The newly refurbished Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Monday held a celebration of something Mississippians do as well as well as anyone anywhere. I am writing, of course, of college baseball, played here and supported by Magnolia State fans as well as – and perhaps better than – anywhere else.

Southern Miss’s JB Middleton, one of the best pitchers in college baseball, took home the Boo Ferriss Trophy, which goes annually to the state’s best player. It was a day for hard-throwing, small-town right-handers at the Hall of Fame. Middleton, a junior from Yazoo City, won the trophy named for the late Dave “Boo” Ferriss, another right-handed pitching ace from Shaw. Roy Oswalt, from Weir, who won 163 games pitching for four Major League teams, was the featured speaker. 

Middleton, expected to be a high choice in the upcoming Major League Draft, won over Delta State right-hander Drake Fontenot and three sluggers: Southern Miss second baseman Nick Monistere, Mississippi State third baseman Ace Reese and Ole Miss third baseman Luke Hill.

Ferriss, a Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer, surely would approve of Middleton’s amazing numbers produced this spring. USM’s Friday night ace won nine games, lost only one and had an earned run average of 2.05. In this college baseball era of soaring offensive numbers, Middleton allowed opponents to hit only .167. Perhaps most impressive of all was his strikeouts-to-walks ratio. He fanned 104 batters and walked only 23. He is the state’s only semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award, which goes annually to the nation’s best amateur baseball player.

“JB’s a true Friday night ace,” Southern Miss coach Christian Ostrander said. “You get the ball in his hand, you’ve got a chance to win … obviously, we wouldn’t be where we are without him.”

The Golden Eagles, 41-13 and winners of 15 straight headed into the postseason, also wouldn’t be where they are without Monistere. The former Northwest Rankin star and Mississippi high school player of the year Monday was named the Sun Belt Conference’s most outstanding player after a regular season in which he slammed 18 home runs, knocked in 66 runs and batted .332.

“To have two of the five finalists for this prestigious award speaks volumes,” Ostrander said. “We’ve got a lot of really good players having great seasons this year.”

The three other Ferriss finalists also produced eye-popping numbers:

• Reese, a Texan and a sophomore transfer from Houston, was also named first team All-SEC and the league’s Newcomer of the Year on Monday. The sophomore hit .369 (a whopping .402 in SEC games) with 21 home runs and 66 runs batted in.
• Hill, a second team All-SEC selection, hit .345 with eight home runs and 35 RBI and led the SEC with 12 stolen bases in league play.
• Fontenot, Delta State’s Friday night ace and the Gulf South Conference’s Pitcher of the Year, won nine games and lost three with an ERA of 2.50. At one point he set a school record with 39.1 consecutive innings of scoreless baseball.

Oswalt regaled the awards luncheon crowd with stories of his fascinating career, during which he had back-to-back 20-win seasons with the Houston Astros and was the Most Valuable Player of the 2005 National League Championship Series.

He told about how Weir Attendance Center never had a baseball team or a baseball field until he came along with his 90 mph fastball as a 14-year-old. “My daddy was a logger and he cut down trees and cleared the area that became our baseball field,” Oswalt said. Weir played 17 games that first season. Oswalt pitched 15 of those, all complete games.

He also told a story about how, as a minor leaguer, he recovered from a serious shoulder injury in a most unorthodox fashion. His throwing shoulder was aching badly at the end of the 1999 season and he thought for sure the injury would require major surgery. Then, he got back home to Weir with hunting season about to begin.

“I was working on my hunting truck that had an engine that was missing,” Oswalt said. “I was fooling around with some spark plug wires and got shocked. Man, I mean, I got shocked. The current shot up from my hand and to my shoulder. I felt it throughout my whole body. It shocked the fire out of me, but once I recovered from the initial shock I realized my shoulder didn’t hurt anymore. It was fine after that.”

To his credit, Oswalt did not advise any of the Ferriss Trophy finalists to try the same treatment should they ever suffer a sore arm.