US-Japan Baseball by Jim Modlin

I attended the United States-Japan baseball game at First Horizon Park Friday night. The attendance was relatively low-est. 1200-but the baseball action was extremely high. Japan took a 2-0 lead thru 2 innings on 2 run homer by Hisayoshi Chono. That lead was short lived, as the U.S.A. team scored 4 runs on a grand slam by Pedro Alvarez. Pedro’s blast was one of the longest homers I have seen at FHP. It hit on the big scoreboard in right field about 5 feet from going completely over the board. I estimated the distance it would have traveled to be 465 feet-a real bomb!

Both teams did some scoring going to the top of the 9th. tied at 5-5. Todd Frazier jerked one down the right field line for the 6-5 final.

Both teams showed lots of fine players, most of which are underclassmen in college.

Jake Holloway, head groundskeeper at FHP, replaced most of the foul territory turf from the dugouts around behind home plate. Jake explained that the field’s bermuda grass never took as good a hold as he would have liked. Plus the field has had lots of events held on it-baseball camps, State Playoffs just to name a couple of the extra events other than Grasshopper baseball. Jake and his crew worked all Friday night after the USA-Japan game was finished to get the field completed. The difference should be quite noticeable when the team returns from an 8 game road trip to start an 8 game homestand Wednesday August 2nd. Give Jake a thanks when you see him. He will appreciate the kudos for all the work put into the field. He and his staff do a wonderful job with the field at FHP.

Submitted by Jim Modlin- WGOS Sports Director.

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