What”s in a name?
Baseball players in the Golden Triangle will find out after area coaches sit down to discuss the latest Dizzy Dean Senior tournament and to begin planning for the event in 2012.
Head baseball coaches at Caledonia, Columbus, and New Hope high schools said earlier this week they planned to get together with West Point High baseball coach Buddy Wyers at the end of the summer to evaluate this year”s event, which featured nine teams, and to determine whether they would try to organize a similar event with a different name for 2012.
“The tournament went great,” said Columbus High baseball coach Jeffrey Cook, whose team played host to pool play games Saturday and to the semifinals and final Sunday. “It is kind of disappointing that some of the teams that were planning on coming didn”t get to come, but as far as the area coaches and the town, I think it went really smoothly.”
Inclement weather Friday affected play at Caledonia High, but that was the only blemish on an event that featured competitive baseball. Zachary (La.) defeated Kosciusko 10-2 and Caledonia 3-0 on Sunday to win the title. Former Caledonia High baseball coach Sam Adams served as coach for the Zachary (La.) team. He said Zachary (La.) planned to return to the area next season to participate in the event.
Starkville Academy and Neshoba Central also participated in the event. Ridgeland didn”t return due to a coaching change.
All of the teams could see a different version of what they faced this year.
With only nine teams, Caledonia, Columbus, New Hope, and West Point were forced to share duties as host sites. Caledonia and West Point played host to games Friday, while Columbus and New Hope played host to matchups Saturday.
In past years, as many as 40 teams and eight host sites have been used in a Dizzy Dean World Series. This year, though, the event wasn”t called a “World Series,” due in part to the fact it attracted fewer and fewer teams from outside of the state of Mississippi in recent years.
Zachary (La.) and St. John (La.) were the only non-Mississippi teams to play in the event this season. Local coaches said they expect St. John (La.) to return next season.
The coaches pointed to high gas prices, a recovering economy, and the fact that two other baseball tournaments also were played last week for having only nine teams.
Twenty-three teams participated in the Northeast Mississippi Coaches Association for Better Baseball Summer Championship that was held at six schools, while the 20th annual State Games of Mississippi held its All-Star games last week. The top players from the state”s eight districts competed in the State Games in Meridian.
Caledonia High baseball coach John Wilson, whose team defeated New Hope 7-6 to advance to the title game, said the tournament likely won”t be moved back a week because it would have to compete with the Fourth of July holiday weekend. He feels the tournament would have a better chance of attracting more teams, especially from the area, if it moves its dates up a week. He said the switch would mean fewer “regular-season” Dizzy Dean games, but he said the benefit would be that teams likely would get to play different opponents in a tournament setting.
Wilson also said there is a way for Dizzy Dean, NEMCABB, and the State Games to work together to avoid scheduling conflicts, but he said he isn”t sure about the prospects of everyone coming to a consensus. As an assistant coach on the team that represents Mississippi every year at the Junior Sunbelt Classic in Oklahoma, Wilson said that team routinely loses players who opt for other events due to a variety of reasons, so organizers always are going to have problems.
Still, he feels the Golden Triangle has a reputation for having quality baseball programs and plenty of fine facilities, which add to the experience of playing in a tournament that lasts more than one day.
“People know what kind of fields they are going to play on (in the Golden Triangle) and they know there will be nice facilities,” Wilson said. “I think the expenses have gotten to be too much that a lot of the teams that used to come can”t afford to come back.”
Cook agreed and said some “tweaking” needs to be done to increase the number of teams. He said the coaches would examine the cost of entry fees and what teams would be asked to provide as part of their participation to see if they come up with ways to get the field back to double digits.
“I don”t know if it will ever get that big again (when it had 30-40 teams annually) because of all limitations placed on us by the MHSAA and the increasing popularity of seven-on-seven football,” Cook said. “Most teams want to be finished before July 1. Then you have the mandatory dead week (July 11-15), so I don”t know if we can make it as big, but we can make it a lot better.”
New Hope High coach Lee Boyd said the high price of gasoline and the economy have changed the way people travel. But he echoed Wilson and Cook in saying he feels the Golden Triangle has earned and has maintained a reputation for organizing and running a strong Dizzy Dean tournament every year. He hopes that will be something area coaches will be able to use when they examine the formula for 2012 to avoid trying to cram so many things into May and June.
“You are not going to many places like this,” Boyd said. “I think it is a drawing point. We do have good ball in this area.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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