The Wandering Disciple

Port Charlotte, Florida: While cold winter weather has taken hold of a good chunk of the country, it was still baseball season in South Florida where the boys of summer faced off for a late fall exhibition match-up at Charlotte Sports Park. On Sunday evening it was the USA Baseball 18U National Team hosting the University of Florida Gators. The USA Baseball team is currently playing a series of exhibition games in Florida to evaluate their players and prepare themselves for upcoming tournament play. Tonight they put their unbeaten streak on the line against a tough Gators team. Click on the photo above to view photos from the USA Baseball/Gators photo gallery .

Port Charlotte, Florida: After heavy rains washed away Friday’s slate of games, Snowbird Classic baseball returned to action under sunny skies Saturday at North Charlotte Regional Park in Port Charlotte. The first game on the schedule was a doubleheader between the Muskingum University Fighting Muskies and the Skidmore College Thoroughbreds. Game one of the doubleheader saw the Fighting Muskies take advantage of a few Skidmore miscues to win the game 8-1. Game two was a close contest with Skidmore squeaking away with a 5-4 win. Game one started off with Muskingum taking the lead early in the first inning and never looked back. Wes Carder led off the inning with a walk. Then Erik Spitzer was hit by a pitch to put another runner on the bases. Carder advanced to third on a fly out by Brock Whiteman. Spitzer moved into scoring position by stealing second. Jared Whittington drove home the first run of the game by grounding out to third, allowing Carder to score on the play and give...

Punta Gorda, Florida: While their home states were dealing with freezing temperatures and above average snowfall, the Fairleigh Dickinson Knights and Duquesne Dukes were in Charlotte County, Florida enjoying warm temperatures and Florida sunshine. Both clubs were participating in the Buckeye Invitational as part of the 2010 Snowbird Baseball Classic taking place at the South Regional Park in Punta Gorda. The game featured plenty of excitement with the Dukes walking away with the 12-10 victory. The Knights took to the field as the home team with sophomore Ray Courtney getting the start on the mound. Duquesne’s Andrew Heck delivered the first run of the game on a deep home run to right center. Following the home run, Courtney loaded the bases by hitting Rick Devereaux then walking Mark Tracy and Chris Kimmeth to load the bases. With his back to the wall and the bases loaded, Courtney failed to deliver strikes and walked Mike Ganley to score Devereaux and give the Dukes a 2-0 lead. ...

Punta Gorda, Florida: Clear skies over South Florida led to a great day for base­ball Sun­day as the Juni­ata Col­lege Eagles took on the John Car­roll Blue Streaks in a dou­ble header as part of the 2010 Snow­bird Clas­sic at South Regional Park in Punta Gorda, Florida. Both clubs split the dou­ble header, with Juni­ata win­ning Game One, 8–1, and John Car­roll tak­ing Game Two, 4–1. Game One saw Juni­ata Col­lege take a com­mand­ing lead early and never look back, strik­ing gold with all eight of its runs before John Car­roll scored a lone run in the sev­enth inning. Thanks to great pitch­ing and defense, the game remained a score­less tie until the fifth inning. At that point, Juni­ata earned three runs aided by two errors by John Carroll. Evan Pap­pas got things started in the fifth with a one out sin­gle, then advanced to sec­ond on a stolen base. Pap­pas later scored on an RBI sin­gle by Kyle Sax­man for the first run of the game. Andrew Kriss then drove home two runs on a l...