Good morning!
That was fun, but the 1,622-mile drive from Jupiter to Northfield was a haul. Let’s begin at Pressly Stadium in Gainesville, where my longtime baseball chum Crosby Hunt and I had front row seats down the left field line to watch the Florida Gators play Stetson on March 25. Being in a 2,800-seat ballpark on a warm March evening watching a game on natural grass felt like softball heaven.
The Gators can’t boast having the best softball program in Division 1 — Texas, Oklahoma, UCLA and Florida State have won at least one College World Series since Florida did in 2014 and 2015 — but they’re always in the Top Ten and at this writing were 34-4 and in fifth place in the 15-team Southeast Conference.
The morning I left, the student newspaper alligator reported that Caroline Stanton “the No. 1 recruit in America” had graduated from Buford (Ga.) High School in December, enrolled in time for winter semester and was on the team’s roster wearing No. 1.
She’ll sit in the dugout and watch right fielder Taylor Shumaker slash line drives over the infield, Gold Glove catcher Jocelyn Erickson pummel balls out of the park and pitcher Keagan Rothrock fling fastballs past flummoxed hitters.
The inaugural game at Pressly Field in 1997 was against Stetson, which plays in the Atlantic Sun Conference. The Hatters’ campus is 95 miles south of Gainesville in Deland, and though their record (22-15 at this writing) doesn’t match Florida’s they are natural rivals.
The moment the game started Hatters players pounded the dugout railing, chirped indecipherable chants, cheered Annabella McLerren’s leadoff single and mobbed the next batter Irianis Garcia after she put Katelynn Oxley’s second pitch over the right field fence for a 2-0 lead.
Florida tied the game in the third inning on Shumaker’s single, Erickson’s triple and Kendall Grover’s sacrifice fly. Two innings later Shumaker singled and Erickson doubled her home to put Florida ahead to stay, 3-2.
Gulliver and Glumdalclitch
Sometime around the third inning I left my seat and was watching from the concourse when I sensed someone standing next to me. I looked over and saw a blue windbreaker and kept looking up until I saw a young man with brown bushy hair and a toothy grin smiling down at me.
“Excuse me,” I stammered.
“Yes sir,” he nodded.
When I got back to my seat I asked Hunt, “Does the basketball team have a seven-footer?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Seven-six or something. He doesn’t play much.”
Not seven-six but seven-foot-nine Oliver Rioux of Terrebonne, Quebec, the tallest player in college basketball history. Rioux graduated from the IMG Academy in Bradenton in 2024 and chose Florida because not many other schools were interested. Gators coach Todd Golden redshirted him last year and used him in only 11 games this season.
On Wednesday, Rioux announced he’d be entering the transfer portal which will be from April 7 to 21.
Defense wins
When elite teams play, good pitching cancels good hitting. That leaves it up to the defense, and Florida’s .984 fielding percentage is sixth-best in the country. Stetson left 11 runners on base thanks to an over-the-shoulder catch by left fielder Cassidy McLellan in the first inning, second baseman Gabi Comia’s snag of a one hop line drive with the bases loaded in the second inning, and a nifty third-to-first double play started by Kendall Grover in the fifth.
Ultimately it was the bullpen that saved the day as coach Tim Walton used four relievers. Hunt looked at the scoreboard and noticed that every pitcher topped out in the low-to-mid 60s except Rothrock whose deliveries topped out at nearly 70 mph.
Warming up in the bullpen, her quick flick-of-the-wrist deliveries reminded me of a gunslinger. She started the seventh inning and struck out the first batter but hit DH Gabby David and Logan Forman’s single put runners on first and second before Rothrock bore down and got the next two batters to strike out looking.
On Wednesday it was Stetson’s turn to host and the Gators won 8-2 in front of 483 fans at Wilson Field.
Paradise frost
In early February a three-day cold snap coupled with a months-long drought caused South Florida’s lush tropical landscape to look like it had been napalmed by Mother Nature.
The creeks were dry and buzzards feasted on frozen iguanas. At Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound, a Coloradan named Jason said he’d retreated into the back of his pickup on nights during the cold spell. One morning after it had warmed up he crawled out of the back and saw a five foot rattlesnake inch its way across the cold pavement and into the scrub bushes.
He got out his cell phone and showed me a head-to-rattles photo that he’d taken from a safe distance. “I’ve lived in Colorado for fifteen years and the most I’ve seen was a baby rattler.”
Unfortunately the freezing temps hadn’t gone far enough south to kill off any of the Burmese pythons that have invaded the Everglades. A U.S. Geological Survey estimated their population to be in the tens of thousands because they have no natural enemies. According to Google AI, pythons are kept in check in their native habitat of Southeast Asia by “apex predators” like lions, tigers and king cobras; monitor lizards eat their eggs and wild hogs prey on their young.
This means Floridians need to do it themselves. According to the Palm Beach Post, the state’s Python Elimination Program pays snake hunters by the foot and by monthly kill totals. In February, Anthony Flanagan earned $2,100 for catching and killing 16 pythons, and Andre Brown earned a $400 bonus for killing the longest — 15 feet, three inches.
The Cadran Report
Mike Cadran scoured the MIAA website seeking to find WMass winter champions but the findings were slim. Mohawk senior Addie Loomis was the only Franklin County athlete to win an individual event, capturing first in the giant slalom at Wachusett Mountain. “She has the highest I.Q. of any athlete I’ve ever met in any sport,” Mohawk coach Brandon Boucias told the Recorder’s Adam Hargraves.
Elsewhere the Mt. Greylock boys’ and girls’ teams won the state’s Nordic ski competition, Pope Francis won the D-1 hockey crown, the Agawam High School girls’ wrestling team won the All-State Wrestling Championships at the MassMutual Center in Springfield, South Hadley High School won the D-4 girls basketball crown, and Hoosac Valley won won the D-5 boys basketball title.
Dumbing down the batting stats
MLB batting averages have dropped precipitously — from .270 in 2000 to a dreadful .228 last season. Consequently according to Yankees’ color analyst Suzyn Waldman, MLB has told official scorers to go easy on fielding errors.
Waldman’s claim was borne out on Sunday when Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz let a ball go through that in any other time would’ve been scored an error. “How on earth do you score that a base hit?” wondered Reds analyst Jeff Brantley. “That’s going to bother me for the rest of the game.”
As for the new balls-and-strikes challenge system, “Wouldn’t you love to see Wade Boggs or Tony Gwynn or Rod Carew with this ABS?” Waldman asked sidekick Dave Sims.
“How about Number Nine in Boston?” Sims answered. “That would be ridiculous.”
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SQUIBBERS: How inept was last year’s 0-12 UMass football team? During a media briefing on March 24, coach Joe Harasymiak told reporters, “Not counting graduation we had 68 guys leave this program. Six of them play FBS football. Six.” Now he tells us. The rest are either in D-II or D-III, or playing soccer. … The UMass softball team (10-19) kicked off an 11-game game homestand with a 9-1 win over Dartmouth on Tuesday. The Minutewomen are 2-7 in the MAC but have back-to-back five-game series against Western Michigan and Buffalo between now and Tuesday at Sortino Field. … Former UMass center Josh Cohen was put on waivers by the Sioux Falls SkyForce in February. Cohen left UMass for USC in ’24 and got half the playing time for Eric Musselman’s 17-18 Trojans than he’d had for Frank Martin’s Minutemen, but probably got more money. … Team Italy has auctioned off the dugout espresso machine that was seen by millions during the WBC for $16,000. … Florida poached URI’s women’s basketball coach Tammy Reiss who was 138-73 in seven years in Kingston including 28-5 this season. The Orlando Sentinel reported the 56-year-old Reiss signed a five year, $4.75 million deal. …Adios to the Houston-bound Connecticut Sun who averaged 8,653 fans at the Mohegan Sun Arena during an 11-33 season. “Free agents, it was tough getting them to go to Uncasville,” UConn’s Geno Auriemma told the Hartford Courant’s Emily Adams. … So much for Roman Anthony being the next Fred Lynn. Freddie never struck out four times in a game like Anthony did in Houston on Tuesday. … The next time you’re looking for a place to have lunch in Springfield try the Student Prince which is three blocks south of the Sheraton. Great service, good tunes and a tuna melt with buttered noodles, salad, Indian pudding and coffee for just $32. … Bumper Sticker on a Honda SUV in West Palm Beach: Student Driver Explosive Personality. … After a long winter, here’s to a Happy Easter and Happy Passover to believers and non-believers alike.