FanSpeak 5/1/05

Left out

I WAS reading the article about the young talent on the Central track teams. It mentioned all the young talent and also the seniors, which is great. It left out a whole crew of juniors that have established themselves and added many points at each meet. I think they really did not give the proper attention to all the students.

Recruiting advice

MEMO TO Southeast coach Gary Garner: Let's recruit 16.4 points per game, not 6.4.

Bad behavior

MY WIFE and I were at a high school baseball doubleheader where a man who was obviously a player's father began harassing the umpire and using extremely vulgar language. The umpire finally instructed the coaches to get the man away from the field. The man continued to curse so loudly we could hear him across the field, and he was not removed from the area. This behavior was uncalled for, and this parent should have been immediately removed. Furthermore, he should be banned from the baseball complex for the remainder of the year. This is the kind of parent who can create a dangerous situation for players, umpires, fans and coaches. There have been incidents of out-of-control parents resorting to violence at high school sporting events. This certainly left a bad taste in the mouth of our team and fans, and the fact the nobody did anything about this reflected poorly on the program.

Hall criteria

CONGRATULATIONS TO Central High School for its sound decision to resume nominating and inducting ex-students into it's athletic hall of fame. I would hope that those who do the nominating use but one criteria: that being the athletic performance of the person while in high school and not what he or she did afterward, whether it was to become president, go to prison or anything in between.

Ready for some baseball

I'M JUST curious when you're going to start publishing the current statistics of our local baseball players who play in the pros now, like Blake DeWitt and Garrett Broshuis. I'm just curious. It was in the paper last year every so often.

(The Southeast Missourian will start publishing that weekly feature this week.)

Coverage critique

I LOVE how Notre Dame gets recognized with a nice big picture on the front page, win or lose. But when Central beats Notre Dame, you keep it hidden on the third page with a little sentence on who scored the goal. That's awesome.

(Unfortunately, we cannot get to every contest. Prior to the story in Friday's edition covering Jackson's soccer victory against Notre Dame, the two most recent soccer games to appear on the front of the sports section -- both with photos -- was an April 18 tie between Central and Notre Dame and Central's victory against St. Vincent on April 23.)

Correction

HANNA SEYER was not the losing pitcher for the game between Scott City and Oran at the Oran Tournament. The losing pitcher was Jami Pobst, who pitched the entire game.

(The Southeast Missourian regrets the error.)