The high school all-star baseball games recently certainly don’t end the season for most fans, players, coaches and parents.

Youth baseball is actually close to the middle of its season, and many high school players will be participating on their various community league teams, some of which remain based on their high school team.

Many current college baseball players will travel to other parts of the country to play on baseball teams in amateur leagues designed specifically for the college players.

Several of those leagues use wooden bats, which can ease the transition from college ball into professional baseball.

Remembering those all-star weekends, we wrote last week about the MPSA All-Star games. This past weekend the MHSAA All-Star games took place at Smith-Wills Stadium.

Natchez’s only participant this year was Cathedral’s Co-Lin signee Te Riley, who pitched the fifth and sixth innings for the South squad in their 7-4 win over the North 1A-2A-3A All-Stars. Riley allowed only a single unearned run while holding the North batters hitless and walking a pair.

This is the dead season for die-hard college football fans, so here are a few words to carry over till fall practice starts in August.

The NCAA Football Rules Committee has come up with a few suggestions which they plan to put in place for the 2005 season. The changes for the upcoming 2004 season have not been finalized.

The first change is a refinement of the Big 10 Conference plan to use instant replay. It will be used in all of their conference games and can be used in non-conference games if the opponent approves.

Only the TV feed from the conference’s television partner (like Jefferson Pilot to the SEC) will be used, and play review will only be triggered by the technical advisor who is the observer assigned by the conference.

He will use only the view shown on TV and will be unable to watch different angles.

While I don’t view this as particularly harmful, you can be assured it will eventually go national &045; as does everything from the Big 10.

Other noticeable changes proposed include one seeking to eliminate defensive pass interference from being enforced when a defensive back, blocking to protect a punt return man, hits an opponent who is faking like he is covering a punt while the punter then throws a long, high pass in an attempt to have pass interference called.

Changes which might not be as noticeable included protecting a pass rusher from penalty when he is blocked into the passer. Penalties against him for personal fouls would continue to be enforced.

Another change makes it a violation for a player in an attempt to block a kick to jump over the linemen into or past the neutral zone, even though he doesn’t touch an opponent and returns to his position prior to the snap.

Most of these changes will be noticed only by the most intense fans, and even those will likely forget them before the 2005 season rolls around.

And that’s official.

Al Graning is a former SEC official and former Natchez resident. Reach him at

AlanWard39157@aol.com.