Shelby Miller was one of the highlights for anybody who was here at that time. Of course, he played football up until I think his junior year. He probably played basketball in junior high, but he was a great athlete. What a pitcher on the baseball team! He pitched I don’t know how many no hitters and whatever. He was a terrific pitcher and that goes beyond saying. I really didn’t do him justice when I broadcast his games. We just took him for granted but he was an outstanding pitcher. But my favorite memory of Shelby doesn’t really have anything to do with Shelby.
One night in Graham, Texas and I don’t remember the year to be honest with you. I was hashing it around with my wife and she thought about 2008 or 2009 but somewhere around there anyway. It was somewhere in his reign as the “king of baseball” in Brownwood. Anyway, we go to Graham and they have a really nice stadium and a nice press box. It looked like the rain was going to stay away, but it was very, very, very windy. We won the ballgame but how bad we won it I don’t know. It may have been a no hitter but you could throw out numbers to me, 2-0, 5-1, 7-2, 1-0 and I would agree with all of them.
Shelby pitched very well and we were in good shape. That wasn’t the story of that night for me though.
My wife pointed out to me at the first of the ballgame a bird that was flying against the wind, and it was literally staying in the same place. It got my interest enough to where I would look over every fifteen minutes or so and the bird was still in the same area and still not going anywhere, flapping its wings as hard as it could. It was like he was being challenged to go against this wind which was tough, I mean real tough. It was probably thirty miles an hour maybe. It was a terrible wind. This bird fought it! This probably says a lot about me as a sportscaster, but I got more interested in this bird than Shelby, but this bird goes for at least one or two innings just battling his heart out.
What that means, I don’t know. I figure the bird won.
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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].