Well, the Brownwood Lions baseball team starts District play this week. It’s already here! The Lions are coming off a 22 and 11 record last year and that’s pretty good. And they made it to the second round of the playoffs, also pretty good.

This year is a little bit different, starting with the head coach. Fact is, he’s the same one we had several years ago and he’s back for a second term at Brownwood. Blake Sanford is excited to be back with the Lions. He’s excited about the kids and I don’t blame him! He’s got basically – not the whole team – but almost the whole team back from last year. And as I said, they went 22 and 11.

You start with Gavin Brandstetter on the mound, Logan Posey behind the plate, and those two are All State caliber players. Then you have David Turner, Cole Miller, Jordyn Nickerson and well, you can just go on and on. They are a good baseball team on paper, very good. Now, can they put that on the field with consistency? This year, they’ve been a 500 team in non-district, up and down, a little good and a little not so good. But, that’s expected early in the season. I believe this will be a GOOD Brownwood team! I mean a REAL good Brownwood team and I think before the season is over they’re going to remind us of some of the awfully good Brownwood teams that we had in the past.

I can certainly talk about those and some of the great memories we had when Shelby Miller was on the mound for us and we got to within one game of the State Tournament. That was certainly not the only good one. We had some really outstanding ball clubs. We had a run of about five years or six years where we were close to being a State Tournament qualifier. Awfully, awfully good ball clubs!

This one this year, I think, is that caliber. They’re in a tough district. I don’t know if they can win it all, but I do know that they should get in the playoffs.

If they don’t get in the playoffs I can tell you one person that’s going to be very upset, well I can tell you more than one, but this Brownwood team is going to be very special. The Stephenville ball club last year was the District Champion and they are solid again. Glen Rose is solid and Graham is good. Mineral Wells, maybe not as good as the rest of them but who knows, we’ll see. Stephenville ended up in the Regional finals. Glen Rose I mentioned, Graham, Mineral Wells, all of them say they’re improved, and they may be. We’ll find out. I think we’re improved, they’re improved, and ought to be a heck of a District race. I like it like that because teams that have easy Districts don’t last long in the playoffs. Teams that have a tough, rough District usually get beat around a little bit and play under enough pressure to where when they have to be good to continue the season, they usually are.

Brownwood will be a good ball club this year and like I say the reason is because they believe it. You talk to the players and that’s what Gavin and Logan and those guys believe and I believe that’s a lot of it. This is a very good baseball team at Brownwood High and I look forward to great things here in 2024.

Until next time, so long everybody.

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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].