About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (June 3, 2020)
SPORTS Bill Murphy Sports Editor | 770-718-3415 | sports@gainesvilletimes.com Sftncs gainesvilletimes.com Midweek Edition - June 3-4, 2020 HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS Schools in Hall are set to open up for conditioning The Hall County Schools district will allow student athletes to begin voluntary conditioning starting Monday, in accordance with guidelines set forth by the GHSA. This announcement was sent out Tuesday by Hall County Schools director of communications and athletics Stan Lewis. Gainesville High athletics director Adam Lind say said its teams will follow similar protocols as it opens volunteer conditioning Monday. In addition to the announcement by the Hall County Schools, there will be no balls or sports- specific equipment allowed during these training sessions. All conditioning sessions, additionally, will be monitored under the supervision of certified Hall County School system employees. In addition, all student-athletes will be screened with temperature checks and a health survey when on campus. Social distancing will be monitored and no spectators will be allowed dur ing sessions. In accordance with Phase 1 of the return to training, each group will consist of 20 people, including coaches, to limit exposure. Equipment will be sanitized prior to each work out session and sanitized between each student- athlete use. Compiled by Bill Murphy ATLANTA BRAVES Fate of 2020 season comes down to the bargaining table The dispute between Major League Baseball and its players’ union over the economics of start ing the pandemic-delayed season sounds famil iar. It sounds very much like the rhetoric around the strike that wiped out two summer months of the season in 1981, the lockout that derailed spring training in 1990 and, yes, even the strike that forced cancellation of the World Series in 1994. Now, as then, both the owners’ and players’ sides have made proposals that had zero chance of being accepted by the other. The owners last week proposed that the higher- salaried players take huge pay cuts on top of the prorated salaries they agreed to in March, claim ing that otherwise the clubs would lose more money for each game played without fans in attendance. The players countered Sunday by proposing more games, 114 rather than 82, and no further pay reductions. Then came word Monday that the owners might implement a season of as few as 40 or 50 games at prorated salaries if they can’t wrangle more pay cuts. Maybe there’s a compromise to be found in there somewhere, but on the surface none of it seems to suggest progress toward a solution. You might have thought that it would be different this time, that both sides would have approached negotiations more productively from the start amid COVID-19. Instead, it has been negotiation as usual for baseball, where again it is as if the two sides are speaking different languages, unable to agree even on what it was they agreed to in March. Whether there’ll be a Braves season, an MLB season, or how much of a season, hangs in the balance. J.C. Bradbury, a Kennesaw State University economist who has written two books on baseball economics, has seen it all before. “The way these things get settled is through basically sheer brute force, each side trying to convince the other side that you’re willing to risk all the damages,” Bradbury said Monday. “The owners will say, ‘Hey, we won’t play a game next season. Let’s see how desperate the players get.’ And the players will say, ‘Oh, no, you need to pay us a ton of money. You won’t make any money without us.’ Both parties have an incentive to not be honest with each other. “It’s a bargaining game,” Bradbury continued, “and from a fan’s perspective it is very frustrat ing because you say, ‘Why can’t they just agree?’ ... This is sort of two big heavyweights staring each other down before a fight.” They come to this fight with the union’s long standing distrust of the owners exacerbated by many players’ unhappiness about the current col lective bargaining agreement, which took effect in 2017. “Things being acrimonious before this (negoti ation) started makes it more difficult,” Bradbury said. Other major sports leagues also have labor dis putes -- the NHL lost the entire 2004-05 season to a lockout -- but none approach the process with the historical rancor of baseball. MLB has had eight strikes or lockouts since 1972, although none since the disastrous strike that ended the 1994 season in August and wiped out the postseason and brought replacement play ers to spring training camps in 1995. MLB also has been at the brink of stoppages on other occasions. But the current situation is different from all the other disputes because of the long-term damage that would be inflicted on the sport by scrapping a season over a financial squabble during a time of public health crisis and soaring unemployment. Eventually, the two sides might well come to an agreement and have a partial season of some length, but time is running out for a hoped-for start of games without fans by the Fourth of July weekend. Assuming the teams will need about three weeks of training before games begin, an agreement would need to be reached in time for workouts to start by June 12 or so. Atlanta Journal-Constitution SENIORS 2020 SPIRITED LEADERSHIP V^TurfMark * * OurtMA ItilUTlOM tw* iftllt-IW I A ± NATHAN BERG I The Times Flowery Branch’s Zander Sechrist delivers a pitch against Marist on March 11 in Flowery Branch. Bubbly personality, elite left-handed talent defined Sechrist BY BILL MURPHY bmurphy@gainesvilletimes.com Zander Sechrist has a bubbly person ality and a bright future on the baseball field. He took his high school years at Flow ery Branch extremely seriously but always wanted people to keep smiling and enjoying life. “(Zander’s) a wonderful kid who never gets angry and has such an opti mistic outlook on life,” Falcons coach Joey Ray said. “And he’s a fierce com petitor on the baseball field.” The University of Tennessee signee was one of the reasons that the Fal cons were 12-1 and ranked in the top- 50 nationally when the season ended March 13 as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sechrist is a towering left-hander with dominant off-speed pitches, elite command of the strike zone and an above average fastball. His go-to pitch was a changeup with a two-seam grip that would fall off the table before it got to the plate. “Zander’s velocity is the only thing that keeps him from being a first-round draft pick,” Ray said. “He’s as polished of a high school pitcher as there is in the country.” During his career, Sechrist took the bump against five nationally-ranked opponents. As a senior, he was on the mound for a 2-1, nine-inning win against North Gwinnett on Feb. 19. On March 11, he threw a two-hit, complete-game shutout against Marist two days before the season came to an abrupt end. Sechrist was also one of the catalysts behind Flowery Branch’s run to the 2018 Class 5A state semifinals, where it came up on the short end against Buford. Equally as important was the way Sechrist went out of his way to set a good culture for the Falcons, on and off the field. When Ray took over as Flow ery Branch’s coach in 2018, he remem bers Sechrist jumped on the opportunity to have the space closest to the door in their locker room. The dominating pitcher said it was to both make the new coach comfort able and have players in a good space mentally before getting to work on the diamond. “Everything I did was all about hav ing good team chemistry, ’’said Sechrist. “I try to keep everyone happy.” Sechrist was even mindful about the way he presented himself during the school day. Dressed with a button-up plaid shirt tucked in neatly with nice shoes, he treated everyday like he was part of the business world. He’s the product of a hard-working single mother, Lori, and grandfather, Bob, who he considers his father. Both instilled values of respect and hard work into her only child. Zander has never met his biological father, but refuses to let that be a crutch for not being successful going forward in life. Sechrist has had as much, if not more, support from his family than other play ers, even though it is not the traditional family nucleus. “Everything I do, I do for my mother,” Sechrist said. “I want her to be happy.” For as long as he can remember, Zan der has played baseball. He was a typi cal child with an athletic streak. Even as a lefty, he was put at third base as a young child, just because he was one of the only kids who could throw the ball across the diamond. He also showed how talented as a kid he was wherever you plugged him in on the field. Sechrist can still remember turning a triple play from the hot cor ner, and another time snagging a hard- hit ball over third base, popping to his feet and throwing behind his body’s momentum to first for the out. However, Sechrist would find his for ever home when he took to the mound. When he wasn’t pitching, Sechrist would play first base most of the time. As a kid, he played for former Atlanta Braves outfielder Marquis Grissom and carefully studied the former pro’s arm slot when he released the ball to avoid any future arm injuries. When he was 8, Sechrist started learning from Vladimir Nunez, an 11-year MLB pitching veteran who has preached to the young player about pitching to contact. Since that, Sechrist has followed through on focusing on throwing strikes and letting his defense make plays behind him. By the time he was in the eighth grade, the raw left-hander had the attention of the school’s pitching coach, Dusty Black, stating the young talent would be starting as a freshman. Since then, Sechrist has evolved into an analytical pitcher. He studies ten dencies and relies on the talent of junior Kaleb Freeman to call a good game behind the plate. His first experience against a top flight opponent was in 2018 when Sechrist threw five innings and allowed just a first-inning run against nationally- ranked American Heritage (Florida). Later that spring, Sechrist would go toe- to-toe against Buford in the state semi final series. As a junior, Sechrist said he faced some adversity, losing some region matchups. However, he was looking forward to having his senior year to get redemption against Marist and Blessed Trinity. “I was so sad that this season was cut short,” said Sechrist. “It was going to be my revenge tour.” One of Sechrist’s tools he used in 2020 was an index card with the strengths and weaknesses of batters, which came in handy during those games against nationally-ranked North Gwinnett, Hoover (Alabama) and Marist. Sechrist and Freeman would both have cards with notes, which also dou bled as encouragement between two good friends. Even though the 2020 season was cut short for the Falcons, due to circum stances out of anyone’s control, Sechrist has certainly left a legacy as a tireless worker on the field and friendly face to everyone he meets. “I just want to thank all my team mates and coach Ray for making it so much fun these past four years,” Sechrist said. Even though Sechrist has the desir able skillset on the mound to be intrigu ing to the pro scouts, he likely won’t hear his name called this summer. The MLB draft has been shortened to five rounds and will take place on June 8-9. However, the gifted lefty is beaming with optimism about beginning the next chapter of his life in Knoxville playing for the Volunteers. “I’m so excited about going to Ten nessee,” Sechrist said.
