SPORTSbyBROOKS » Youth sports

Highest Paid Batboy In MLB History Makes Debut

Brooks — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 01:14:19 +0000

Last Sunday starting Cincinnati Reds shortstop Orlando Cabrera, who is currently on the 15-day disabled list with strained oblique muscle, made history.

(More from Reds batboy Luke Stowe on Cabrera’s performance)

Cabrera, who is making $2.3 million this year, became the highest paid batboy in baseball history by assistant the club’s regular batboy, 16-year-old Luke Stowe.

From Mark Sheldon of MLB.com:

“At first, I was watching him and telling him what to do a little bit,” said the Reds’ regular batboy, 16-year-old Luke Stowe, son of equipment manager Rick Stowe. “He started recognizing stuff that I did after a couple of years. I was getting pretty scared thinking he was going to take my job.”

However, by the fifth inning, Cabrera called it a day and left the dugout.

“He said, ‘Man, this is tough work,’ and left after the fourth inning, but he did a great job,” Stowe said.

For his five-inning stint, Cabrera even eschewed his normal No. 2 for an official Reds batboy uniform top, replete with a “BB” on the back.

So why did Cabrera, who has played in nearly 2,000 MLB over 14 seasons, really cut the duty short? (more…)

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Pics: Did Deion Put C-Note On Son’s Youth Game?

Brooks — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 21:00:56 +0000

Last March, Jean-Jacques Taylor of the DALLAS MORNING NEWS wrote a nice piece about how Deion Sanders was establishing eight teams in a Dallas youth football league in an attempt to, “turn city-owned Wheatland Park into a thriving youth football complex.”

(Sanders allegedly collecting payoff from youth league game)

The above photo was taken on Sept. 5., 2009, at a Dallas Select League football game between Sanders-coached “Truth Prime” and the Rockwall (TX) Jackets. Truth Prime included Sanders’ son, with the players aged seven and eight. According to Sanders’ personal website, the game was played at Pennington Field in Bedford, TX.

(Scene from the game)

I’ve heard three different accounts on what the above photo was about. All three sources alleged that Sanders was collecting $100 from a bet he made on the game. (Truth Prime won 26-19.)

Here is another angle of Sanders in the same situation: (more…)

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Aluminum Bat Maker Found Liable In 2003 Death

Adam J — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:40:13 +0000

Back in 2003, Montana high school pitcher Brandon Patch was struck by a line drive from an aluminum bat in his temple during a game. Patch would die from the injuries four hours later; his family, quite understandably, eventually filed a lawsuit.

Their lawsuit, however, wasn’t against staff at the game or anybody else who was there - it was against the bat manufacturers. Specifically, it was against Hillerich & Bradsby, who make the Louisville Slugger aluminum bats. And today, a jury found in the Patch family’s favor, awarding the family $850,000.

(more…)

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Boys Won’t Play Against Girl For ‘Moral Reasons’

Rick Chandler — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:50:57 +0000

A brawl broke out between two Colorado youth football coaches on Monday night when one team refused to take the field because the other had a girl in its starting lineup. The coaches of the Eaton, Colorado team of 10- and 11-year-olds had expressed concerns over their boys hitting and tackling a girl due to “moral” and “religious” reasons.

When Greeley showed up for the scrimmage and was told that Eaton wouldn’t play, Greeley assistant coach Nate Hernandez confronted Eaton coach Shawn Mills, and fisticuffs ensued. The police showed up, and Mills ended with with a bump and scratches over one eye. That’s just how they roll in Greeley, where the assistant coaches are tough, and the girls are tougher. (more…)

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Boy Beats Cancer, Gets Cut From Basketball Team

Adam J — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:40:33 +0000

The Eagan (MN) Traveling Basketball Association has a funny way of rewarding the brave. One of its participants, young Conor Smith, was 11 when he was stricken with a brain tumor in 2007. During his treatment, doctors also diagnosed Conor with Leukemia. Obviously, basketball was out of the question as he received chemotherapy for the rest of the 2007 season, but he returned to play in 2008.

(Sorry, Conor, but you’re going to have to learn that life is full of unreasonable people sooner or later.)

Fast-forward to 2009, and while tryouts were going on, Smith was in the midst of a 3-week stint where he needed casts on his legs to ease stiffened calf muscles. From the chemotherapy. Because, you know, he was a child recovering from cancer. Well, regardless of the fact that he’ll be out of them soon, the lowest division of Eagan Traveling Basketball has decided to axe him from the ranks of players. Really.

(more…)

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KISS Allied With HS Football Team Back In 1970s

Adam J — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:00:44 +0000

A couple hundred miles from the mean streets of Detroit Rock City, there was - still is, actually - a sleepy town on the edge of the Manistee National Forest up in northwest Michigan named Cadillac. Why they named their town after a car brand, we’ll never know.*

(What, nobody on the team wanted Peter Criss‘ kitty-cat face paint?)

Anyway, the local football team, after a period of success, was struggling during the mid-’70s, and nobody was having any fun anymore. One assistant coach suggested introducing rock music to the locker room, settling on the dulcet tones of Gene Simmons and KISS. The experiment worked, if by “worked” you mean horribly… oh, wait, it actually did work, and the story eventually turns into what must have been one of the top 5 most badass high school moments of all time.

(more…)

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Bonjour, Les Enfants! Tony Parker In French ‘Toon

Adam J — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:00:27 +0000

It’s getting to the point where Tony Parker is famous for just being Tony Parker. Oh, not in America, mind you; here, he’s little more than just another point guard, albeit a pretty good one. No, France is where Parker really shines, being a native and all. There, he and Eva Longoria are famous enough that their mere presence, their existence, is a big deal. Did you know he’s a rapper there? Did you know he sucks at it? Did you know that it doesn’t matter to France that he sucks?

(He’s such a big deal that he just puts the name of the country on his shirt and they go wild. This has got to stop.)

So now that Parker can do basically whatever he wants and get even more popular as a result, the logical endgame is a medium that requires neither talent nor makeup: children’s television! It’s about a bunch of kids in America, and you’ll just never guess what sport they and Tony are playing.

(more…)

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City Bureaucrats Determined To Keep Visors Clear

Pete Gaines — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:45:52 +0000

There’s a reason that rules and laws exist. We get that. Sure, sometimes we chafe under the authority of bosses or government or society, but without rules and laws, our perfect little society would devolve into some bizarre violent scene out of Waterworld, with roving gangs of urine-drinking Kevin Costners wreaking havoc on the post-apocalyptic landscape. There is no in between.

(Daywalker.)

But sometimes, man…sometimes rules are just stupid. Like, really stupid. Like, “it’s-illegal-to-hunt-camels-in-Arizona” stupid (no, that’s not actually the law). See that kid right there? That’s 12-year-old Graham Bartunek, and all he wants to do is play football. But unfortunately, the stupid rules of the Oconomowoc (WI) Department of Parks and Recreation are getting in the way. Sometimes, rules were made to be broken.

(more…)

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Taiwan Succumbs To U.S., Sweet Tooth In LLWS

Rick Chandler — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:00:20 +0000

In the end, Chinese Taipei met their doom in the Little League World Series the way that most vanquished teams do — due to Almond M&M’s. California kids know that you don’t pig out on tasty candy until after the game. But Taiwan was cocky, as we see below in this screencap from their dugout, and will pay for it tomorrow morning with nasty sugar hangovers.

Hey, we had to figure out a way to beat these guys, and planting enormous bags of candy in their dugout as as good a strategy as any (also works with Yankees on days that CC Sabathia is pitching). Chula Vista, California 6, Chinese Taipei 3. U.S. wins its fifth straight LLWS title. (more…)

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383-Pound 8th Grade Football Player Dies On Field

Pete Gaines — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:33:16 +0000

The death of a child in any circumstance is a horrible tragedy to be avoided at all costs. The world, unfortunately, is a random and cruel place where horrible tragedies occur with terrible regularity. Sometimes, these tragedies are unavoidable - cancer strikes or a freak genetic condition rears its ugly head. Much more often in this country, though, they are at the hand of another - car accidents, suicide, murder.

This is, or rather was, 13-year-old middle school football player Anthony Troupe, Jr. Troupe died last week on a surburban St. Louis football field during practice. Again - unavoidable tragedies happen all the times, even to youth athletes. But here’s the kicker with Anthony: he weighed 383 pounds. In 8th grade. Could his death have been avoided?

(more…)

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