Opperman

I'd have a lot less of a sunburn if we played at 5 and 7:45, that's for sure...

Yeah, I can understand that. And again, I want to thank you for your help this afternoon. BBALLTN, old timer is right...I don't care whatsoever who wins what. I'm a Bartlett guy, I have no preference among any single-A schools. I'm just telling you what happened. Like I said, Harriman has a great crowd here, outstanding support for a school of just 400 students that's 340 miles away. But unfortunately, I can assure you that 99% of the people running things at Elrod Field will only remember one thing about Harriman. And that's the group of fans chanting choker. The 1% is me...I'll remember that, I'll remember they traveled really well, but most of all, I'll remember how much fun it is to keep up with the defensive alignment with all the triple and quadruple switches.

If it would get ratings, I promise TV would find a way to get it done.

Harriman had a dramatic come-from-behind win today over DCA, as I'm sure those interested have heard. But to me, it was overshadowed by a group of about 10 or 15 Harriman fans chanting "CHO-KER" at the DCA pitcher. It was one of the most classless things I've ever seen at a high school game. It's a shame, because the vast majority of their fans were good, supportive fans. But that's not what neutral people or DCA fans noticed today. I saw one Harriman parent go over and tell them to quit it, but they ignored him and kept going the rest of the day. Again, don't get me wrong, it wasn't most of the fans -- and Harriman traveled extraordinarily well. But that left an impression, and not a good one.

It's hard to set up livestats. I tried to set it up for the site I'm doing baseball at, but it won't work for two reasons -- first, there's something wrong with the software, and second, there's no internet connection at the field. Basketball and football are on a university campus with plenty of internet bandwidth, and iamoz himself wrote a couple of nifty programs to read the stat files and post live stats in game.

Harriman hit the ball hard all game.

And it's even worse. With 2 outs, there was a routine grounder to the second baseman, got through him, and that made all four runs unearned.

Where did Halford go?

How many coaches is this that Iverson's run through there? 5 or 6?

Name one Spring Fling event that's been played in Arkansas. One. Softball's only in Southaven because the TSSAA has insisted it absolutely must be at one site.

The transportation center of the state is Nashville. And that matters more than specific geography for transportation purposes.

For Bolton, take the TN-385 exit (24/25) and follow the Millington signs. The second exit (might be third) is Brunswick Road. Take the exit and turn right (north). Bolton will be on the left...you'll turn in before the school to get to the baseball field. For Bartlett, take I-40 in to exit 12, Sycamore View. Turn right (north). The field is in Freeman Park, which is on your left right after the fifth stoplight (Elmore Rd). To go between them is interesting... Going from Bartlett to Bolton is easy. Turn left on Bartlett Blvd (Sycamore View changes names when it gets to the Bartlett city line), then turn left in front of Pig-N-Whistle onto Bartlett Rd. Turn left at the light, which is Stage. After you pass a couple of churches, the next road on the right is Old Brownsville, turn right there. Take OB until it dead-ends (by which point it's known as New Brownsville) in TN-14, Austin Peay Hwy. Turn right on Austin Peay, take it to TN-385. Take 385 east, Brunswick is the first exit, turn left at the bottom of the ramp and it's the same as above. Coming from Bolton to Bartlett is a little tougher, especially at night. Take 385 west to Austin Peay (TN-14), turn left to go south/west (I don't remember which it's signed as). After about 5 miles, you'll turn left on New Brownsville...which is very easy to just fly by. It's right after a stoplight, and there's a left-turn lane. That's about all I can tell you for how to spot it. From there, you'll want to take New Brownsville (which turns into Old Brownsville) to Yale Road, which has a four-way stop sign. Turn left on Yale. Take Yale to Sycamore View and turn right. Go straight through the light at Stage, then turn right at the stop sign where it dead-ends and the park is on the right. Bartlett's in the heart of a community, Bolton's next to a cotton field. So there's all kinds of restaurants around Bartlett, jack squat near Bolton. When you're at Bartlett, find me...I'm the official scorer, I'll have a laptop in front of me.

No, I said I wouldn't send him to Interstate for dinner. Lunch, on the other hand... thumb thumb thumb

You just forfeited your right to complain about Memphis being too far away.

Neely's isn't terribly far. Take 240 "WB" (really south) to the next exit, Mount Moriah, turn left, and Neely's is on the left after about five lights. Best BBQ in the area is near the Southaven site. MUCH better than Neely's, IMO, though Neely's isn't bad. But I wouldn't suggest going to South Third Street at night. The route I'm going to tell you to use won't make a ton of sense on a map, but the name of the game is avoiding stoplights. Take I-385 east from Millington to the second or third exit, which is Covington Pike or SR-204, then go south for a while. When you get to Austin Peay (SR-14), turn right. Take Austin Peay to I-40 East, which turns into 240 west. Poplar is Exit 15, the second exit after the 40/240 split. Take the Poplar exit and bear to the left to go to eastbound Poplar. Stay in the left lane, because you'll make a U-Turn onto Westbound Poplar (you can only go in the H.I. Select from the wesbound lanes, you'll understand it when you see it). Take the second driveway for the Select, it has a gate that automatically opens when it senses traffic. BTW, I wouldn't use Hotrod's directions to Millington...it gets you there, sure, but it goes through town -- meaning stoplights and lots of them -- and through a not particularly good part of town at that. Use the reverse of mine...again, there's a total of about six stoplights last time I went this way. Take 240 EB and it turns into 40 WB, exit 8 is Austin Peay, take the exit and bear left to go northbound. Go until the fifth stop light, which is Covington Pike (TN-204) and turn left. Get on 385 WB (if you get to the guard gate, you probably want to turn around ), turn right when it dead-ends, and the stadium will be on the left at the next light. (If you're coming in from Nashville, take the 385 exit (it's at Exit 24-25, I never can remember which one it is, but those two exit together ) rather than going through town.

I don't know if we'll ever see AutoZone Park used again, even if the Fling is here on rotation like has been discussed. The TSSAA didn't really like working around the Redbirds' schedule last year, and even though it wouldn't be as complicated this year, they're still avoiding it. The Spring Fling is always on the week leading up to Memorial Day. And the Memphis Redbirds, since they're the top draw in all of minor league baseball, will always be at home for Memorial Day weekend.

Scott Elrod Field is at Freeman Park. Take I-40 to the Sycamore View exit, then go north. Freeman Park is on the left after the sixth stoplight (the first four lights are all visible from the Interstate, then the other two are very spread out, haha). Ask for me, I'm the official scorer there. Elrod Field will be an interesting site...wonderful facility, but since it's in a municipal park, dimensions are a little...cozy.

If anyone is coming to Memphis and needs help -- be it directions, suggestions for where to eat, suggestions for where or where not to try to get hotels (though I'm probably late on that one), e-mail me. I'm going to be at the Class A tournament at Bartlett most of the week, though I'm planning to go to Millington Tuesday night and all day Friday.

By that logic, teams west of Nashville should have stayed home and never gone when it was in Chattanooga.

More people than care about the entire WBA combined.

The Heat were playing the Wizards. If they were playing Dallas, they'd get drilled without Shaq. Just like they did when they came to Memphis without him.

Take Shaq off Miami and replace him with the fifth-best center, are they a title contender, at all? If you took Steve Nash off the Suns and put Jason Williams in as their point guard, they would have won 60 games.

Glad to find out I'm not alone either...but we can create a separate thread for Atlanta-bashing if you want.

Huh? They went from 42-40 to 59-23. Fourth to first. And his former team went from 57-25 to 34-48. Nash's new team went from 29-53 to 62-20, but there's two other factors to consider. First, Phoenix was a lot better last year after their trade with New York...they finished 8-6 last year. But Nash's old team got better -- from 52-30 to 58-24.

Well OK, maybe he's only won one...but it's the same basic sentiment. They view Shaq as the easy choice so they go out of their way to pick a "more intelligent" one.