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Showing posts from July 27, 2008

Washington Post dominates my day on Day 64 of Around The Valley in 60 Days

Please check out the post from Mr. Greg Brill that will appear just below this one. Today is the hardest day of the work cycle for our real job- Page County Distributor of the Washington Post. I call my writings on the days that Greg Maddux pitches "Every 5TH Day" so I should call our "billing" Saturday "Every 4TH Week". The job and the hours are tough enough but one week-end out of four it becomes a 48 hour stretch of non-stop crazy. From Saturday afternoon until Monday afternoon we go pretty much non stop. That is without a baseball game to go to, but have no worries because I have created enough of the paper work to do during the 2 & 1/2 loop down to Staunton and back and will be at Gypsy Hill Park for the 7:30 PM start time. If this week-end is already enough on it's own, the Washington Post is raising the price of the daily edition up to .75 cents from the current .50 cents in all of the outer markets. So for any Post readers in Harrison

From the Desk of Greg Brill

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Some news and notes on my travels around the Valley Baseball League Written by Greg Brill Earlier this season, Jerry Carter asked me to share some thoughts on my experiences with the Valley Baseball League. That request came again recently and I thought "Why not?" I have had the good fortune to see many fine athletes in the Shenandoah Valley and report on their achievements over the last 27 years. I started out with the Northern Virginia Daily back in 1981 and currently write for the Winchester Star. The good folks I have worked for at both of these papers have allowed me to cover the VBL and see its growth over the years. When I started out there were only six teams in the league, and one of them was the Madison Blue Jays. But when I say "started out" I need to backpedal a bit. A family friend, Keith Lupton, was starting up a VBL team in Winchester. It was the fall of 1978 and Keith contacted my father about me getting involved as a scorekeeper. Back in my teenage

@ Luray 6, Staunton 3 (F)- A gamer and a Chat!

By: Scoop Carter ATV-60 Correspondant LURAY - I lived a scene right out of Groundhog Day this evening at Bulldog Field. My days and nights are running into one another but I could almost promise you that Alex Koronis was pitching the last time I was at the park in Luray (Thursday night). When I returned for the game Friday night as the Staunton Braves came to town I check my notes and it says starting pitcher for Luray is #18 (Miami) Alex Koronis . Seth McGuffin (Wrangler Web Cast) re-assures me that Koronis did indeed come out of the pen and throw 22 pitches to earn the win against Harrisonburg . Tonight Koronis hit the ground running and never slowed down. Alex fired 97 pitches over his seven innings of shut out work which included 10 strike outs as the Hurricane led Luray to a 6-3 victory over Staunton in the VBL semi-final. Koronis left with a 6-0 lead before the top of the eighth and earned his second win of the post season in just under 24 hours. Luray played its norma

Box Score from Bulldog Field: Wranglers 6, Braves 3

Wranglers 6, Braves 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E STA 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 5 2 LUR 0 0 1 0 0 3 2 0 X 6 8 5 WP- Koronis LP- Dignelli SV- Salgueiro Scoring Summary: Bottom Third: Wranglers - Yost homered to left center field Bottom Sixth: Wranglers - Lauriello homered , Foltz scored - Schimpf Homered Bottom Seventh: Wranglers - Foltz reached on throwing error, Miller scored, Yost to third - Lauriello reached on an error, Yost scored, Foltz to third Top Eighth: Braves - Izzo reached on an error, Huffer scored, Sedley to second Top Ninth: Braves -Most singled, Truxell scored, Townsend to second - McDade reached on an error, Townsend scored, Most to second

Covington at Waynesboro by GeneralsSignGuyMike

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Covington steals Game 1 against the Generals 4-2 Written by Michael Kerr The Covington Lumberjacks came into Waynesboro off of a sweep against the #3 Fauquier Gators and had a day off and it showed when they defeated the Generals 4-2. Covington's starter Turner Phelps went the complete game giving up only 2 runs on 5 hits, he is now (1-2). The Generals starter Andy Altemus went 7 innings giving up 4 runs on 7 hits, striking out 7 and walked 2. He is now (7-2). The game was scoreless until the 4th when the Lumberjacks put up 2 runs in the top half, thou Waynesboro did come back to put 1 on the board in the bottom half. The lead grew to 3-1 in the top of the 5th, thou the Generals had one final run in the bottom of the 6th. Covington added an insurance run in the 8th. Gabriel Saade was 1-4 with a double, a run from a wild pitch and a stolen base. Brandon Sizemore was also 1-4 with a double and a run. Game 2 of the best of 3 will be in Covington tommorrow and if the Generals win, they

Notes & Thoughts from Day 63 of Around The Valley in 60 Days!

Friday night always signals the end of another week in the VBL and today was the end of Week #9 and the season is assured to end during week #10... At the beginning of our promotion we had a banner made that we used for the first 11 nights we went to the parks and on night 10 ( Staunton owner ) Kay Snyder asked me what my plans were for the banner after night 11? My answer is it would probably end up on the wall downstairs with all of the other keepsakes. She then asked me if I would be willing to leave it with her and Boyd for the rest of the season. The next night we were back in Luray for night 11 and the Wranglers opponent happened to be the Staunton Braves. At the end of the night I rolled the banner up and sent it back with the Snyder's, knowing it would hang each night the Braves were in town. Fast forward to last night and Boyd comes up the stairs of the press box with a packing tube in his hand. Inside the tube was our banner. All of the things that Kay and Boyd had to

The Amazing things you run across when you read a PA script for a VBL game...

The summer is about to draw to a close and I continue to search for the perfect formula behind a VBL team. The nights I work in the box at Luray I spend most of my time discussing life and baseball with Mr. Seth McGuffin . Seth is the track coach over at Eastern Mennonite University and has been with Bill Turner and the Wranglers for a number of years and I am finishing my second year sharing our work space. Seth has experienced a great deal in life and the two of us often talk about the ideal situations for VBL baseball. We are going to branch out next year and expand the VBL to 14 teams and he will have a team at EMU (insert name here) and I will have mine, say Massanutten , yeah that's the ticket- The Massanutten Mountaineers and we try and make every home game like a trip to Disney! Just need a few donations, do Seth and I- maybe $150,000 each to get through the first couple of seasons. Everyone affiliated with the VBL is qualified to be an armchair quarterbac

Instant Classic : Wranglers advance with 4-3 victory over Turks!

By: Scoop Carter ATV- 60 Correspondent LURAY - More often than not the deceiding game of a series fails to live up to the expectations but that was not the case Thursday night when Luray defeated Harrisonburg 4-3 at Bulldog Field. The Wranglers will move forward to the semi- finals to face Staunton in a best 2 of 3 beginning tomorrow night when the Braves make the trip up I-81 but this one was in doubt right up until the final pitch. I would make an argument that this contest held a little bit of everything that a baseball fan could ask for. Let's start with the heroic efforts from the starting pitchers. Luray skipper Mike Bocock sent Alex Wimmers (Ohio State) to the mound and Bob Wease countered with Garrett Parker (Oklahoma City). Both hurlers went well past the century mark in their pitch count as they were both determined to carry their team to the next round of the post season. Luray reached Parker for single runs in each of the first three innings but never could d

Haymarket at Waynesboro by GeneralsSignGuyMike

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#1 Waynesboro defeats #8 Haymarket 11-5 Written by Michael Kerr At Kate Collins Field tonight, the fans once again saw a great performane from Jake Cowan from UVA for the Generals with him pitching 7 innings, striking out 12 Senators (6 in a row and 7 of the 1st 9 batters), giving up no runs and 4 hits. He has improved his record to 5-2 and has 56 k's. Way to go Jake and this comes from a diehard UVA fan. The game was scoreless till the 3rd when the Generals scored 1 run and lead 1-0 and then scored another 4 runs off of Haymarket's starter Dean Wolosiansky. The Generals scored another 4 runs in the 7th (capped off by a 2 run HR by Brandon Sizemore) to lead 9-0. Haymarket did get on the board in the 8th when they put up 5 runs on relief pitchers: Shane Ardoin and Matt Sokolowski. Brad Grove did come in and finish the 8th and 9th. Waynesboro did add another 2 runs in the bottom of the 8th and that finished off the 11-5 win. I must say Haymarket did put up one great battle aga

Box Score from Bulldog Field: Wranglers 4, Turks 3

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E HAR 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 3 5 5 LUR 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 4 5 2 1 out when winning run scored WP- Alex Koronis LP- Matt Chaffee Scoring Summary: Bottom First: Wranglers -Jefferson reached on error, McClain scored on second error Top Second: Turks -Baez flies out deep to right field, Wheeler scores Bottom Second: Wranglers -McClain doubles, Foltz scores, Johnson out at plate Bottom Third: Wranglers -Jefferson homers to left field Top Eighth : Turks -Murphy homers to right field Top Ninth : Turks - Baez homers to center field Bottom Ninth : Wranglers - Lauriello scores on back half of double steal with 1 out

From the Desk of Ken Hockin: Braves trip Royals 6-1

Sad to say goodbye to the Royals as we will miss reading and admiring the work of Mr. Ken Hockin. Here is his recap of the Winchester vs. Staunton game tonight... Thanks one more time Ken for making it so easy for us to follow the Royals! The Royals lost the deciding game of a 3 game set to Staunton 6-1. The Braves came out of the gate early again as they scored 3 runs on a home run by Blake McDade after Huffer and Most had singled. That proved to be all they needed for the win. Royals starter John Leonard allowed just one more run while striking out ten in 5 innings. The Royals scored their lone run in the 2nd as Dudley singled, advanced on a single by Galbraith, and scored on a single by Wes Borden. Josh McQuade got the win for the Braves. The Royals finish at 28-19. Remember you can read more about the game later at www.nvdaily.com

1 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5 Tomorrow Night at Waynesboro & Luray!

Waynesboro defeated Haymarket by a final score of 11-5 down at Kate Collins Field to advance to host Covington in a second round best 2 of 3 starting tomorrow night. Covington had the night off after sweeping the Fauquier Gators and the Lumberjacks will travel to Waynesboro for a 7:30 PM contest. I won't go into a deep recap as I know G-S-G- Mike will check in here in a bit... Staunton advanced to the semi-finals with a 6-1 road victory over the Winchester Royals and I need to thank Royals GM Jim Phillips for swapping scores with us throughout the evening. Rebecca will post Royals Web Master Ken Hockin's recap here in a bit and I figure that Chuck McGill had one of his aces covering the game so you can check that out at www.nvdaily.com later this morning. I saw that I had an e-mail waiting for me from John Leonard and this a good thing because it lets me know that John and his family had safe travel back from the West Coast! I am sure John is working on his series p

A Close Game at Bulldog Field

The game ended with a score of 4-3 but it wasn't an easy victory at all for the Luray Wranglers. I'm sure dad will have plenty to say about the balls and strikes but I just wanted to put some thoughts out there. Playoff Thoughts: A Note to the Turk Nation This playoff thing is going to be fun , I thought to myself. It pins the best teams in the league against each other, letting them duke it out in best-of series. Luray had a pretty good regular season, tying with Waynesboro for the best regular season record and taking the Northern Division championship. This is going to be fun . When I heard we were playing Harrisonburg, I didn't think twice about it at first. After the first game, I jokingly said, "Couldn't you guys have at least made it close?" But after that first game, everything changed. It wasn't just one more game against the Turks, now. We were fighting for the right to stay. Our boys were fighting to sleep another day in their warm, Luray beds.