Baseball Diaries

Either Mother Nature or the Gods of Baseball decided to frown upon us over the last seven days. First, rain, rain, and more rain pushed the State Baseball finals back several days, thus making last week a logistical nightmare. Then, yesterday's make-up date for the state title also got rained out. So, our worst-case scenario occurred:

The state baseball championship and the first day of the MLB draft on the same day.

Now, when I worked in Missouri & Iowa, covering the MLB draft was an afterthought. It was pretty rare that we'd have a local kid selected, even though we had a really strong JuCo in our viewing area. In Georgia & Alabama, the draft is huge. We always have a few local high schoolers, and a bundle of local college kids, that get selected.

So while attempting to cover the big Shaw-vs.-C-Town state title matchup (a pretty big deal, since the two teams playing for the state title are located about ten miles from each other here in C-Town), and trying to work out the logistics for a live shot during the game (always a big pain in the butt), we also had to listen to MLB Radio and watch the MLB.com draftcaster for local kids.

Ah, it was worth it. For the first time since Frank Thomas in 1989, a local kid was a first round draft pick! The St. Louis Cardinals picked Russell County's Colby Rasmus 28th overall. Not too shabby. And to make things really convenient, he spent the afternoon at the Shaw/C-Towngame. I have to say, he looked pretty sharp in that Cardinals ballcap.

I don't know Colby that well, though I've interviewed both him and his coach/dad, Tony, several times. I honestly can't think of a kid that's more deserving of something like this. He lives, eats, and breathes baseball. And he's a heck of a ballplayer. I can honestly say that I've never seen him make a mistake on the field. Oh, and I'm not just saying this because I know that his mom, Robin, will probably read this.

Of course, Cory's a huge Redbirds fan. So, in a fit of utter non-professionalism, I asked Colby to autograph Cory's ballcap (the same one that Zoe was napping on a few weeks back). He didn't give me too strange a look when I asked. Turns out, it was his first autograph as a Cardinal.

That was the easy part of the day. Covering the state Class AAA finals was the hard part of the day. Dave shot the games, I anchored the show live from the ballpark. It was hot, I was cranky and sweaty. Oh, and people kept walking in front of the camera. I had to spend half of my live shot shoving people out of my way. Seriously. I needed a bouncer.

I know I bitch a lot. Today was actually a lot of fun, in that weird, stressed-out, challenging way. I guess it's the same reason some people run marathons. It's hard work and sometimes you just want to roll up into a ball and cry, but when it's over, you feel pretty good.

By the way, C-Town High School won the state title, sweeping Shaw 10-2 and 9-1. No C-Town or Shaw players were drafted during the game (which surprised a lot of us). But tomorrow is another day.