Friday, June 10, 2011

Oh, Kentucky

The Calloway County Lady Lakers (listen live; first pitch scheduled in two minutes!) and Hopkins County Central Storm were among the first-day winners in the double-elimination state softball tournament in Owensboro.

Meanwhile, in great Mike Fields's great look-ahead to next week's baseball tournament, there is a note of William Unseld's hiring as Warren Central High School's new boys' basketball coach. William is one of Wes Unseld's nephews.

Here's the problem.

Good jobs news from Earlington and Winchester.

Episcopals ... rocking Russellville for 175 years.

Basketball coaches at Randall K. Cooper High School in Union, the former coach at J-town and a football player from Lexington who's related to Dirk Minniefield are among those clobbering LeBron James.

15 comments:

  1. Through two innings, it's 0-0 in the Hopkins County Central-Central Hardin game. Allen County-Scottsville is off to a big start against PRP.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 1-0, Central Hardin, with two out in top of third ...

    Hopkins County Central High School is near Mortons Gap on U.S. 41, in southern Hopkins County. It's one of three high schools in the county ... there's Madisonville-North Hopkins (the Maroons) on the north side of town on U.S. 41.

    Per Wikipedia, Madisonville High moved to its current site from downtown in fall 1969. (That was the year after the Rosenwald school was integrated.) It took the name "Madisonville-North Hopkins" in 1978, with its consolidation with the old Hanson High School.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hopkins County Central High School formed in 1998 with the consolidation of South Hopkins and West Hopkins high schools.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Central Hardin, still batting, now up 3-0 on Hopkins County Central in sixth ...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Storm down to three outs ... trail 4-0 to Central Hardin heading into bottom of seventh ...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Central Hardin completes the shutout. Hopkins County Central is relegated to the losers' bracket in the double-elimination tournament.

    ReplyDelete
  7. A little more Mortons Gap ... the southern Hopkins County community once had a small-but-fantastic Veterans' Park, featuring dozens of snapshots of soldiers from around the area. It was organized and erected on the property of Ben Rash, a Mortons Gap native and veteran himself of World War II and the Korean War. Here's something from his book:

    "... I am one of the few who have questioned the wisdom of President Truman's decision to drop the bomb on two cities heavily populated by civilians. Babies, children, women, old people, all innocent.

    "Believing then as I now believe that the bombs should have been dropped on military bases, crammed with soldiers, I feel that the right to that opinion was earned.

    "Almost every returning serviceman was soon informed by the civilian population that 'production' had won the war.

    "Each time I was so informed, my mind returned to a swirling group of marines, storming fortified positions, dying in so doing, but th eliving continuing over the bodies of their friends until the enemy ceased to exist. I could then, and now, see pilots continue to dive their warplanes through a wall of flak to knock out their target. Colorado and Norman Scott, decks running red with blood, sailors standing to their guns, firing furiously at kamikaze planes diving straight at them, gunboats right against the reefs, trading shot for shot with the enemy, destroyer Twiggs blowing to bits. Mine sweepers going where 'even angels fear to tread.' Flashes, flares, screams and groans in the night. Driving rain and dripping jungle. Staccato crackling of hundreds of nambu machine-guns. Hoarse cries of the charging enemy. Weeks and months of thirst and hunger. Night after night of total exhaustion, afraid to sleep.

    "These and a thousand other memories flood back, but more clearly than all, I see the sick, aching, gaunt, tired men with sunken, red-rimmed eyes, struggle erect and respond to the command, 'Saddle up and move out,' and that thin line staggering ever onward toward the foe, every man knowing that at day's end the line would be even thinner. ..."

    Rash, Ben Voyage to Perdition (New York: Carlton Press, 1993) 271-272.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hopkins County Central is trailing, 1-0, to Ashland Blazer in the fifth inning of a losers' bracket game in the state fast-pitch tournament. The radio dudes just said that (no longer Paul) Blazer advanced by rallying from 5-0 back to Owensboro Catholic after an hourlong heat delay to win, 7-5, earlier today.

    ReplyDelete
  9. That is great, great stuff. Thank you, Eric.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Ashland Blazer's boys' teams are nicknamed "Tomcats;" girls' teams, "Kittens."

    ReplyDelete
  11. And that'll do it, fast-pitch fans ... sadness in Mortons Gap as the Kittens stifle the Storm, 3-0, in Owensboro.

    ReplyDelete