Baseball's Home Stretch 2012

It really is the home stretch for Chipper Jones (Bolles), who ends his career after this season. He is going out in solid Chipper fashion: a two homer day on his bobble-head night recently, batting .313 with 13 homers for the Braves who may give Chipper one more post-season as well; the Braves are currently the 1st wildcard in the National League.

Kansas City's DH Billy Butler (Wolfson) is continuing to have a nice second-half of the season after his appearance in the All-Star game. 25 homers, 79 rbis and a .306 batting average.

Pitcher Darren O'Day (Kenny) is having a good season with Baltimore, 6-1 with a 2.49 ERA in 50 appearances for the Orioles in the set-up role.

West Nassau High's Howie Kendrick (2B) continues a good season for the Angels with 6 homers 42 rbi and a.282 average.

Daniel Murphy (Englewood) starts at 2B for the Mets, batting a solid .289 (4 hr 51 rbi).

Glynn Academy's pitcher Adam Wainwright is 11-10 for the Cardinals after missing all of last season with injury.

Mat Gamel (Kenny) made it up to the bigs with Milwaukee this spring before tearing his ACL in May and missing the rest of the season. He batted .246 in his 21 games.

Michael Kirkman (Lake City) is 1-2 with a 4.44 ERA in 21 outings for the Texas Rangers.

Updates on a couple of high round draft picks from last year:
Javier Baez (ACD), the first round pick of the Cubs is batting .184 in High A ball in Daytona; Patrick Leonard (Creekside) has hit 13 homers in 52 games for Burlington (Royals org.) in A ball.

Nigel Carr making the most of his chance

When many of us last heard from  former First Coast High star linebacker Nigel Carr, he was being kicked off the Florida State football team. He is getting a chance at redemption with the Baltimore Ravens. Here is the story.

How They Fared - Weekend of 8/19

Carr

The Falcons' LB Stephen Nicholas,  (Lee) started and registered 1 tackle. Ravens rookie LB Nigel Carr, left (First Coast)  had 6 tackles and 1 assist; Buffalo's RB C.J. Spiller (Union Cty) had -7 total yards; undrafted free agent WR Chris Summers  (Chicago/Ribault) continues to impress with 2 catches for 34 yards. Broncos' CB Champ Bailey (Camden) had 1 pass break-up and CB Tony Carter (Mandarin) registered 2 tackles; Lions' DE Cliff Avril (Clay) had 2 tackles and 1 pass knockdown; QB Tim Tebow (Nease) struggled for the Jets, going 5 of 14 for 69 yards passing and rushing for 5 yards. RB Daniel Thomas (Hilliard) scored a touchdown on 6 total yards for the Dolphins and fellow 'Fin Nolan Carroll (DB/Clay)  had 3 tackles. LB Brandon Hicks (Forrest) had a tackle and pass defense for Pittsburgh; Niners' rookie WR A.J. Jenkins (Parker) had a catch for 32 yards, Titans RB Jamie Harper (Trinity) produced 67 total yards. Seattle's All-purpose Leon Washington (Jackson) had rushes for 20 yards and a 21 yard average on kickoff returns. Titans QB Rusty Smith (Sandalwood) had a good outing, going 5 for 9 for 86 yards and a TD pass. Shaun Chapas (Dallas/Bolles) and Marcus Thomas (NYG/Mandarin) each played with no stats; area players not active this week include all three DuvALUMNI Jaguars: Rashean Mathis (Englewood), Jason Spitz (Bolles) and Mike Holmes (Mandarin); also not active Vikings DT Letroy Guion (Bradford). Jabar Gaffney (New England/Raines) plays tonight.
* CFL DuvALUMNI Dee Webb (White) registered 5 tackles for Hamilton; Vince Anderson(Lake City) had a tackle for Montreal; Bear Woods (Baker Cty) is on the injured list for Montreal.