Remembering a Bulldog that left a lasting impact

No words can heal these wounds and I’m not about to try and heal yours. But I…I do have something to say.

It was 18 years ago I moved to Cleveland, Miss. from Dallas. I was making the move to attend Delta State University. My dad had a local radio station in Cleveland and he called Bayou Academy football and baseball games on his radio station.

As I was moving, my dad told me about a high school pitcher that was one of the best he’d seen. This kid had great stuff, was committed to Mississippi State and was the quarterback for the football team. He also told me that this kid was just an overall good kid.

That kid was Reed.

I don’t remember my first time meeting Reed. Our time in Cleveland only overlapped one year, but I was at all of Bayou’s football games that year (my brother was on the team) and called a lot of the Colts’ baseball games that season, too.

I remember clearly sitting behind home plate at an away game Reed was pitching in. I remember sitting there with stats, rosters, radio equipment and other things in front of me and I was amazed. I remember thinking, how can any high schooler hit off this guy?

See, this was my introduction to good baseball. I was a football player, not a baseball player (and by player I do mean bench warmer). I had never sat up close and seen what a good high school baseball pitcher’s pitches looked like.

Whatever misconception I had about my own abilities quickly vanished. I could barely hit the ball in the batting cages at putt-putt, let alone what this high school senior was dishing out.

But you all know Reed was a great pitcher. He was just as great off the field.

In the interviews we had together, Reed always came off smart, polite and with a good head on his shoulders. He said “yes sir” and “no sir” (mind you, I was only a year older than him and, no, he didn’t stop calling me sir) and everything else our parents tell us to do.

He was the type of kid everyone wanted to be friends with and the type of kid parents want their kids to be.

Of course, that was 18 years ago. Our paths crossed once or twice in those years, but that one season in Cleveland still stands out to me.

I quickly grew to like covering baseball. The game was one thing, but the people were another. It’s the people that I remember that rekindled that love for baseball that I had as a kid going to Texas Rangers games and making my mom stay in freezing temperatures of an extra inning game.

Dave “Boo” Ferris, Mike Kinnison and Reed were three key people that opened my eyes to baseball and made it my favorite sport to write about.

The bad part about this? I didn’t realize it until about 30 minutes before I started writing this.

Today is a sad day and like I said, I’m not trying to heal your wounds.

But I hope if you read this, you’ll know the world just lost a truly great person.

DAWG FEED: