Mississippi Today
Despite Hall’s heroics, Samford sends Southern Miss to the brink
AUBURN, Ala. — Samford’s 4-2 10-inning victory over Southern Miss here Friday in the Auburn Regional leaves Golden Eagles coach Scott Berry’s last season on the brink of a sudden end.
The Eagles know it. What’s more, they know why that is the case.
They had their chances to win — indeed, so many chances. But they left a whopping 14 runners on base, most in scoring position. They were zero-for-four with the bases loaded.
While gutsy Tanner Hall, the only two-time All American in Southern Miss history, pitched his usual gem, Southern Miss hitters didn’t get it done when they needed it most.
“Credit Samford,” Berry said. “They really pitched it well. We didn’t do enough at the plate to win the game. That’s really all there is to it.”
It was a grim reminder of some problems the Eagles had earlier in the season, not getting clutch hits when it mattered most. That was a prime reason why Southern Miss was a stagnant 22-15 at one point in April and it looked as if the Eagles were going nowhere in the postseason. They began to get the clutch hits in late April and had won 19 of 21 and the Sun Belt Tournament championship coming here.
Two Samford pitchers had much to do with it the Eagles’ hitting woes. Starter Jacob Cravey, the Bulldogs’ ace, pitched the first six innings, allowing only five hits and one run. Ben Petschke, the Samford closer, then came on and gave up only one run over four innings.
Southern Miss managed only the two runs despite nine walks. That’s right. Samford pitching walked nine batters and gave up only two runs. You won’t see that often. It happened because Cravey and Petschke made superb pitches when they needed them most. And it happened because Southern Miss hitters didn’t deliver when they needed it most.
They came close. With the winning run on second base and one out in the bottom of the ninth, USM leadoff hitter Matt Etzel smacked a hard line drive right into the mitt of Samford first baseman. In the sixth inning, Carson Paetow might have left a dent in the right field fence with a line drive shot. Had Paetow lifted it just a tad more it would have been far out of the park. As it was, it went for an easy double, but Paetow ended up just another runner left in scoring position, much to the chagrin of the largely Southern Miss crowd of 3,578.
The offensive inefficiency ruined a sterling performance by Hall, who earlier in the week was named first-team All American for the second consecutive season. In what might have been his final appearance as a Golden Eagle, Hall struck out nine, walked two and scattered eight hits over nine innings. And he would be the first to tell you he was aided by some sensational fielding plays, especially from third baseman Danny Lynch, who made several stops and throws that would have made Brooks Robinson proud. (Younger readers, look him up.)
Early on, Hall did not have his best stuff and and often pitched behind in the count. He gave up a third inning run when Garrett Staton, the Bulldogs’ leadoff hitter, doubled home a run for a 1-0 Samford lead. But Hall kept battling and seemed to get into a rhythm in the middle innings. Here’s grit: Hall’s 120th pitch of the game induced a double play ball, the third the Eagles had turned.
The following will tell you how much respect Hall earned from Samford. Coach Tony David described the thought process in the Bulldogs dugout entering the 10th inning. “Everybody was looking to see who they would send out to the mound. When we saw it wasn’t Hall, someone shouted, ‘Who is it?’”
David said he shouted back, “Does it matter? It’s not Hall.”
It was Justin Storm, USM’s closer who has been so effective down the stretch this season, a critical part of the Eagles’ late season success. First up for the Bulldogs was catcher Josh Rodriguez, a big, strong guy who had put on a long-ball show during Samford’s batting practice. With the count one-one, Storm threw a 92 mile per hour fastball, belt high and over the middle of the plate. Rodriguez launched it high and far, well beyond the tall, green batter’s background in centerfield, at least 50 feet beyond the 392-foot sign.
“Majestic,” David, the Samford coach, called it.
The Bulldogs, who have won 14 of their last 17, didn’t stop there. They added two more runs, one charged to Storm and the other to Niko Mazza, the third Golden Eagle pitcher.
It was the same old, same old for the Eagles in the bottom half of the 10th. With the mostly gold-clad throng cheering desperately, the Eagles loaded the bases with nobody out. Then Paetow grounded to first, scoring a run to cut the margin to 4-2 with runners on second and third and just one out. But Blake Johnson struck out and Etzel’s lazy fly ball to left field ended it.
“We gotta flush it,” Berry said. “We gotta have a sense of urgency … There’s no sense of urgency greater than knowing if you don’t win, you go home.”
The 41-18 Eagles planned to watch host Auburn play 4-seed Penn later Friday night. USM will play the loser of that one in the losers’ bracket game at 2 p.m. Saturday. Samford will play the winner at 8 p.m.
Bottom line: Southern Miss will have win four straight games over the next three days to advance to a Super Regional and keep alive hopes for an Omaha ending to Berry’s career.
That’s all.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Mississippi Today
On this day in 1997
Dec. 22, 1997
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.
In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.”
He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.”
The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi
About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.
The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.
Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.
During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.
“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”
White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.
Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.
White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.
Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.
People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.
White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.
They are correct.
But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.
As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.
Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.
That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.
Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?
If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.
The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.
In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1911
Dec. 21, 1911
Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia.
When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs.
He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame.
The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays.
Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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