BY STAFF REPORTS
SALISBURY POST

DRY SPELL: Salisbury’s Boo Blount’s homer on Thursday against High Point Central ended a 20-game homer drought for the Hornets. The last Hornet homer prior to Blount’s blast came off the bat of Justin Spears late in 2000. Spears’ bomb also came against High Point Central and, ironically, helped make Blount the winning pitcher.

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PITCHING MACHINE BLUES:Salisbury sophomores Richard Dailey and Daniel Wallace hung out in the bleachers between games of Thursday’s doubleheader with High Point Central, drinking water, eating giant Snickers bars and telling tales about the Hornets’ season.

Both agreed the highlights of many practices centered around first-year coach Scott Maddox’s ongoing battles with the pitching machine.

“That pitching machine caused some trouble,” said Wallace. “Coach beaned me with it the first day. Another time, all the pitches kept nicking the bar and flying around.”

“Another day, Coach got shocked by the machine,” added a wide-eyed Dailey. “He pulled the plug out and then staggered around like something was wrong. Then we saw he had this big hole in his hand.

“He never touched that pitching machine again.”

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GWYN AND BEAR IT:Salisbury’s J.J. Gwyn got in Thursday’s opening game as a courtesy runner and took a wild ride around the bases against the Bison, who recently snapped a 33-game losing streak.

Gwyn was at first when Wallace skied a mile-high, two-out pop up that somehow dropped untouched between High Point Central’s second baseman, shortstop and center fielder. Gwyn sped along okay for a awhile, but then lost track of the number of outs and slammed on the brakes between second and third. Fortunately, Maddox got his attention and Gwyn re-started his motor and easily beat a hurried peg home.

After scoring, an excited Gwyn was just getting warmed up. He backpedaled from the plate to the Hornets’ dugout.

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DAILEY GRIND:Dailey hasn’t hit much this year, but did manage an infield single Thursday on which he punctuated an all-out sprint down the line with a fierce slide into first base.

That’s not exactly recommended procedure, but Dailey couldn’t have been happier with his adventure.

“I got me a pretty good raspberry,” he said, admiring a wound on his leg.

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TOMMY TIME: The Hornets have a great time, but also have rules. If you miss practice, you either sit out the next game or run six miles.

One of the team’s stars, Tommy Ludwig, missed practice the day before Salisbury’s big home game with North Stanly and knew what the consequences were. Ludwig phoned Maddox and said that he really, really wanted to play against the Comets. Ludwig offered to run his six-mile penalty between the time school was out and the time the game started.

Maddox responded that if Ludwig ran at that time of day, he wouldn’t have enough energy left to do a decent job at his catching position. But Maddox did offer an alternative plan. “Meet me at 6 a.m. at the school,” he said.

Ludwig greeted his coach in pitch darkness. A few minutes later, Maddox turned on the lights of his van and brightened the way for Ludwig to rack up the mileage necessary for eligibility.

And then some. Because, unknown to either party, Salisbury’s track is longer than the standard layout.

“Tommy thinks he ran six miles,” said a grinning Maddox. “It turns out he did about eight. I haven’t had the heart to tell him.”

It may be pure coincidence, but shortly after that marathon morning jog, Ludwig started to hit, sending his average into the .350 range.

“Tommy’s a really good athlete,” chuckled Maddox. “It’s just that common-sense stuff that gives him trouble once in a while. But that was a chance for him to learn a lesson and for the other kids on the team to learn something, too.”

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