Class Act

Let me start this post by saying that C-Town State University's baseball coach, Greg Appleton, is truly a class act.

CSU's run through the Division II National Championship didn't last nearly as long as they'd hoped. They only played three games before being eliminated in a barn-burner late last night. I won't go into too much detail, but here's the summary:

CSU took a pretty hefty lead after hitting three home runs in the third inning. But Rollins College (The "Tars") chipped away with a little small-ball. A lot of RBI singles and sacrifice bunts. Rollins took the lead, and Larry Pittmon hit his second home run of the night to make it 7-7 in the fifth inning. Rollins took the lead back (more RBI singles and groundouts) in the bottom of the sixth.

Then in the top of the ninth, Larry Pittmon hit his third home run of the game, to tie it at nine. At this point CSU has nine runs, every one of them scored on a homer. They pick up one more run on an RBI Double to take a 10-9 lead going into the bottom of the ninth inning.

So CSU's powered their way into the lead with home run after home run. Rollins has stayed in it with 10 hits, most of them singles, none of them home runs. What happens in the bottom of the ninth? With two outs and a runner on, Rollins hits a home run. The kid had struck out three times, hadn't gotten a hit all night, and he jacks one out of the park to end the game, and end the Cougars' season.

Bummer.

Here's the tricky part: I'm supposed to do a live story from Montgomery on the 11:00 news (at about 11:25 ET). At 11pm, they're still playing. We had to keep feeding video back. David, who was running the satellite truck, had to keep running back and forth to get more video from me. Every time he'd send some video back, CSU would get another run, he'd have to get the tape from me, run back to the truck, and send the video back again. The game ended at 10:10 local time (That's 11:10 in C-Town, where the newscast was up and running). I might add, I'm awfully sweaty and slobby-looking from a full day in the sun (and night in the bugs) shooting baseball.

I slap on some powder and lipstick, comb my hair, throw a jacket over my sweaty t-shirt, and wait for coach Appleton to finish talking to the team. I know he's not going to want to do a live on-air interview ten minutes after his team gets eliminated from the championship.

He does it anyway.

What a great guy. His heart's been broken just minutes earlier and he sucks it up, does the interview, and even smiles a couple times doing it.

I asked him during the commercial break "Is doing this [interview] the crummiest part of the job?"

"No," he answered. "The crummiest part is losing in the bottom of the ninth inning."

Well said, coach.