By David Shaw
sports@salisburypost.com
GREENVILLE ó The “Cookie Lavagetto Award” for Saturday goes to Rowan County reserve outfielder Casey Little.
A recent East Rowan graduate, Little proved once again that good things can happen when you show up prepared for work. Things like slugging a pinch-hit, walk-off home run.
“It was nothing special, nothing spectacular,” said Little, who also homered against Mooresville this season. “I just got it up in that wind that showed up late. Thank God for the wind.”
Little, a .346 hitter in limited action this summer, spent most of Rowan’s first-round victory against Duplin County chained to the bench, busying himself by chasing an occasional stray ball and swinging a bat in the dugout just in case coach Jim Gantt called him to active duty. It’s unlikely he knows of Lavagetto, the Brooklyn Dodgers pinch-hitter who broke up a no-hitter with two outs in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 1947 World Series. But he knows how Lavagetto felt.”I was just waiting for my chance to do something,” Little said with a smile.
Opportunity knocked in the bottom of the seventh inning. Rowan had extended its lead to eight runs on Russell Michalec’s towering, three-run homer to right-center against Post 127 reliever Corburt Allen with one away. When Noah Holmes followed with a walk, Duplin coach Tim Teachey quickly summoned right-handed reliever Hunter Jenkins.
Gantt countered with Little in place of pitcher Cody Laws. Jenkins fired a pair of strikes before missing low. His 1-2 delivery was an outside fastball that Little whacked over the wall in right-center.
“He’s makes good solid contact, he’s gotten some clutch base hits and he can run,” Gantt said. “And he’s got power that you just don’t expect.”
Little had a modest reaction.
“I thought I had a deep fly in the gap,” he said. “You have to get it up in the wind to get it out. But that one ó it just happened.”