Published: June 03, 2009 12:57 am      

MARK MAYNARD: Some spring cleaning notes 6/3/09

Some spring cleaning notes:

-East Carter’s run to the 16th Region baseball championship on the 25th anniversary of the Raiders’ magical 1984 state championship season was almost poetic justice. East Carter did it with only one senior on the roster. Quite an accomplishment for coach Jeremiah Shearer.

-Kudos also to Ashland’s softball team on its first 16th Region title. Coach Dave Miller has done a fabulous job of mixing youth and experience. The Kittens play Mercy on Friday morning in the State Tournament in Owensboro.

-It was good to see Manny Ramirez had dropped to fifth in the outfield voting for the All-Star Game. He doesn’t deserve to be an All-Star and he’d probably admit as much himself. But with Manny being Manny, who knows what would happen if fans do put him in the starting lineup.

-The All-Star Game will be in St. Louis, which may bring back some memories of ballot-stuffing for some of the longtime Reds fans. It was in 1957 that the Reds had seven starters voted into the starting lineup, leaving out only first baseman George Crowe, for the game in Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis. Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick was livid and would only let them have five starters. He then took the vote away from the fans, giving it back to the players and managers, until 1970.

The starting pitcher for the AL in that 1957 All-Star Classic? It was none other than Jim Bunning, who threw three no-hit innings and was the winning pitcher. He finished 20-8 with a 2.69 ERA for the Tigers that season, the only year the future Kentucky senator would win 20 games in a 17-year Hall of Fame career. He was a 19-game winner in four other seasons and won 224 games total.

_How the Reds are staying alive in the NL Central is beyond me considering the number of injuries the team has endured. With the youth, enthusiasm and (mostly) pitching, the future looks bright. I can’t remember when the Reds had a better top-to-bottom pitching staff, even with the injuries.

-Believe it or not, only 80 days until the first high school football games are played. Are you ready for some football?

-If Kentucky’s basketball team gets off to a fast start (and there’s no reason to think it won’t) will anybody remember the Memphis-Derrick Rose-John Calipari flap currently being discussed?

-Jockey Calvin Borel goes for his own personal Triple Crown on Saturday in the Belmont. He won the Kentucky Derby on Mine That Bird, then the Preakness on Rachel Alexendra. With Rachel opting out of the Belmont, he’s back on the Bird. And I still say he’s a dead-ringer for Ernest T. Bass.

-Randy Johnson goes for victory No. 300 tonight against the Nationals. It has been met with little more than shrugs. That’s too bad, even though Johnson has brought a lot of it on himself with his uneven temperment toward the media.

But 300 victories while pitching in the steroid era is quite an achievement, a startling achievement really. He’s faced many of the steroid-abusers in his career and won most of the battles.

With starting pitchers no longer throwing 250 innings or staying in games past the sixth or seventh, Johnson may well be the last of the 300-game winners.

-The NBA Finals begin Thursday between the Lakers and Magic. Nothing is truer than saying the NBA playoffs are a marathon more than a race. They lost me down the homestretch when Team LeBron was eliminated Saturday.

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.