ferriss and foremost

If you were to make a watch list for the 2010 Ferriss Trophy, Ole Miss left-hander Drew Pomeranz's name would have to be near the top. Pomeranz, a junior, already has made a couple of preseason All-America teams and was rated the No. 3 college prospect for the June draft by Lindy's baseball magazine. Pomeranz wasn't a finalist for Mississippi's top college player award a year ago despite going 8-4 with a 3.40 ERA and 124 strikeouts for an NCAA Tournament team. He was a bit overshadowed on his own club by pitcher Scott Bittle, the 2008 Ferriss winner. Ultimately, Belhaven's two-way star Craig Westcott won the 2009 award. Ole Miss has had three winners in the six years the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum has given out the award. With the preseason attention he already has received — and the scouts who vote notice such things — Pomeranz stands a good chance of joining Stephen Head, Brian Pettway and Bittle in the winner's circle. He's just got to go out and produce.

back to start

His big league career began with a bang for the New York Yankees in 2002. So maybe Marcus Thames can recharge the batteries with his original club this spring. The Yankees have signed the former East Central Community College star to a minor league contract, which will give Thames an opportunity to win a major league spot in spring training. The right-handed slugger fell off to 13 homers for Detroit in 2009, when he missed almost two months of the season with a rib cage injury. The Tigers released Thames, who hit 26 homers for their World Series club in 2006, following the season. Thames has 101 career homers, including one in his first big league at-bat, against Randy Johnson at Yankee Stadium on June 10, 2002. No matter what else happens in his career, Thames will always have that story to tell.

ringing in the year

If there is a target on Bo Bell's back, the Mississippi College senior wears it well. A first-team All-America pick by d3baseball.com last season, Bell opened the 2010 campaign today by blasting a key, eighth-inning home run in the Choctaws' 5-2 win over Huntingdon at Montgomery. Bell, from Gulfport by way of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, hit .425 with 13 homers and 73 RBIs for the Choctaws last season. If he has another big year, so will MC.

update

Tim Dillard cleared waivers today and was assigned to Triple-A Nashville by the Milwaukee Brewers. Don't be surprised if the former Itawamba Community College star gets back to The Show this season.
P.S. Millsaps, preseason favorite in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, opened its season in good form today, beating Ozarks (Ark.) 16-2 at Twenty Field. Josh Ordeneaux scored three runs and drove in two for the Majors. Wes Perkins and Jake Mills also had two RBIs. Aaron Williams went five innings for the W, and three relievers combined for four scoreless innings.

road trippers

Jones County Junior College won't have a home this season. Construction of the $2.8 million Community Bank Park, a baseball and softball complex going up on the Ellisville campus, will put the Bobcats on the road for all of their scheduled 50 games. The odyssey begins next Tuesday at Jackson's Smith-Wills Stadium, where JCJC will play two (noon start) against Bishop State of Alabama. The Bobcats will play designated home games at various locations around the state, including Southern Miss' Taylor Park in Hattiesburg and William Carey's Wheeler Field in the Hub City. ... Itawamba CC, which went 43-13 and won the state title last season, is ranked No. 9 in the preseason NJCAA Division II poll, the only Mississippi school in the Top 15. The Indians open Saturday at home against Southwest Tennessee.
P.S. Jackson native and former big leaguer Stu Cliburn is the pitching coach for the Puerto Rican Winter League championship club currently playing in the Caribbean World Series. Might catch a glipse of him on MLB Network's broadcasts of the series this week.

pop, pop, pop ... fizz

Delta State showed some power in its opener today, hitting three home runs. But the Statesmen also got a shaky start from Trey Griffin and committed three errors in a 6-4 loss to Lynn, which is also ranked in NCAA Division II. Cade Hoggard, who led DSU with 13 homers in 2009, hit one of the three today at Boca Raton, Fla. Michael Niemann, who led DSU with a .353 average in '09, hit a homer and Josh Gordon added the other. Griffin, 7-0 last season, lasted just 4 1/3 innings and allowed eight hits and four runs (three earned). DSU may be playing with a chip on its shoulder this season, having been left out of the D-II Tournament field last spring despite a 38-16 record and a share of the Gulf South Conference West title. The Statesmen were picked second in the West in a preseason poll this year.

numbers

The numbers got Tim Dillard on Wednesday. The former Itawamba Community College standout was designated for assignment by the Milwaukee Brewers, who no longer had room for him on their 40-man roster after claiming another right-handed pitcher, Marco Estrada, off waivers from Washington. Dillard, 26, has had a couple of lackluster stints in the big leagues, posting a 6.27 ERA over 18 2/3 innings. He's a big guy with good stuff, as they say, and has had success in the minors (he won 11 games at Triple-A Nashville in 2009). But the Brewers had to make a roster move, and Dillard was the odd man out. "Hopefully, we can work out a way to keep Dillard," Brewers assistant GM Gord Ash told mlb.com. The Brewers could lose Dillard to a waiver claim by another club. Or Dillard might want to pursue other opportunities. He's not done yet, for sure.