|
Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Sports
Friday, May 19, 2000
P-B-T sets summer schedules
PECOS, May 19, 2000 -- The final date for signing up for summer swimming
lessons at the Pecos High School pool will be this coming Monday, while
registration for the other Pecos-Barstow-Toyah summer athletic programs
will begin following the end of school next week.
Swimming sign-ups will be Monday in the lobby of the Pecos High School
pool from 4:30 to 6 p.m.
Sessions will be from June 5-16 and from June 19-30 and are open to
boys and girls at the preschool (ages 3-4) and school age (5 and up) levels.
The cost for the two-week class is $25 per student. For further information,
call coach Terri Morse at 447-7242.
Meanwhile, summer pool hours will begin on June 6 and run from 7 to
8:30 p.m., with family nights on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
On Tuesday, May 30, the first session of the USA 1-2-3 summer tennis
program is scheduled to begin with registration set for opening day. There
will be two sessions, with the first running through June 9 and the second
from June 12-23.
Pecos High School tennis coach Bernadette Ornelas is course instructor,
with each day's activities divided up by grades. Kindergarten and first
graders will go from 7:45 to 8:15 a.m., second and third graders from 8:15
to 9 a.m., fourth through sixth grades from 9 to 9:45 a.m., junior high
students from 10-10:45 a.m. and high school players from 11 a.m. to 12
noon.
The program is open to all P-B-T students and fees are $5 for one child,
$7 for two and $10 for three or more in a family. Racquets will be provided
for students who do not own one.
On Wednesday, May 31, registration for the P-B-T summer golf program
will be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Crockett Middle School Gym. Classes
begin on Thursday, June 1 with Tina Hendrick as instructor.
They will run and will run Monday through Thursday until the end of
June at the Crockett Field. Times are 8-8:45 a.m. for Grades 1-2; 9-9:45
a.m. for Grades 6-7; and 10-10:45 a.m. for Grades 3-5.
Students in grades 8-12 will go from 11 to 11:45 a.m. on Monday through
Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 12 noon on Friday at the Reeves County Golf
Course. Fees are the same as for tennis.
Summer basketball sign-ups will be on Thursday, June 1 from 8 a.m. to
12 noon at the new Pecos High School gym, with coach Tino Acosta as instructor.
Classes will run from June 2 through June 30, with incoming fourth and
fifth graders going from 9 to 10 a.m., sixth and seventh graders from 10
to 11 a.m. and eighth and ninth graders from 11 a.m. to 12 noon.
For more information, contact Acosta at 447-7234 or 445-3822.
Registration for the summer track program is set for Monday, June 5,
from 8 a.m. to noon. Practice will begin Tuesday, June 6 and run weekdays
from 8 a.m. to 12 noon through June 30.
Varsity girls track coach Lily Talamantez will be the instructor, and
the program is open to students between the ages of 7 and 18. Track meet
dates will be in the upcoming days.
Summer weightlifting will get underway at the PHS field house on Tuesday,
June 6 and will run throughout June and July with the exception of the
Fourth of July weekend. Head football coach Gary Grubbs will be the supervisor,
and the weight machines will be available from 6 to 8 p.m. each evening.
Summer volleyball is also scheduled to begin on June 6 and run on even-numbered
weekdays through July 6 from 6 to 9 p.m., along with even numbered weeknights
from July 18 through July 28. Becky Granado will be the instructor for
the course and students can sign up the first day they participate.
The annual summer clinic for seventh and eighth graders will be the
week of July 17 and the ninth grader clinic will be the weeks of July 24,
both running from 9 a.m. to 12 noon.
Baseball tested for `extra juice' at factory
By JIMMY GOLEN
AP Sports Writer
LOWELL, Mass., May 19, 2000 - Baseball officials, trying to make sure
the ball isn't juiced, hired an engineering professor to poke and prod
it and even planned a trip to the factory in Costa Rica to see how it is
made.
All they had to do was ask Ted Sizemore.
"We know what they're going to find out: The ball hasn't changed," said
Sizemore, who played with Los Angeles, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Boston
before becoming a senior vice president at Rawlings.
"Nothing's changed in the 16 years I've been here, and people that have
been here before me tell me major league baseball has never asked them
to change the ball. I'm not down at the factory every day, but I can tell
you that everything is the same."
Batters hit a record 931 homers in April - 105 more than in the first
month of the 1996 season. There was an average of 2.56 homers per game
this April, up 15 percent from the 2.22 hit in the first month of the 1999
season.
Although the smaller ballparks, bigger hitters and expansion-era pitching
explain much of the surge, there are also those who suspect that something
more sinister is afoot, like a conspiracy to doctor the ball.
It's not sluggers such as Mark McGwire hitting 70 homers as much as
it is Reds reliever Danny Graves hitting one - he got his first career
hit last week with a 349-foot shot over the wall of one of baseball's new
bandboxes, Enron Field in Houston.
While denying the ball has changed, baseball officials will be in Costa
Rica on Monday to tour the Rawlings plant where it is made. The commissioner
has also commissioned an engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts
to see what he can find out.
"As a fan, it's exciting to see the home runs. But I guess you want
to see the integrity of the game maintained as it had been in the past,"
said Jim Sherwood, who runs the Baseball Research Center at the UMass-Lowell
campus.
"We're going to answer whether the ball is part of the problem or not,
whether it's hotter than it's supposed to be."
Rawlings has been the major leagues' exclusive supplier of baseballs
since 1977, making each one with a cork center surrounded by four different
windings of yarn: four-ply gray wool, three-ply white wool, three-ply gray
wool and finally a thinner cotton yarn that gives the ball a smoother surface.
It is weighed and measured at each step.
The leather cover - the switch from horsehide to cowhide came in 1974
- is inspected for 17 potential imperfections, from stretch marks to scars,
and then it is stitched on by hand. The ball is checked to make sure it
fits the major league specifications of five ounces, and nine inches around.
The ball is also required to have a specific hardness, or "coefficient
of restitution," which is measured by firing it at a piece of northern
white ash, 2 1/2 inches thick. The ball's speed is measured as it comes
out of the gun, and it must rebound at 54.6 percent its original speed,
plus or minus 3.2 percent.
The ball also must hold its shape within 0.08 of an inch after being
subjected to 65 pounds of pressure.
Although Sherwood did say that he will make sure the balls being used
meet the specifications in the rule book, his deal with baseball requires
him to keep his methods secret.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 915-445-5475, FAX 915-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.
Copyright 2000 by Pecos Enterprise
|
