Braves off to rocky start, all-star game moved, top hoops players announced, state mourns Daniel's passing

The Atlanta Braves opened their 2021 season last Thursday against the Philadelphia Phillies and proceeded to get swept in the three-game series against their division rival. Two of Atlanta’s losses were pretty close, 3-2 and 2-1, but the Braves got shutout, 4-0, on Saturday against Phillies pitcher Zack Wheeler. Wheeler struck out 10 and allowed only one hit in his season debut.

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In other Atlanta news this week, Major League Baseball made the “brilliant” decision to move the All-Star game and the draft out of Atlanta in response to some voting law in the state of Georgia. I don’t know what the law says, but I don’t see what concern that it would be of Major League Baseball. No doubt the decision will cost the city millions of dollars, but most of that will come out of the pockets of restaurant and hotel owners.

In my opinion, Major League Baseball should stick to baseball and stay out of politics. Just because they don’t like some law passed by Georgia’s state legislature, that’s between the people of Georgia and their elected state legislators. If the powers that be at MLB want something to work on, they should work on making games more affordable for common, working folks to attend.

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Over the weekend, the Alabama Sports Writers Association named its Boys and Girls Basketball Players of the Year in eight classifications.

Boys Players of the Year are Riley Leonard of Fairhope High School (Class 7A), Brody Peebles of Hartselle High School (6A), Kaleb Brown of Lee High School in Huntsville (5A), Antonio Kite of Anniston High School (4A), Cole Millican of Plainview High School (3A), J.D. Davison of Calhoun High School (2A), DeWaun Stubbs of Autaugaville High School (1A) and Sam Rowley of Tuscaloosa Academy (AISA).

Girls Players of the Year are Amiya Payne of Hewitt-Trussville High School (7A), Sara Puckett of Muscle Shoals High School (6A), Randrea Wright of Caver High School in Birmingham (5A), Allasha Dudley of Anniston (4A), Ella Jane Connell of Prattville Christian (3A), Karoline Striplin of Geneva County High School (2A), Gracie Stucky of Skyline High School (1A) and Augusta Arnold of Southern Academy (AISA).

This year’s Mr. Basketball and Mrs. Basketball will be selected from the players named above.

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On Saturday, Alabama High School coaching legend Glenn Daniel passed away at the age of 95.

Daniel, who coached at Luverne for 38 years, became the first football coach in Alabama to win 300 games – finishing his 46-year coaching career with a 302-169-16 overall coaching record. He was a charter member inducted into the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1991. He was inducted into the National High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1999 – the first of only two Alabama high school football coaches to receive that honor.

Daniel began his coaching career at Pine Hill in 1947 and moved to Luverne High School in 1955. Luverne won the Class 2A state football title in 1992, and Daniel retired following the 1993 season. His football teams at Luverne had only four losing seasons despite facing challenging schedules loaded with much larger schools. The stadium at Luverne, just a few blocks from his home, is named in his honor.