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Saturday, Aug. 22, 2009

Off to a fast start: WRALL boys win convincingly in first pool play game

SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Their work was done. Their game hadn’t even begun. But in so many ways, their mission was accomplished. They had arrived.

The Georgia boys had returned to the scene of the climb.

They were following in the footsteps of the storied late-August hike of their Warner Robins American baseball brothers, whose hardball trek to glory had played out five days shy of two years ago on the very Pennsylvania hillside where they found themselves sitting.

And Friday afternoon they were singing. A rap tune.

An hour and a half before they would crank four homers and win their Little League World Series debut 11-3 on ESPN, the Houston County kids sat on a bench in a practice-field dugout, humming and then giggling at their coach. He was there next to them on the same wooden plank, legs outstretched, laid flat, taking a snooze.

It was as if they had come to terms with their dream come true — as if they knew that from here on, their fairy tale would play out as it may.

For this 2009 Warner Robins American all-star crew, Friday’s Series opener unfolded about as favorably as it could have.

The Warner Robins gang, sporting the very uniforms that the 2007 world champs wore here — some with “WR” still inked in the waistband of the pants — put away the Midwesterners from Iowa with a six-run sixth inning on the way to an eight-run win before more than 7,000 fans at Volunteer Stadium.

Today at 3 p.m. in a game televised on ABC, Warner Robins meets the Mid-Atlantic squad from Staten Island, N.Y. — 10-2 victors Friday over the Northwest champs.

Warner Robins hurler Conner Smith struck out 10 of the 20 he faced, going five and a third innings for the win. Smith, who says that when his curveball is working it’s “gross,” was snapping off an extra-sick off-speed pitch on Friday.

Midwest manager Scott Grau said, “Their pitcher ... made it look like we hadn’t seen a curveball before.”

Said Smith: “I was just pitching good. I figured out what I was doing wrong with my curveball and I got it breaking.”

Warner Robins manager Randy Jones, he of the pregame siesta, said, “Conner had his stuff today so decided to saddle up and ride him.”

Of course, the Warner Robins bats supplied plenty of Georgia’s gallop.

Justin Jones, who cracked the first pitch of the game for a double to right center, homered twice, scored three times and drove in three runs.

Before Jones launched his second longball, a two-run shot on a 3-1 pitch in the sixth, his father, Randy Jones, coaching at third, said, “You’re looking for one thing.”

The younger Jones found it on the very next pitch and drove it past the flagpole in center to give the Southeast champs an 8-3 cushion.

“I hadn’t done that (hit two homers in a game) this all-star season. It’s pretty cool,” said Justin Jones, who earlier in the day had his picture made with baseball Hall of Famer Jim Rice. “He threw that right down Sesame Street.”

Warner Robins assistant coach Nathan Hunt, while the elder Jones, his coaching cohort, napped in the pregame, told the team, “As long as you are patient at the plate, you will succeed. You must get on first base. You must get on first base. Remember your job.”

In his first time up in the fourth inning, Trey Maddox did just that. He made first all right — and circled the bases.

Maddox, who went 2-for-2 with a homer, a single and two RBI, said of his leadoff blast in the fourth, which led to an impromptu dance in the dugout: “I was just sitting back waiting for a fastball and he threw me a curve, so I just stuck the bat out there and it went over the fence. ... I was hyper that I got a hit, because it was on ESPN.”

Spencer Sato also went deep for Warner Robins. He drove in three runs on the day.

Blake Jackson added a pair of hits to the Georgia club’s 13-hit attack, as did Cortez Broughton and Harley Hunt, who slapped a double in the sixth.

Manager Jones said he was just glad to get the Series opener finished, and begin the narrative of this team’s Williamsport saga.

“I was so eager to get this first one out of the way that it was about to drive me crazy,” he said. “If we learned anything from that 2007 group, they were a very loose bunch. They didn’t expect to win. They were just there to have a good time — and they just kept winning. ... Everybody keeps reminding me, ‘Hey, keep ’em loose.’ ... We all believe that that’s very important.”

Still, that isn’t always easy.

Even in the pregame glee, one player wondered, “Are we on ABC or ESPN today?”

So it isn’t as though the Georgians don’t know the eyes of the Little League world and the casual-TV-viewing realm to boot.

For after the triumphs of the Columbus team here in 2006, the dramatic Warner Robins American victory in ’07 and now, this week, the softball Series sweethearts bringing home gold from Oregon, the Peach State is a youth-sports trophy case.

On Thursday night, at the two-hour-long parade of teams through downtown Williamsport, a man from New Jersey, out of the blue, walked up to a group of Warner Robins parents. He knew of their home state’s remarkable doings.

“I see where your girls won it last night,” he said.

“You know, Georgia Little Leaguers have won more championships than the Braves, Hawks and Falcons put together,” he said.