest to his side and had the sacrament administered by a man of the cloth.
Damn the rule about impartial journalism.
It hasn’t been an easy year for Tim Chambers, but nothing has stopped his Rebels from inching closer to their first NCAA Tournament regional berth in eight years and what would be the first under Chambers in his three seasons as coach.
The pre-movie chat went something like this: Turn off your iPhones, don’t try to sneak an Instagram picture or two during the show, and learn about the human element of a historical figure whose courage shattered seemingly indestructible racial barriers.
