Baseball features

Baseball - Baseball features

For Klein High baseball coach Barry Smith, the UIL Baseball Championships won’t be a new experience.

He won a Class 4A state championship as a player at El Campo in 1982 and a 5A crown in his first full season as a head coach at Klein in 1998; he returned to the state semifinals three years later with the Bearkats.

But Smith, 46, has always wanted to coach one of his four sons in the state tournament, and he’ll get that opportunity at 3 p.m. Friday at Dell Diamond in Round Rock when Klein (32-6) faces Plano West (25-12-2) in the 5A semifinals.

Houston Community Newspapers

Baseball - Baseball features

When Kent Meador decided to leave Klein Collins last summer, some of his fellow high school baseball coaches in the Houston area thought he was crazy.

The Tigers were coming off a district championship and a third trip to the regional quarterfinals in a four-year span.  But Meador and his wife, Leslie, wanted to come home to Lubbock and there was an opening at Monterey. Meador jumped at the opportunity without much hesitation, even though the Plainsmen were barely above .500 last season and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2000.

“From a baseball standpoint, it doesn’t make sense,” said Meador, who immediately said, the decision “couldn’t have turned out any better.”

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Baseball - Baseball features

Baseball coach and athletic director Jose Armendariz, is fighting a battle off the diamond.

Nearly three years ago, he was diagnosed with a malignant chordoma tumor in his brain.  Armendariz has been fighting the cancer with surgeries and radiation treatments. Only now, the radiation has had severe side effects. He has started having seizures and is losing function of the left side of his body.

Armendariz was the athletic director and football coach in 2003, when Presidio decided to drop its football program. He worked to get the school board to put a focus on baseball. Now, the team is trying to pay back Armendariz for his dedication to them and the sport: a state title.

Odessa American

Baseball - Baseball features

Going undefeated in District 21-3A and reaching the third round of the playoffs hasn't happened because of hard work, talented players or good coaching. It's because of peanut M&Ms and Gatorade.

At least that's what Orangefield senior third baseman Josh Watson claims. Weird as that might sound, it's another example of one of baseball's time-honored traditions: superstitions.

Beaumont Enterprise

Baseball - Baseball features

If anybody knows what it’s like to have to follow in a father’s footsteps, it’s Mission Sharyland baseball coach Barton Bickerton.

Bickerton’s dad, Brien, was the seventh pick overall in the 1967 MLB draft by the Kansas City Athletics. His grandfather, Walter Bickerton was a three-year letterman in basketball at the University of California-Berkeley from 1938 to 1940. And Barton Bickerton himself was a pitcher at UTPA from 1989 to 1992.

Baylr Bickerton, a senior pitcher for the Rattlers, also has had to deal with being the next one in line. Next season, Baylr will pitch for the University of Texas-Brownsville Scorpions after four years of not only playing in his father’s program, but maybe playing in his shadow.

RGVSports.com

Baseball - Baseball features

Forsan installed baseball and softball programs in 2006 and both have experienced quick success. In the past five springs, a Class 1A baseball and softball state power has been forming 15 miles south of Big Spring, just not everyone knows it.

"We're not getting the respect we deserve. People think last season was a fluke," senior catcher Kelsey Jones said of Forsan's 2009 state softball championship. "I guess we're just going to have to go out there and do it again. If we get two state titles, they'll know it's not luck."

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