Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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Professional sports in America used to be referred to as the four seasons (baseball, basketball, football, and hockey), with the basketball season suffering the worst parity. Including the 1979 season when the Seattle Supersonics won the NBA title, only thirteen teams have been crowned champions in the last forty years. The NFL and NHL have had eighteen different teams that have won the championship during that span, and MLB has had twenty-three different World Series winners in that same period. The reason is simple. The NBA has the fewest...
TVGC Secretary Jay Takemura said the Dayton Country Club hosted a very successful Second Annual Gene Crothers Memorial Golf Tournament at the Touchet Valley Golf Course, last Saturday. Takemura said thanks to the many donors, sponsors, and teams that participated and helped to make this a fun and successful event, over $13,000 was raised for the golf course irrigation project. Prizes were raffled off after the playoff and the following team winners were announced: Women's Division First Place:...
DAYTON-The Touchet Valley Golf Course will be opening May 5th to those players that have purchased annual greens fees. Tee times will be available between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. The course will be open to everyone as soon as a system is developed that conforms to the Governor's guidelines. The following rules need to be adhered to and will be adjusted to comply with the Governor's four-phased "reopening" plan. The goal of the course is to provide fun and golf while minimizing physical touch to...
If we get professional baseball this summer, it is going to look very different from seasons past. A few things are known. There will be fewer games than the standard 162 game season. Doubleheaders will be scheduled into the plan instead of just being used as a way to make up rainouts. The designated hitter will likely be used by all teams and games will be played without fans. As reported in USA Today on April 10, one of the plans being considered by Major League Baseball (according to a...
Ever wonder who designs the baseball Hall of Fame plaques? Last year when my brother Howard and I were on the press bus heading into Cooperstown, we happened to meet Tom Tsuchiya who has created all of the HOF plaques since 2016. Counting plaques he is currently working on for this year, he will have completed twenty-three in total. This means he has portrayed both Seattle Mariners who have been inducted to the Hall of Fame: Ken Griffey, Jr. and Edgar Martinez. What follows are portions of my...
If you are a baseball fan you are probably aware that the Baseball Writers' Association has elected both Derek Jeter and Larry Walker for 2020 induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. What didn't get much press was that the Veterans Committee, now called the Eras Committee, elected both Marvin Miller and Ted Simmons as well. If you like that baseball has free agency, then you are probably a fan of Marvin Miller. Miller was the Executive Director of the Major League Players Association (MLBPA)...
Last year I wrote a series of articles explaining some of the modern statistics that baseball announcers currently use in broadcasts. The series focused on all of the components that produce the statistic Wins Above Replacement (WAR). Those statistics, however, were just focused on batters. Pitchers also have their own version of WAR. In this series I’ll break down the individual components of a pitcher’s WAR starting with Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP). FIP is now referenced more often in broadcasts than earned run average (ERA). As the...
Thursday's Dayton-Waitsburg Winter Awards Banquet had a bittersweet atmosphere, while laughter rang out throughout the Waitsburg Elementary's multipurpose room there was also the realization that this might be the last athletic celebration for D-W for some time. It was shortly after this meeting that word got out that Walla Walla and College Place had shut down athletic events and then on Friday, March 13, Governor Inslee announced that Washington State schools will close for six weeks,...
A sporting goods company called Peck and Snyder printed up the first baseball cards in the 1860’s and used them for advertising their products. A picture of a player was on one side and on the back was the advertisement for the company. The cards were given out like flyers for free. These were the first cards produced in bulk and the first to be used for advertising. Before this time the cards that were produced were called cabinet cards since they were often displayed in cabinets and used as ke...
The Eastern Washington Athletic Conference, which is at the 2B classification level, announced its all-league selections for its East Division. The Dayton-Waitsburg girls received three selections. Junior forward Sadie Seney was named to the first team, while junior guard Mackena Culley and freshman forward Claudia Benavides were named to the second team. The EWAC named Columbia-Burbank's Jadyn Johnson as player of the year. They also named DeSales coach Tim Duncan as coach of the year. Duncan...
Even a die-hard Mariners fan may want to buy a baseball program this year. Between the trades made at last season’s trade deadline, Mariner free agents that were not re-signed, and the pitchers the team picked up at the beginning of the year, there have been a lot of changes. Most projection systems place them at the bottom of the American League West with win totals in the 60s. Improving on that total will fall to the three new pitchers likely to make the starting rotation: Justus Sheffield, Ke...
As adults we sometimes get way too involved in our kid's athletic events. I know I have fallen down that rabbit hole a few times with my own kids and now again recently with my semi-adopted kids, the ones I cover as a member of the Waitsburg Times writing staff. I have had to remind myself that I need to be more neutral and objective, but it can be difficult when you really care about the players doing well. Most of us have seen the stories with the out-of-control parent or the overly...
Baseball-Reference.com has been a favorite web site of mine to look up all things baseball. It went online in April of 2000 and has information on professional baseball players and teams going back to 1888. Several years ago it added box scores and complete play by play information for all MLB games dating back to 1956. Recently the site updated its data and now has this information going all the way back to 1918 so I’m betting it has your first major league baseball game as well. Years ago I u...
On Feb. 25 coaches, parents, athletes and administrators gathered in the Waitsburg high school auditorium to discuss procedures on how athletes can join teams and what paperwork the parents would need to sign to make that official. Participation packets were handed out and explained by Athletic Director Nicki Luper to a full crowd of high school and middle school athletes and their parents looking to get involved in baseball, softball, golf and track and field. Baseball will have two co-head...
Waitsburg-The Waitsburg Mat Birds Wrestling Team is back on the mat for another season, and all the athletes are working to secure a spot at the Jason Crawford Memorial Tournament. The Little Guy's wrestling team has a full schedule ahead, including hosting a tournament in Waitsburg again. The wrestling team has a full roster this year, with 37 athletes from Prescott, Dayton, Waitsburg and College Place turning out. The team practices on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings at Preston Hall...
WALLA WALLA-The Prescott Tigers traveled to Walla Walla Community College to play the Pomeroy Pirates Friday February 21st at the Dome. Since both teams were coming off of first round playoff losses this was a loser out game. The winner would have an opportunity to play on Saturday for the chance to advance to state. #1 Omar Velazco opened the game scoring Prescott's first four points on a combination of free throws and an offensive rebound that he converted into a layup to give Prescott the...
WALLA WALLA-The Prescott Tigers boys basketball team returned to Walla Walla Community College this time to play the Garfield-Palouse Vikings Saturday February 22nd at the Dome. At stake was a spot in the 1B State Tournament. Most were expecting to see Oakesdale in this game, but they defeated Garfield-Palouse in overtime for the district championship the night before. It was a slow start for both teams and the anxiety of knowing the season would be over for the losing team was palpable. With...
WALLA WALLA-The Blue Devils came up just short of moving on in the postseason as Wa-Hi's Diego Jaques off-balanced three-point shot clanged off the front of the iron as the Ferris Saxons left the building with a heart-breaking win 65-62. "It is a shame we wound up on the short side, and we don't get to play any more basketball," Head Coach Adam Berg said. "We have worked hard enough to deserve to be playing more." The Greater Spokane/Mid-Columbia Conference District 8 lost concluded Wa-Hi's...
Congrats!...
OAKESDALE-Prescott traveled to Oakesdale on Saturday February 15th to kick off the first game of the district 9 tournament. Oakesdale scored first, but #11 Antonio Hernandez answered for Prescott with a layup off a nice pass from #23 Miguel Ayala. Both teams played a very tight first quarter with good defense played by both teams. Prescott struggled to find open shots and ended the quarter behind 11-8. In addition, point guard Jonathan Cardenas found himself in foul trouble and as a result...
While they didn’t achieve all their season goals, one of them making the playoffs, it was a season for the history books for this newly combined program between Dayton and Waitsburg and its boys basketball program. After a winless 2018-2019 basketball season, D-W’s boys basketball team picked up its first victory for the combined programs against Prescott in December and then proceeded to earn league victories against DeSales and Liberty Christian as well as a second non-league victory against Pomeroy for a 4-16 season record and a 2-10 league...
GRANGER—The Dayton-Waitsburg girls basketball team put its entire heart and soul into its final contest of the season in a difficult loss to DeSales 60-43 at the 2020 Eastern Washington Athletic Conference tournament. Part of the difficulty was coming off a brutal loss to Tri-Cities Prep Jaguars the night before and having to face the DeSales Irish for the second time in a week. “The D-W ladies went down fighting and played with a lot of heart,” said Assistant Coach Desirae Jones. “We got within six in the third quarter, but the Irish pulled...
WALLA WALLA—The largest crowd of the season got more than its money worth in the roller coaster of a ride as Wa-Hi boys basketball took its foot off the gas pedal in the fourth before hitting it again in overtime for the 68-61 first round of the Greater Spokane League/Mid-Columbia Conference playoff win. In the end the game came down to clutch free throws. Mead’s Sam Wenkheimer, who lead the Panthers with 14 points, hit two big free throws with 15 seconds in regulation to close the Blue Devil’s lead to 56-55. Sophomore Diego Jaques was foule...
SPOKANE-The Walla Walla boys varsity basketball team played in the semi-finals of the district playoffs against the Central Valley Bears Saturday, February 15th on the Bears' home court. Early in the first quarter the Blue Devils #12 Dillon Wasser blocked 6'5" power forward Quinn Johnson and then #24 Jacob Coram hit a three-pointer for the Blue Devils first lead of the game at 9-7. Walla Walla finished the first quarter up 16-11. A beautiful pass from #2 Dylan Ashbeck to #10 Michael Cornia opene...
PRESCOTT-Athletic Director Jeff Foertsch hosted an awards ceremony on February 12th at Stueckle Gymnasium to honor the boys and girls basketball teams this year. First to speak was girls head coach Tiffany Hedman. She began with the highlights of the year for the girls program. The first was the overtime win against the Dayton-Waitsburg junior varsity with only four players on the floor for Prescott in overtime. She went on to say, "The second highlight for me wasn't very long after that. I...
