John M. Setzler, Jr.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, our local baseball hero, Madison Bumgarner, showed up with the Augusta GreenJackets tonight to face off against the Hickory Crawdads at L.P. Frans Stadium in a Saturday night double-header. Madison pitched five innings tonight, giving up one earned run (a lead-off home run by Hickory’s Albert Laboy), three walks, while striking out two. A fine performance, to say the least.

The Hickory Crawdads will not meet up with Augusta again this season after this series, at home or on the road. Today will be my last opportunity to see Madison pitch in the minor leagues most likely. The next time I’ll see him pitch will be on television in a San Francisco Giants uniform.

It’s been a fun ride for me though… I have watched this kid grow from a skinny high school fresman who didn’t really have much control of the ball into a real force to be reckoned with on the mound. Scouts started showing up to look at him during his junior year of high school, and I watched a few radar guns register his fastball in the 90s. During his senior year, those same radar guns were hitting 96 quite frequently while the high school batters seemed to be swinging their bats after the ball had already hit the catcher’s mitt. When you hear someone talk about having a cannon arm, you can just take a look at the photo above to get an idea of what they mean.

Oh well… I have enjoyed this venture quite a bit. I’ll be looking around the county for our next big prospect :)

Godspeed, Madison Bumgarner…
Phil. 4:13

John M. Setzler, Jr.
( the guy with the camera )