[Jarons]

Hunter Greene, who when healthy ranks right with Paul Skenes as the best young starting pitcher in baseball, is on the hill for the Reds tonight. A good chance to get a second win.

  OSH, here’s a little personal story about the Angels starting outfielder Jo Adell. He went to high school at Ballard, and during my son’s career at North Laurel we were playing them in a tournament at Madison Central. It was a tight game, Ballard up 1-0 going to the 7th, and they brought Adell, who threw in the low-90 range, in to close it out. Well, we hadn’t taken our whole squad, only had three guys on the bench, and our starting second baseman got sick late in the game and had to come out. The kid who replaced him (not my son) was a good fielder, but was a freshman who at that time had never had an at-bat in a varsity game.  Well, guess who’s turn to bat it was leading off the 7th? Yep, that very kid. His first ever varsity at bat, and he’s facing the hardest thrower he would ever see in his high school career. No fairy tale ending, he struck out on three pitches, although he did manage to foul tip one, which we thought was a miracle in itself. Adell was an awesome talent.

Your story reminds me of my cousin's story about facing Don Gullet when he was in high school. My cousin bragged for years that he hit a foul ball off Gullett. He also struck out, but he was as proud of hitting, he talked about that almost every time I saw him through the years.