Southeast Guilford defeated Randleman 8-2 on Tuesday to go (14-2/10-0) in the Mid-Piedmont 3-A conference and that’s a good thing, but that’s not the only thing. I heard from at least four Falcons fans last night and they are in an uproar over what else happened at that game.
The third baseman from Randleman was throwing at the Southeast Guilford fans. That is the word I am receiving and I went to MaxPreps.com to get the kid’s name but there is no roster on MaxPreps for the Randleman Tigers. The word is the kid is a prospect and that he is headed to Clemson but from the news that I am getting about what happened at Tuesday’s game, I am not so sure the attitude fits the molding involved in transforming a Randleman Tiger into a Clemson Tiger.
The kid was asked by his Randleman Tiger coach to enter the game and take over the Tiger pitching duties and he refused. That won’t get you too many opportunities on the Division I level. The big deal was the way the kid got into it with the Southeast Guilford fans. The SEG fans were riding the kid a bit after he refused to pitch but does that in any way explain what happened next?
The kid from Randleman again was playing third and he got together with his first baseman and they made a plan. While the Randleman Tigers were taking infield between innings prior to the SEG Falcons coming to the plate, the Randleman third baseman was throwing the ball over on the warmup tosses to his first baseman and the Tiger 1B was letting the ball go through and the ball ends up hitting Cam Cockman’s dad in the back. Throw wide and your first baseman let’s it go through and you end up hitting the SEG Falcon fan right in the back. Cam Cockman was the SEG Falcons’ starting pitcher yesterday and his dad has a sore spot on his back today.
If that isn’t bad enough, the third baseman did it again and his first baseman let the hard, wide, throw over go straight on through on the warmup toss and the ball hit a 67 year-old man right in the chest. The Tiger teammates are plucking fans standing along the fence just beyond the first base dugout. The son of the 67 year-old man went crazy and he had to be restrained. The umpires called in SEG Falcon coach Lynn Coble and told him to get control of his fans, but the umpires were saying nothing to the kid from Randleman who just hit two SEG fans with the baseball and you’ve heard of an intentional walk, well this was an intentional hit.
The son of the 67 year-old man was told by the umpires to move over to the third base side at Southeast and the 67 year-old man has a large black and blue bruise on his chest today. The SEG fans, and can you blame them, started verbally giving it to the third baseman from Randleman, and again can you blame them? This didn’t faze the kid from Randleman, he grabbed at his crotch and started shaking it at the Southeast Guilford fans, and that’s as best as I can describe how that was going on because I can’t print how it was really told to me.
The kid from Randleman sounds like a cocky character and the SEG fans sound like they need to start wearing big, heavy jackets to the game or invest in some bullet-proof vests. The coach from Randleman couldn’t get a handle on his player and the video may be available to us later in the week so we can break it down and see it all for ourselves.
We will add to this blog throughout the day if we get any more information and if you have any comments and if anyone from Randleman has a rebuttal please leave it in the box.
As for the game and the 8-2 SEG win over Randleman, Cam Cockman struck out 9 Randleman batters and as far as we know he didn’t hit any Randleman players. Justin Venable had 3 hits for SEG and he drove in 2 runs and Josh Tobias collected 2 hits and both hits were clean doubles.
If anyone can get us the name of the Randleman third baseman and if you can pass on more concrete details drop us a line at durhamandy@live.com.
I spoke with Ed Bigham, the older gentleman that got hit, and he said the first throw was the most dangerous and that it hit Blair Moyer and that the ball that hit Mr. Bigham was a one-hop pop that did catch him in the chest. Ed Bigham had heart surgery last year and this is a cause for concern when you get hit like he did on solid contact in the chest.
Ed also said he coached baseball for over 40 years and that it took a wild throw at a wild game to get him in the tabloids or blogloids. Ed will be at the SEG-Southern game on Thursday. He will either be the fellow standing behind the tree or the guy wearing the baseball chest protector over beside the fence.