Local players play for Arizona on diamond

Two local high school baseball players helped represent Arizona on the 2007 Junior Sunbelt Team, which wrapped up play today in Oklahoma.

Matt Summers, a pitcher from Cactus Shadows, and Nick Carillo, a pitcher and infielder for Sandra Day O’Connor, were among 20 players on Arizona’s team, which played 10 games at the out‑of‑state tournament.

After three days of practice at Brophy Prep the first week of June, players played four double‑headers in five days in Oklahoma, mostly at Eastern Oklahoma State University.

Arizona went 5‑2 over its first seven pool‑play games, and the state squad was set to play a doubleheader June 12, but results were unavailable at press time. Today’s opponent was based on the final standings from pool play and was to be the team’s final game of the tournament.

O’Connor’s Zack McPhee was also selected for the team but he did not make the trip.

SPEAKING OF O’CONNOR baseball, it’s already been a crazy summer for Eagles coach Jeff Baumgartner.

First, he led the Eagles to a No. 1 seed in the 5A‑Division II state tournament and a No. 1 ranking much of the season. Then he got married at home plate of the school’s field, was named the Arizona Baseball Coaches Association (AzBCA) Coach of the Year for all classifications and was selected to coach the Arizona Senior Sunbelt Team, which will compete in Oklahoma June 18‑23.

And we all thought teachers didn’t do anything in the summer.

THERE HAS BEEN a Scott Heideman sighting. The former Boulder Creek football coach, who led the Jaguars to a 3‑7 record in the team’s inaugural season last fall, was fired in               January and is no longer with the Deer Valley Unified School District.

Heideman has taken an assistant coach job with 4A‑power Chaparral.

Dan Friedman, the former coach at Goldwater, left the Bulldogs to take the position with Boulder Creek and is now working in the weight room with Jaguars player this summer.

YOU WANT TO talk about heartache, how’s this? My son’s little league team finished the  regular season with only one loss and they blew out just about every team they played all season.

But instead of rolling through the postseason toward the league title, his team lost twice early in stunning fashion and only scored one run in each game. In fact, it was such a turn of fortune from the regular season, I thought   there was some point‑shaving going on there.

When I asked him why his team lost the final game, he replied, “No comment.”

You would have thought he could give a better quote to a reporter.

AND FINALLY, apparently I’m not the only Phoenix Suns fan who feels physically ill when even seeing highlights of the NBA Finals.

In the two short years I’ve worked at The Desert Advocate, I’ve never received more letters, e‑mails and comments about one of my columns than I did about Suns fans boycotting the Finals.

It seems the NBA’s handling of the suspension situation with Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw struck a nerve in Phoenix. And, apparently, the rest of the NBA.

Ratings for Game 1 of the NBA Finals were the worst ever, meaning only one thing:  Everybody in the nation read my column.

OK, at least I’d like to  think that.