Saturday produced rough times
By By Stan Torgerson / sports writer
June 7, 2004
I've had some bad days in my time, along with many good ones I should add, but last Saturday, ranks near the top of those I would not choose to live over.
If anything good happened, I can't find it.
Mississippi sent three teams into regional NCAA baseball tournament play. Oh happy day. All of the big three were good enough and successful enough to move on. Ole Miss was even selected to host one of those regionals.
Then came Saturday. The Rebels, after being shut out Friday couldn't, hit the broadside of the barn if they'd used tennis rackets and were bounced out of their own ball park. Two runs in 18 innings. Two defeats on top of the four game losing streak with which they ended the season and conference tournament. How bad can it get.
Southern Mississippi looked to be in the golden chair. The Golden Eagles advanced to the NCAA Regional winner's bracket Friday, and by winning one of two games on Saturday, they would play in Sunday's championship final. When they lost to LSU in the first game it wasn't unexpected. But the defeat by College of Charleston Saturday night certainly was. Pack the bats and go back to Hattiesburg.
Mississippi State made the tournament list by the skin of its teeth. After losing Friday, the Bulldogs needed to win two on Saturday. The Dogs got the first one and then were absolutely pounded by Texas Tech 14-7. Turn in your glass slippers, Cinderella, and return to the castle. There are chores to do. The season is over.
The three Mississippi teams collectively won 119 games this past season and not one of them played in a Sunday final. That's disappointing, frustrating, irritating, downright sad. Your choice.
Then there was the high school all-star football game Saturday, the Mississippi kids against Alabama's best.. Bama had won five of these games in a row, but the Mississippi representatives assured us their pride was not going to let that happen this year. But it did. Alabama won the game 24-22, their sixth consecutive victory and their 12th out of the 17 games played. Put another in the wrong column.
I freely admit to being a Smarty Jones fan. So Saturday there I was sitting on the edge of my chair during the Belmont, urging him to hold on against the onrushing Birdstone. He didn't. That made me a perfect 0-5 for the day Ole Miss, Southern Mississippi, Mississippi State, the Mississippi All Stars and Smarty Jones.
Well, my man Tiger Woods was playing better and he would certainly have a good day. He did, but someone else had a better one. Tiger shot a beautiful 67 and lost a stroke to the leader Ernie Els, who shot an even more beautiful 66. Zip for six.
Atlanta's Braves, my favorite baseball team, would bail me out. They could beat the Phillies. I knew that. Except they didn't. The Braves were beaten 5-3, losing two in a row for the first time in 17 games and giving them at 27-28 their worst record at this point of the season in 12 years. My record was still perfect, now at 0-7.
Then came the biggest loss of all, the word that one of my heroes, a certain former Iowa sportscaster had died. Ronald Reagan had been a sports announcer at WHO in Des Moines, Iowa. My first sportscasting job was at KGLO Mason City, Iowa, and it came just nine years after Reagan had left radio to go to Hollywood and try his luck.
I heard many stories about the movie actor who had been one of the boys in Iowa sports and was well known to everybody in that state's broadcasting world. I never met him because during that nine year gap between his leaving and my coming into the state his stature had grown far beyond coming back to shmooze at the Iowa basketball games I was broadcasting or the state tournament I was also working or any other event that had to do with sports rather than film. But I would listen to the memories and be alternately amused or impressed.
Nothing good happened last Saturday. Absolutely nothing. None of my favorite teams, won, my favorite golfer lost ground rather than gaining it, a horse who could have made history didn't and a genuine American hero is no more.
