Meehan wins Sussex Y 5 Miler, captures first in Sprint Triathlon Nationals
Left at liquor store - I have been heading out to Delaware high school sports venues since I first arrived at Cape in summer 1975. I remember every set of directions involved the words "liquor store.” And even when I got lost and pulled over to asked someone, liquor store was always in the first sentence to get me back on track. The time I accompanied the Renaissance Rednecks to New York City along with two flatbeds and the punkin chunkin machine Under Pressure to appear on Letterman at the Ed Sullivan Theater, the biggest adjustments were finding indoor plumbing, getting arrested and locating the nearest liquor store. The most amazing thing was that, in a town known as Gotham City, no one knew the location of the liquor store. I was checking the fall schedule and saw Cape soccer plays its first game against Tower Hill at the new Dover High School, and I don’t know where that is but I’m guessing I turn left at the liquor store.
Go-back time - The college kids are getting ready to head out of town back into the mainstream of higher education. And it’s amazing the number of high school athletes who play sports in college and more amazing the number who don’t. I read that only 5 percent of baseball athletes who are good enough to start for their high school will find a spot on a college roster.
Baseball is back - I have become an Orioles fan this summer because how can you not like this team and the announcers while the Phillies are just painful to watch? Last week, Phillies play-by-play man Tom McCarthy was conducting his nightly class in remedial banality when he pitched Jamie Moyer a question and Moyer responded, “You’re darn tootin',” which was a 1928 film starring Laurel and Hardy as horn players in an orchestra. McCarthy should have responded, "That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Jamie.”
Metal monkey bars - Monkey bars are hazardous all the time; wet them down and just sit back on a bench made of recycled white trash and watch the toddlers crash. Every time we hear talk of a Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan we’re treated to guys in dresses and turbans going hand to hand under the horizontal ladder. You know Americans built that thing. We put them in playgrounds all over the country. I’m now “next generation” - take kids to playgrounds. Last Wednesday, Fredpop had to pry pygmy marmoset Baby James off the arc of a rain-slickened ladder rung and plop him down on a low-to-the-ground rubber tractor.
Taney Dragons - Last column I wrote that the Taney Dragons Little League team with Mo’Ne Davis, a girl, as star pitcher was composed of urban America players who didn’t play travel ball. I think that’s the story I wanted, but I was politely given a heads-up by Bobby Brooks, who doesn’t make mistakes, that they not only play, but they have played at Sports at the Beach, and she had a video of the girl pitching. Davis's best sport is basketball; she is entering eighth grade at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy. Last I checked, Chestnut Hill Academy was private and exclusive. Three students from there are on the Taney Dragons team. Tuition for eighth grade is $28,525; it increases to $31,670 in high school. Watch how ESPN plays this story.
Snippets - I am having a hard time wrapping my head around Milford beating Laurel by one run in extra innings on ESPN for the softball championship of Planet Earth. I just don’t get it. Is southern Delaware a hotbed of softball at a world-class level? The University of Delaware finished 23-25 last spring. Carolyn Szymanski, a freshman pitcher out of Caravel, is the only Delaware product on the entire roster; she was 75-11 her four years of high school including two state championships and three perfect games.
Cape cross country will open the competitive season Saturday, Sept. 6 at Killens Pond for the Lake Forest Invitational. Last season the boys were 8-3 while the girls were 8-2.
Mike Meehan, 22, from Allison Park, Pa., a Penn State sophomore and winner of the Sussex Family Y 5 Miler earlier this summer, won the USAT Sprint Triathlon Nationals last weekend in Milwaukee, Wis. Meehan said, “This was probably the biggest victory of my life.” He meant after the Y 5 Miler.
Go on now, git!
