Alabama’s Baseball Disgrace

Photo by Sewell Thomas Stadium, Post renovations Date Taken on 20 February 2016, 1995 via Wikipedia Commons

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

A good friend of mine used to say, “This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.”
– Ebby Calvin LaLoosh, 
Bull Durham

Sometimes a private Las Vegas based monitoring firm called U.S. Integrity employed by, among many others, the Southeastern Conference and the Ohio Casino Control Commission, calls their clients to report anomalous betting on Friday April 28’s Alabama v LSU baseball game placed at BetMGM at The Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati and based on that call, Ohio suspends betting on Alabama baseball on Monday May 1, soon followed by Indiana, looking into a suspicious bet of their own, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Kansas. Sometimes it comes out that there is video of the individual who placed both flag-raising Ohio bets talking to Alabama head baseball coach Brad Bohannon on the phone. Sometimes the university you root for fires their head baseball coach and announces more than introduces suddenly former Pitching Coach Jason Jackson as Interim Head Baseball Coach by Thursday.

That’s baseball for you.

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Cecil Hurt of The Tuscaloosa News

Image

Today, in a moment of pique during the game, I may say something bad about Auburn, but I won’t mean it. The flowers and picture of Cecil Hurt in the press box was a nice gesture. Alabama fans appreciate it.

I never met Hurt, but I was behind him in line to give condolences to the mother of a friend who died far too early. The deceased suffered from a cancer that came and went over the course of ten years giving cruel hope now and then though we all knew the end was assured. I didn’t know what to say to his mom. Hurt did.

He was brief, kind, and assuring. I hope there is someone of his caliber at his funeral to give proper condolences.

I thought about that moment often when I read his work. On the page he was droll and cutting. The man I saw was gracious. He’ll be missed.  

Godspeed.