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Is more Mississippi magic possible this college baseball season?

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Is more Mississippi magic possible this college baseball season?

Dakota Jordan is hitting .342 with three home runs for Mississippi State, which took two of three from Alabama this past weekend.

Mississippi State and Ole Miss have won college baseball’s national championship in back-to-back seasons, rampaging through the College World Series at Omaha before crowds that seemed 98% Mississippians.

But take a quick look at the Southeastern Conference current standings and we must ask ourselves: Did the Bulldogs and Rebels make a deal with the devil to win those national crowns? And, is it now time to pay the devil? There are seven teams in the SEC’s Western Division. Mississippi State currently is in sixth place with a 3-9 league record, one game ahead of seventh place Ole Miss, which is 2-10.

Rick Cleveland

Is this a case of, “Oh, how the mighty have fallen?” Or is just a case of two talented teams, off to bad starts, but still with plenty of time to turn it around?

It’s probably somewhere in between. Let’s take a look. Defending national champ Ole Miss is 18-13 overall. 2021 champ Mississippi State completed the Easter weekend with an overall record of 19-14. Both are five games above .500 and have played inconsistently, while displaying the potential to go on a late season run the way Ole Miss did a year ago.

Remember, the 2022 national champs were 22-17, five games above .500, at an even later juncture last year and turned it around in late April, May and June in one of the most unlikely championship runs in college baseball history. After winning just 22 of their first 39 games, the Rebels won 20 of their last 27.

It can happen.

But it has to start soon.

Neither Ole Miss, nor State, is nearly as destitute as it might have seemed when both began the SEC season by getting swept in their first two series. Ole Miss opened against Vanderbilt and Florida, both ranked among the top six teams in the country. State likewise opened against Kentucky and Vandy. If you’re not at you best against that kind of competition, the result will not be pleasant. And it wasn’t for either. Both started 0-6.

But both have played better since. Ole Miss has lost two of three to both Texas A&M and Arkansas. State lost a tough series to South Carolina, then won the series at Bama.

Both the Rebels and Bulldogs need to play far better still. And just look whom they play in their next weekend series. That would be each other. Ole Miss and State square off for a three-game series at Starkville beginning Friday at 6 p.m. Because of their slow starts, this becomes much more crucial than your normal mid-April series.

Both play mid-week games Tuesday night — State on the road at UAB and Ole Miss at home against Memphis. Then comes the showdown, which State has dominated in recent seasons.

Ole Miss has not won the annual weekend series since 2015. State has won seven of the last 10 games between the two, and 16 off the last 20. State has won six of the last nine games played at Starkville.

Important to remember is that we haven’t quite reached the halfway point of the SEC season. So, this can’t be described as a make-or-break series. State currently sits at No. 29 in RPI ratings, while Ole Miss is No. 38. State has played the nation’s second most difficult schedule, Ole Miss the 10th most difficult. Both have time to turn it around. That said, this weekend would be the optimum time to get headed in the right direction.

•••

Southern Miss coach Scott Berry earned victories Nos. 500 and 501 at the school in a weekend series at Old Dominion as the Golden Eagles took two of three from the Monarchs, who had been tied for first in the Sun Belt.

Scott Berry

The Golden Eagles enter the week with at 19-11 overall and 7-5 in the Sun Belt – and with a No. 27 RPI against the nation’s 20th most difficult schedule. The Golden Eagles are two games out of first place with James Madison coming to town for a weekend series.

After a slow start, the Eagles have won seven of their past 10, playing most of those on the road. After 30 games a year ago, the Eagles were 22-8 and then won 25 of their last 34 games.

The schedule sets up well. Southern Miss plays four of its last six conference series at home.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/podcast-the-legislative-issues-politicians-cant-escape-in-2023-election/

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1939, Billie Holiday recorded ‘Strange Fruit’

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-20 07:00:00

April 20, 1939

Billie Holiday recorded “Strange Fruit” about the lynchings of Black Americans.

Legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday stepped into a Fifth Avenue studio and recorded “Strange Fruit,” a song written by Jewish civil rights activist Abel Meeropol, a high school English teacher upset about the lynchings of Black Americans — more than 6,400 between 1865 and 1950. 

Meeropol and his wife had adopted the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were orphaned after their parents’ executions for espionage. 

Holiday was drawn to the song, which reminded her of her father, who died when a hospital refused to treat him because he was Black. Weeks earlier, she had sung it for the first time at the Café Society in New York City. When she finished, she didn’t hear a sound. 

“Then a lone person began to clap nervously,” she wrote in her memoir. “Then suddenly everybody was clapping.” 

The song sold more than a million copies, and jazz writer Leonard Feather called it “the first significant protest in words and music, the first unmuted cry against racism.” 

After her 1959 death, both she and the song went into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Time magazine called “Strange Fruit” the song of the century, and the British music publication Q included it among “10 songs that actually changed the world.” 

David Margolick traces the tune’s journey through history in his book, “Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Biography of a Song.” Andra Day won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Holiday in the film, “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Mississippians are asked to vote more often than people in most other states

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Mississippians are asked to vote more often than people in most other states

mississippitoday.org – @BobbyHarrison9 – 2025-04-20 06:00:00

Not long after many Mississippi families celebrate Easter, they will be returning to the polls to vote in municipal party runoff elections.

The party runoff is April 22.

A year does not pass when there is not a significant election in the state. Mississippians have the opportunity to go to the polls more than voters in most — if not all — states.

In Mississippi, do not worry if your candidate loses because odds are it will not be long before you get to pick another candidate and vote in another election.

Mississippians go to the polls so much because it is one of only five states nationwide where the elections for governor and other statewide and local offices are held in odd years. In Mississippi, Kentucky and Louisiana, the election for governor and other statewide posts are held the year after the federal midterm elections. For those who might be confused by all the election lingo, the federal midterms are the elections held two years after the presidential election. All 435 members of the U.S. House and one-third of the membership of the U.S. Senate are up for election during every midterm. In Mississippi, there also are important judicial elections that coincide with the federal midterms.

Then the following year after the midterms, Mississippians are asked to go back to the polls to elect a governor, the seven other statewide offices and various other local and district posts.

Two states — Virginia and New Jersey — are electing governors and other state and local officials this year, the year after the presidential election.

The elections in New Jersey and Virginia are normally viewed as a bellwether of how the incumbent president is doing since they are the first statewide elections after the presidential election that was held the previous year. The elections in Virginia and New Jersey, for example, were viewed as a bad omen in 2021 for then-President Joe Biden and the Democrats since the Republican in the swing state of Virginia won the Governor’s Mansion and the Democrats won a closer-than-expected election for governor in the blue state of New Jersey.

With the exception of Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Virginia and New Jersey, all other states elect most of their state officials such as governor, legislators and local officials during even years — either to coincide with the federal midterms or the presidential elections.

And in Mississippi, to ensure that the democratic process is never too far out of sight and mind, most of the state’s roughly 300 municipalities hold elections in the other odd year of the four-year election cycle — this year.

The municipal election impacts many though not all Mississippians. Country dwellers will have no reason to go to the polls this year except for a few special elections. But in most Mississippi municipalities, the offices for mayor and city council/board of aldermen are up for election this year.

Jackson, the state’s largest and capital city, has perhaps the most high profile runoff election in which state Sen. John Horhn is challenging incumbent Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba in the Democratic primary.

Mississippi has been electing its governors in odd years for a long time. The 1890 Mississippi Constitution set the election for governor for 1895 and “every four years thereafter.”

There is an argument that the constant elections in Mississippi wears out voters, creating apathy resulting in lower voter turnout compared to some other states.

Turnout in presidential elections is normally lower in Mississippi than the nation as a whole. In 2024, despite the strong support for Republican Donald Trump in the state, 57.5% of registered voters went to the polls in Mississippi compared to the national average of 64%, according to the United States Elections Project.

In addition, Mississippi Today political reporter Taylor Vance theorizes that the odd year elections for state and local officials prolonged the political control for Mississippi Democrats. By 1948, Mississippians had started to vote for a candidate other than the Democrat for president. Mississippians began to vote for other candidates — first third party candidates and then Republicans — because of the national Democratic Party’s support of civil rights.

But because state elections were in odd years, it was easier for Mississippi Democrats to distance themselves from the national Democrats who were not on the ballot and win in state and local races.

In the modern Mississippi political environment, though, Republicans win most years — odd or even, state or federal elections. But Democrats will fare better this year in municipal elections than they do in most other contests in Mississippi, where the elections come fast and often.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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On this day in 1977, Alex Haley awarded Pulitzer for ‘Roots’

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On this day in 1977, Alex Haley awarded Pulitzer for 'Roots'

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-19 07:00:00

April 19, 1977

Alex Haley was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for “Roots,” which was also adapted for television. 

Network executives worried that the depiction of the brutality of the slave experience might scare away viewers. Instead, 130 million Americans watched the epic miniseries, which meant that 85% of U.S. households watched the program. 

The miniseries received 36 Emmy nominations and won nine. In 2016, the History Channel, Lifetime and A&E remade the miniseries, which won critical acclaim and received eight Emmy nominations.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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