Pop Flies I DUGOUT CHAT Parker Knox - 06.12.2001

Hello out there in cyberspace! This will be a no-doubt feeble attempt at a baseball column, I must admit at the outset. If it doesn't satisfy your yearnings for all the inside dope on Post 8 and statewide Legion baseball, it will at least satisfy my need to occasionally write a sports column, especially during the best time of the year---Legion baseball season. Sports has, for the most part, disappeared from the People pages of the Capital Journal, thanks mainly to the good intentions of the soccer and hockey people who believe their sports will have "arrived" if their stories appear in the sports section alongside NFL football. For their sakes and their sports' sakes, I hope that proves to be the case. But back to baseball, since I have no place to put a baseball column except Tyler's Post 8 Website, only he is gullible enough to believe that I can actually write a sports column worthy of circulation, so I thank him for somehow getting this information from my computer to the Website to your computer. I have not the slightest idea how that happens, and as long as he's around, I don't need to know. I know only that he has a Website that welcomes a baseball column, and I'm not going to argue.

Two months and counting: Only one team will go from South Dakota to the Central Plains Regional this year since it's not being held within our state. Is there a ghost of a chance that that team will be anybody other than Rapid City Post 22? Is there EVER a chance it will be anybody else? (Two years ago at the state tournament at Hyde Stadium, it WAS somebody else, remember?)
Keeping track of Legion baseball across the state is next to impossible because the Associated Press does not distribute scores as it does for high school sanctioned sports. Thus it requires checking each daily paper that comes in in the hope that there are some Legion scores. But the first perusal of such papers seems to indicate there is no powerhouse team anywhere in the state outside Pennington County. Everybody except Post 22 has been winning and losing with equal regularity. One ray of hope occurred in Mitchell one night last week when, wonder of wonders, Post 22 gave up eight late runs and lost to Mitchell, 11-7. OK,
so it was only Post 22's second loss of the season in something like 24 games, but it was a South Dakota team that did it. Post 22 is slightly mortal at least, even if that program is honestly not quite as mortal as the rest. Coach Dave Ploof's biggest problem may be with his bus, not his team. The Post 22 vehicle broke down and kept the Rapid City team from making it to the first day of the big Minneapolis tournament in which it has been playing. Post 22 went to 23-2 Sunday when Matt Robinson pitched a no-hitter against Anoka at the Twin Cities tournament. The other Rapid City club, Post 320, had a nine-game winning streak going the other day in boosting its record to 15-6. Post 320 has a good chance, of course, of making it to Hyde Stadium for the state tournament along with Post 22 because two teams will come from each region. A quick peak at just a few of the other Legion teams across the state:
-- Aberdeen's Smittys got a save from Matt Reich, who pitched a great game against Pierre last week, and split a twinbill with Mandan, one of the teams coming to our own Koester tournament in July. As of Monday Aberdeen's record was 9-5. The Smittys host their invitational this coming week with Sisseton, Milbank, Huron, Britton-Claremont and Redfield the visiting clubs there.
-- Valley Springs, against whom Post 8 split on a recent four-game road trip, reached the finals of the eight-team Milt Simons tournament in Sioux Falls over the weekend, rallying three times in the title game before losing to Marshall, Minn., 5-4. Among other South Dakota teams there, Sioux Falls East finished fourth, Mitchell fifth, Brookings sixth, and Sioux Falls West seventh.
-- Huron, which has played only six games, is 3-3 after splitting a pair with Groton over the weekend.
-- Mitchell, which lost its first three games, including two to Pierre, stands at 7-6 after the Sioux Falls tournament. Speaking of Mitchell, here definitely is the "quote of the week" in Legion baseball. These words, quoted in the Mitchell Daily Republic, came
from the lips of Mitchell player Travis Kaiser after his team rallied to beat Post 22 last week. He said, "Rapid City is definitely a team we like to beat. It's a lot better than beating teams like Yankton and Pierre." That sounds like a quote that ought to be posted on the home team's dugout wall at Hyde Stadium in time for Wednesday night's doubleheader.
-- The Brookings Bandits' record is 3-6 after their Sioux Falls tournament games.
-- Watertown stands at 6-5 after a sweep of two from the Sioux Falls Roadrunners.
So, among the teams whose records I've been able to locate, there's nobody standing up tall as a challenger to Post 22. Not yet anyway, but come the August heat, we'll see what happens.

Post 8 trivia: It's been nearly a month since Pierre opened its season with those two wins over Redfield, so we need to put on record the following meaningless information:
* First Post 8 hit of the season: Brandon Cruse.
* First single: Charlie Magedanz.
* First double: Cruse.
* First triple: Chris Iverson.
* First home run: Jesse Gosselin.
* First run batted in: Cruse.
* First run scored: Cody Richter.
* First 1-2-3 inning by a Post 8 pitcher: Mark Livermont.
* First foul ball into the first-base bleachers: Chad Jungwirth.
* First foul ball up and over the bleachers: Magedanz.
* First foul ball onto Capitol Avenue: Chas Olson.
* First out committed: Pat Anderson.
* First putout: Anderson.
* First stolen base: Anderson.
* First assist: Magedanz.
* First double play: Anderson to Magedanz to Brandon Deffenbaugh.
* First strikeout by a Pierre pitcher: Livermont.
* First base on balls drawn by a Pierre batter: Magedanz.
* First sacrifice: John Gosselin.
* First Pierre catcher to throw out a runner trying to steal: Chris Brinkman.
* First long drive into the creek (though foul): Magedanz.
* First winner of a 50-50 jackpot: Kevin Richter.

Spring baseball camps: Four Post 8 players spent a week this spring at a pair of baseball camps in Florida. Pat Anderson went to the Doyle Baseball School at Disney's Wide World of Sports in Orlando for the fourth time, and Chas Olson, Dalton Decker and Charlie Magedanz went together to the Bucky Dent Baseball School at West Palm Beach. These camps took place during the high school seasons in many states so there weren't all that many players of our guys' ages there unless they were on high school teams which happened to be in Florida at the time playing games. At Pat's camp there were about 100 athletes ranging in age from 8 to 18. "At our camp," he said, "you signed up for your primary position. For me it was shortstop. Then you went with other middle infielders during our fielding times. With other aspects of the game we were together with our age groups, such as hitting, baserunning, throwing, etc." At the Dent camp Charlie chose the infield instruction while Dalton and Chas went to pitching every day. Those classes occupied the mornings, then everybody did hitting in the afternoons. Most of the instructors there were pro scouts and college coaches. Ironically one of the latter was Jesse Beesley's baseball coach from Lynn University. On a typical day "we would get up at 7:30 and go eat breakfast," Chas said, adding that he chose to sleep a bit longer while the others ate
breakfast. "Then we broke down into our defensive positions and worked on whatever all morning," Charlie added. "After lunch we had either hitting or games till 3 or 3:30, followed by time to ourselves." Chas credits the camp with making him "more of a pitcher than a thrower. It also showed me what I was doing wrong when hitting." Charlie said he picked up "quite a few tips on baserunning."
At the Dent camp the boys rarely escaped campus, but at least they had a basketball hoop and a pool at which they could tan up in the Florida sun. At Pat's camp the participants were taken to nearby Disney World for a couple of evenings. Pat said the Doyle camp helped him in all aspects of the game "but mostly in my hitting and fielding." The instructors there were three Doyle brothers, all three of whom are former major leaguers. The schedule there followed a pattern similar to the Dent camp. "We came at 8 in the morning, and one of the Doyle brothers led chapel where he talked about God, baseball and life in general. We stretched out and had instruction in the mornings, ate lunch, and, depending on the day, either had games or instruction in the afternoon."

Three weeks to the Koester: The 12th annual Koester Memorial Touranment at Hyde Stadium will find Post 8 and five other teams playing three games each in round-robin play over Friday and Saturday, July 6-7, then matching up for fifth-place, third-place and championship games on Sunday.
The Friday schedule: Huron vs. Sturgis at noon, Rapid City Post 22 Split Squad vs. Mandan at 2:30, Sturgis vs. Valley Springs at 5, Post 8 vs. Valley Springs at 7:30.
The Saturday schedule: Sturgis vs. Mandan at 10 a.m., Split Squad vs. Huron at 12:30, Split Squad vs. Valley Springs at 3, Post 8 vs. Mandan at 5:30, Post 8 vs. Huron at 8.
The Sunday schedule: games at 11 a.m., 1:30 and 4 p.m.