He seems to be involved in all things baseball in this area.

We're still battling with numbers. We have the same numbers scenario as last year. We're at 23. They will get better next year. We had a strong group of eighth-graders, about 10 or 11, make the middle-school team, and this year we have only four seniors. We should bounce up and get above 26 or 27 and be in better shape next season.

We had some fun with the Bristol name, but there were the barnstorming teams that created the first exposure the major league players had to the Negro League players.

Among those were Negro League teams.

We have four guys that got a quite a bit of pitching time last year and they're back to take a majority of the work this year.

A lot of the guys came in with a focus on 2006 and learn from last year's downfalls and shortcomings. Their attitude and work ethic is great.

There was this whole separate league of African American players.

This one is sort of celebrating the heritage of Negro League baseball.

He broke a foot in basketball and he's not even jogging yet. He would be my starting left-fielder. The best scenario is he is back versus Heath.