The Pecan Park Eagle

2014: MO’NE DAVIS OF PHILADELPHIA IS THE ONLY GIRL IN LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES HISTORY TO THROW A COMPLETE GAME SHUTOUT.

For the foreseeable future, the absence of a column on the Houston Baseball Dinner history (by year) in The Pecan Park Eagle simply means that something has happened to stall our efforts.

Such was the case today. The lettered name variable phrase combinations that were bidding us good success in the early years (1961-73) of our digital site search have suddenly drawn blanks on most of what has happened from as early as 1986 through 2000. We are working on alternative plans to derive the facts from previous sinner program collections and research at local news file histories, but neither of those sources are available to us this afternoon.

We shall resume the theme columns on the more recent history of the “HBD” as soon as we are again plugged into a date source, but, for now, we are stuck on what happened in 1986, if anything, and 1990, with the years ahead of them through 200o also yielding nothing viable to us on the event through 2000.

Bear with us. We won’t go away. And neither will the data that’s out there in some form.

Meanwhile, I’m taking the rest of the day off, I think. In about an hour from no, the Pearland Little Leaguers (2-1) are taking on that very tough Little League club from Chicago (2-1) in an elimination game for both clubs and we don’t want to miss it for anything in the world. Both of these clubs have given mighty accounts of their talents and both teams are already winner – no matter who wins tonight.

The team from Chicago of the Jackie Robinson West Little League  is playing as the “Great Lakes” region while Pearland, TX of the Pearland East Little League is playing as the “Southwest” area representative. They will most probably be referenced on the digital scoreboard as “ILLINOIS” and “TEXAS”.

Chicago represents a successful attempt to resurrect interest in baseball among the kids of inner-city urban America. This all-black team exists as a shining example today of success and deservedness among the talented kids of inner city Chicago who previously would have missed baseball as a response to baseball’s missing attention to their needs-and not an intentional return to the days of segregated baseball.

Tomorrow night, Philadelphia (2-0) and Las Vegas, NV (2-0) meet in a contest between the only two remaining undefeated American teams left in the tournament. Las Vegas got there with s surprise runaway win over Chicago and Philadelphia arrives as the team that edged Pearland, 8-7, in the bottom of the sixth and final inning to get there. Philadelphia will also feature starting pitcher Mo’Ne Davis, the only girl in history to throw a complete game shutout in the 75 year-old Little League World Series history.

See you tomorrow, folks – when we will be around again, hopefully, to write about something of interest to some.