Kudos to Richmond, TX's Lamar National Little League team, who beat Morgantown, NC to advance to the U.S. championship game:
The Richmond all-stars again revved up the offense and pounded Morganton, N.C., 8-2 Wednesday before an estimated crowd of 18,250 at Lamade Stadium.
Lamar National, now 4-0 in the Series, advances to Saturday's U.S. championship game, where it will play the winner of today's other semifinal between South Caroline Little League of Preston, Md., the Mid-Atlantic champ, and Conejo Valley LL of Thousand Oaks, Calif., the West champion.
"I'm about as excited as you can get," [Lamar National manager Jim] Michalek said. "We're extremely honored to be representing the state of Texas at the next level."
The winner of the U.S. championship, of course, faces the international champion on Sunday.
It's hard to imagine Lamar National at another level, since it has been so consistently dominating for the past week. Indeed, Wednesday was the anomaly — for the first time in the Series, Lamar National did not hit double figures in runs.
But the Richmond stars hit just about everything else, racking up 11 more base hits. And for the fourth straight game, Lamar National entertained the fans with its Texas air show — Chance Murski belted a grand slam, and Randal Grichuk, who was 3-for-4, delivered a three-run shot.
Grichuk, who is batting .769 (10-for-13) in the Series, has four homers and nine RBIs in the four games, energizing an offense that has amassed 51 runs and 51 hits, nine of which have been homers.
Finally, somebody's playing decent baseball in Houston. Too bad Grichuk's a little young to replace Jeff Bagwell.
Speaking as someone who was - at best - a mediocre Little League player, I'd like to extend APCB's congratulations to Lamar and thank them for allowing me to ignore the Olympics for a few days.
A six-pack of Jolt was just discovered in Murski's locker. The dream is over.
Yeah, as someone from Williamsport, PA (home of...sigh...little league baseball) I am irritated and antagonized each august when the local paper prints NOTHING BUT LITTLE LEAGUE SHIT. I think the lamest thing about it is that, entirely regardless of talent, the US automatically gets to be in the finals. Pathetic.
Speaking as a North Carolinian...maybe I'd better not.
But congratulations to Texas anyway.
Has the doping controversy started yet?