Published Tuesday, June 09, 2009

The Great South League comes to Newnan

Sports Column by STUART CROSBY

stuart@newnan.com

Many schools have completed their baseball seasons, packed away the uniforms and held the banquets to honor players and coaches with tears and hugs for those who are leaving for other points to continue what they have done for several years.

Among that group are approximately 400 college baseball players who are participating in a league in this part of the country known as the Great South League.

Similar to the Cape Cod League and the Alaskan Summer League, the league is comprised of players who have attended a number of schools from the University of Georgia to the University of Dallas which is an NCAA Division III school,

This season, the GSL added a team to the City of Homes for the 2009 season.

The Newnan Braves began play last Wednesday at Golden Park in Columbus and despite a 7-3 defeat to the local team, everybody connected was pleased to start the season.

The Braves opened at home last Friday at Newnan High School’s Joe Pope Field and had a doubleheader on Saturday against a team that plays out of Pebblebrook High School in Mableton called the Cobb Premier Stars.

Among their players is former East Coweta outfielder Jeremy Capshaw who recently completed his season with six other Cowetans at Atlanta Christian College.

The team from ACC (seven Cowetans on the roster) recently competed in the postseason of their sanctioning body.

The Newnan club took two out of three from the Stars including a 15-1 win in the second game of Saturday’s twinbill and will be at home tonight at 5:30 against a club based at the Windward Baseball Academy in Alpharetta.

The admission price is pretty good as well at three dollars per person to see a team that features seven players from Coweta County as well as several players from Fayette County and a few that attended Woodward Academy, Landmark Christian and others nearby.

Among the aforementioned is former East Coweta hurler Bryan Blough who recently pitched with Middle Georgia College in the NJCAA tournament. He had a dominating performance on Friday against the Stars with seven strikeouts while showing great control with 35 strikes of the 46 pitches he threw.

Hopefully when next week arrives, his name will be announced in New York when Major League Baseball holds its annual draft and if it isn’t he will take it out on the Southeastern Conference as a member of David Perno’s rotation at Georgia.

There could be some other GSL players as well who could be drafted so stay tuned.

I will tell you that while three games are not enough to make a judgment on the team or league, I thought there were some quality players on both teams.

There was good starting pitching on both sides and I may have a favorite catcher in Pascual Poston of the Braves with former Whitewater center fielder Heine Rivera getting on my outfield list.

On Friday, a player from the Stars had the audacity to try to score on a single to Rivera who promptly threw a strike to the plate and Poston applied the tag to end the inning.

Now that I’ve given you an idea of what you can see, here’s hoping the Newnan Braves will enjoy good success and good crowds all summer.