Middle School 🏫 Soccer ⚽️ opens the evening on The Hill, with Varsity Girls 👧 set to follow ! Soccer ⚽️ Nite in Carroll County…

Meanwhile, across the Boulevard, Brittany Kinney works out her Junior Varsity team. As I guy that has seen way too many movies 🎬, Patrick Swayze saying ” Nobody puts Baby in a Corner “.

For the second straight home match, our JV Girls are on the outside looking in as Floyd County only has a Varsity team this year.

Meanwhile, our middle school team is hosting Galax, and the first touch took place at 4:30. Corey Williams is our coach and does a tremendous job with our youth.

Maleah Neely is one of the coaches on the Galax side of things, and it’s always a blessing to see her smiling face 🌝.

Corey Williams and Company

5:01 – Floyd County High has arrived so its time to meet their coach.

Much more 2 follow….

Floyd County Lady Buffaloes 🐃 roster !

Three additional names as Coach Adrienne Harris McGuire has moved up three JV players for the night.

I’m back up in the press box 📦 now, and we are in an injury time out. Nathan Jones is attending to one of the young Galax players. The clock ⏰️ is stopped at 25:40 of the second half with Galax leading 4-0. It is always tough when any injury occurs in a sporting event.

The announcing team for the match !

More 2 follow :

5:31 pm – play is ready to resume.

Also, Jeremy Puckett and his 11 should be experiencing first touch over in Floyd !

Assistant Coach , Brandi Cochran Mitchell

The three players being called up for tonight are freshman, Chloe Wright, sophomore Vannesa Contreras Rodriguez, and sophomore Aaliyah Hampton.

MS scores at 14:43 of the second, now down 4-1. The goal was scored by #41, and when I find a roster, I can correctly identify the Cavalier !

5:58 – Final Score, Galax 5-1

Varsity is set to play in just a minute or two, actually closer to 20. Floyd County is in the house 🏠…

Carroll County Girls,  3-0 at the half !

Callie ” Half Pint ” Harris completes her Hat 👒 Trick, making it 4-0 at 3:46 (2)

We open the evening with a Laurel Fork kind of a moment as Carroll County and Floyd County hope to beat the rain 🌧 on The Hill. Girls 👧 Tennis set to start at 4:30

Getting to meet Angela Hunter for the first time was a treat, and seeing 👀 my fellow neighbor once again is a bonus !

It’s time to head across the Boulevard to announce the Girls 👧 Soccer match, but we hope to pick this story back up before too long ! The fact that we all reside in the same part of the woods is a hoot !

Gone but not forgotten, we see you, Anthony Barnes ! The Gazette becomes the fifth publication that I have been with a story on the retirement of the Cavs ball coach…

Sports page of the Gazette, upper right corner.

Standing in the checkout line at the Dollar 💵 General in downtown Laurel Fork, Virginia, I looked up and saw 👀 the Gazette. I had not picked one up un a year or two, so I added it to my gallon of milk and headed home.

Going back to the day of Anthony Barnes and his team banquet, I was the one who “broke ” the news within one minute of his speech. That is the last time I addressed the subject because I wasn’t there as a reporter, but as someone who wanted to show support for a man that had given everything he had to his program for six years.

No, I had no previous knowledge about the message that Barnes would share on that Sunday afternoon, just a good Ole fashioned hunch. When you live your life with your heart ❤️ on your sleeve in the manner that both of us do, it’s easy to get nicked up.

Yes, both Barnes and I started the current runs at the same time. Six years is a long time ⌛️ to keep your foot on the gas ⛽️ pedal with all your might unless you are Rick Nester or Cindy Edwards.

If the goal for others is that of Lawrence Nesselrodt and myself, ” Leave it better than you found it,” Please know that you absolutely 💯% accomplished that Coach Barnes.

The Roanoke Times, the Carroll News, the Gazette, and the Patriot newspaper 📰 all reported on your story, and that’s just the ones I know about. Folks watched 👀 you pour 🫗 your heart out for six years. Take the time to soak that in !

Borrowing a line from the Night that the Lights went out in Georgia…

Thank You, Coach Barnes !

Let’s call 📞 this one the three Padres as we tip the ball cap to the late Randy Jones.

Randy Jones uptop and two guys with a connection down below.

Turning back the clock ⏰️ to just over 50 years ago, there was a 10 year old Navy Brat that was falling in love with the game of baseball ⚾️ but now found himself in rural South Georgia, far from his beloved Oakland Athletics.

Dad was stationed in Lemoore, California, when I was born back in 1963, so it was a natural thing to pull for the Oakland A’s and wow,  Was that a fun bunch of personalities. Even the owner, Charles Finley, was larger than life itself.

Joe Rudi, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Gene Tennace, Bert ” Campy ” Campanaris were some of the stars in the field while Jim ” Catfish ” Hunter, Rollie Fingers, Vida Blue and others toed the rubber. Finley tried to get Vida to legally change his first name to True so he could call him True Blue.

South of Lemoore was an expansion team called the San Diego Padres.

San Diego is a beautiful place, and they were owned for a long time by the founder of McDonald’s, Ray Kroc. There was a man with a business plan !

The Padres were never going to replace the A’s as my childhood team, but they did have a tall, lanky left-hander that was fun to watch. Randy Jones was a character, and maybe part of that at first was his larger than life afro and how it grew out under his cap.

While I can not back it up as absolute, check out the three year stretch where Jones went from losing twenty games to winning 20+ in the following two seasons. Incredible turnaround, and if anyone else has ever done it, I would like to hear about it.

Jones was a rookie back in the early 70s, and he wasn’t the only one. Fresh from Marshall University, by way of a brief stint in the minors, was Joe Goddard. My favorite part of calling a Golden Bears 🐻 Baseball game is saying Assistant Coach, the legendary Joe Goddard.

Goddard and Jones were teammates in 1972 in the Texas League, playing for Alexandria. Goddard would get the call up later that season, and Jones would get the same in the spring of 1973.

Joe has stories about how Jones threw a ” heavy ball ” back then, and while the lefty found some success, he was hindered by the Padres’ struggles. Check out the year he had in 1978, with an ERA of 2.88, Jones finished up at 13 – 14 on the season.

This past winter, Jones received his final call-up as he passed away in November. The tribute that the team held 40 years past his playing days showed that I wasn’t the only one who found Jones as lovable.

Meanwhile, Joe Goddard and I are hopeful of being around for a while yet. The added connection of the catcher who made it to the show and worked with one of my childhood heroes.

The things in the life of the Legendary Joe Goddard that pop 🎉 are much more than sharing a batters box 📦 with Hank Aaron or catching Randy Jones. The lifetime experience of teaching the game of baseball, still today as he is closer to 80 than 70, is the tip of the iceberg.

Rest in peace, Randy Jones, and thanks for the memories !