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Mississippi Supreme Court Justices heard arguments Thursday that will help them decide the constitutionality of House Bill 1020 – the controversial law that places appointed judges in Hinds County and sets up a separate court system within Jackson. 

Attorneys for a lawsuit challenging HB 1020 say it violates the Mississippi Constitution by preventing county residents from electing circuit court judges, and that the Capitol Complex Improvement District court created by the law doesn’t meet constitutional requirements. 

The state’s attorneys say no constitutional issues exist and that a lower court’s ruling dismissing the lawsuit should stand. 

“This simply boils down to policy disagreement,” said Solicitor General Scott Stewart, who is representing the attorney general and governor.  

Cliff Johnson, an attorney for the appellants from the MacArthur Justice Center, said there are limited exceptions of when circuit court judges are not elected by the people, such as when the governor appoints someone if the judge is disqualified or unable to serve. 

He argued that state statute has been used to appoint judges, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, but appointing temporary judges alongside elected ones in Hinds County is not constitutional. 

Stewart said an appointed judge is not the same as an elected circuit judge, so they don’t have to be elected nor do they receive the same protections given to circuit court judges. 

HB 1020 has been discussed as a response to addressing a court backlog in Hinds County, but Johnson said the law makes no claim that a crowded docket exists. Regardless, the reason for the law doesn’t matter because the circumstances don’t justify the actions the Legislature is taking – even in an emergency situation. 

“This is exactly the type of situation we should be careful of,” Johnson said. 

He noted that the Legislature can address an overcrowded docket without violating the constitution and taking away Hinds County residents’ ability to elect judges, such as by adding elected judges or having the county court help. The Supreme Court can also play a role, Johnson said. 

A “far reaching” implication for siding with the state would be taking power away from Hinds County voters and giving it to the Legislature, Johnson said, and he wondered what precedent would be set for its ability to approve appointed judges in other circumstances. 

Another topic raised during oral arguments was about the legitimacy of the Capitol Complex Improvement District court. 

State constitution places limits on inferior courts created by the Legislature, including requirements that the court be supervised by another and they have the ability to appeal, which the appellants argue is not the case for the CCID court. 

Stewart argued the CCID court resembles a municipal court and meets constitutional requirements, including the ability to appeal. 

Justice James Kitchens asked where in HB 1020’s language does it address that the CCID court has appealability, and Stewart replied that existing state law for municipal courts grants the right for appeals to the county court. 

Kitchens asked whether municipal courts currently operate like the CCID court, including having the power to send people charged with misdemeanors to the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. 

Justice David Ishee, a former municipal judge, said the requirement is for the court to sentence those charged with misdemeanors to a county jail. 

Absent from the oral arguments was Chief Justice Michael Randolph, who recused himself Monday from the appeal because he is a named party in the lawsuit. 

HB 1020 directs Randolph to appoint four judges to a Capitol Complex Improvement District court within the Hinds County circuit court. The law was set to go into effect July 1, but it has been paused in another lawsuit in federal court. 

During oral arguments, his attorney Mark Nelson said the chief justice’s only interest is to protect his office and the court as an institution. 

Nelson said Hinds Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas and U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate were correct to remove Randolph from the lawsuit being appealed and a separate federal one on the basis of judicial immunity, which is the idea that judges can’t be sued for doing their jobs. 

Nelson said appointments are a judicial act covered by immunity. Stewart, the attorney for the state, told the justices to think about the consequences of their ruling, which could mean that the chief justice can’t make any appointments and that past ones could be ruled invalid. 

Johnson said the judicial immunity doctrine applies to protection from liability for monetary damages, but not for lawsuits seeking prospective relief such as declaratory or injunctive relief. 

Dorothy Triplett, one of the three Jackson women who are appellants in the case, said today was the first time she had ever visited the Mississippi Supreme Court, and she didn’t expect the lawsuit she joined to go so far. 

“I just know I believe in the right to vote and elect judges as stated in the constitution,” she said after the oral arguments. 

The post Will state’s justices sign off on challenge to separate Jackson court district? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A nightmare followed the terror of that night as Gladney soon realized her path to recovery would not be easy. After experiencing insufficient help from her insurance company, and little from the federal government, she became one of thousands who have relied on volunteer assistance to recover from a disaster.

The night of the storm, Gladney sat in her brown recliner listening to the weather forecaster track the storm. She assumed the tornado would not cause substantial damage to Amory based on past times when the tornado did not touch down.

But once the forecaster started praying for Amory, reality sunk in. Gladney’s granddaughter called, asking if Gladney could make it to her house. Then the power went out. 

Gladney, who had knee surgery just a week before, struggled to move to find shelter in her home. 

Soon her grandson, Rafael, rushed into the house and assisted her, along with her cane, behind a couch. He placed her on the floor and threw a mattress off a bed to cover Gladney, her husband and her younger son, Leonard. 

A couple of minutes after Rafael left to protect his own family, sirens blared, high winds roared outside, and the carport’s tin roof in the backyard began to crumble. Leonard gripped Gladney’s hand for comfort as an unsettling atmosphere lingered over the family. 

“After a while, it was all over,” Gladney said as her voice trailed off. “It was all over.”

Residents are still in the process of rebuilding, 95 days after a series of deadly tornadoes and strong thunderstorms swept across Mississippi – killing at least 25 people and leaving a 100-mile trail of destruction. 

Gladney is one of those residents in Amory. 

“When we got outside, she turned and looked at the damage to her house. She almost passed out,” Hampton stated. 

Two unrooted trees rested on top of Gladney’s home, parts of the ceiling were damaged, and the foundation of her home had shifted.

She said she found herself stuck with little to no assistance from FEMA and her insurer.

“FEMA told her since she has insurance and, if the company gave her over $40,000, then there was nothing they could do to help her. But $40,000 wouldn’t even cover half of what her house and yard (repairs) would cost,” Hampton told Mississippi Today.

FEMA spokesperson Mike Wade confirmed that if a survivor receives $41,000 from insurance, any further FEMA support is considered a duplication of assistance, which is not allowed.

FEMA’s Individual Assistance Program meets basic needs and supplements disaster recovery efforts, but it cannot replace insurance or compensate for all disaster losses. Therefore, the amount of financial assistance an individual or household may receive under FEMA’s Individuals and Households Program is limited. 

Michael Richmond-Crum, the director of personal lines for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, said insurance companies have a responsibility to their customers to act urgently for covered losses following a disaster. However, many states are facing a growing affordability and availability crisis in property insurance markets.

“2022 was the eighth consecutive year in a row that the U.S. suffered at least 10 catastrophes, causing more than a billion dollars in losses each. Natural disaster losses from 2020-2022 in the U.S. exceeded $275 billion in 2022 dollars, which is the highest ever three-year total for U.S. insurers,” Richmond-Crum told Mississippi Today.

Even in federally declared disaster areas like Amory, residents like Gladney are left to rely on volunteer organizations for help in recovering.

Through its mobile home replacement program, 38 families from Mississippi towns and surrounding areas have been approved as of June 7. Six mobile homes were delivered to the families two months after the tornado, and others are actively in the application process. 

“A lot of the families we are helping are severely underinsured or don’t have the resources to get back into their house. They are still eligible to apply for the mobile home program,” Luther Harrison, vice president of North America Ministries, told Mississippi Today.

Partnering with local churches in the community, the organization was directed to residents in the neighborhoods that needed assistance. The organization tarped damaged roofs, cut up fallen trees, and cleared debris from yards.

“We know they lost most if not everything they had, and we’re just trying to show them Christ-like love as we go out into the community and help them,” Harrison said.

In Mississippi, Samaritan’s Purse was able to help 402 families with cleanup through the assistance of 1,145 volunteers that came out to serve. 

Hubbard was one of them.

“The Samaritan’s Purse came and cleaned up the yard for her. People that we don’t know came and fed us and made sure we had water,” Hampton said.

Operation BBQ Relief, a Missouri nonprofit established in May 2011, has provided over 10 million meals throughout the United States and internationally following natural disasters. They have served close to 85,000 meals in Mississippi deployments.

During the organization’s deployment to Amory on March 26 – April 3, they provided the community with 4,355 meals to the town of about 6,360 people. 

Heather Williams, the director of communications for Operation BBQ Relief, said the organization tries to relieve the burden and stress residents experience when uncertain of their next meal, as a result of the closure or damage to stores and restaurants.

“We want to provide one thing that they can count on when their life has been turned upside down: a hot meal,” Williams continued. “We value them.”

Head of Volunteer Services for Operation BBQ Relief Brian Polak said the organization fuels the residents both literally, with a hot meal, and figuratively, through a sense of community. 

Providing disaster relief is “one of the hardest things volunteers will ever love doing,” Polak said. There’s a willingness to help others which is what gets volunteers involved, but it’s the experiences that keep them involved, he said.

The organization has over 18,000 volunteers nationwide.

“Volunteer agencies bring varied services to those in need, instead of those in need having to seek out the assistance, which can be difficult for a multitude of reasons during those first hours, days, or weeks,” Polak stated.

In Mississippi areas, where resources are already stretched thin after natural disasters, it is often difficult to contact someone who can help. And even when assistance is provided, it can be insufficient. 

Gladney’s home is cleared on the outside, but it remains unlivable on the inside, she said. Even though she received assistance from volunteer organizations, she refused to let them clean inside her home because of her reliance on insurance.

“I’ve been hoping and praying for Alfa to come around and do me right,” Gladney said of her insurance company.

According to Gladney, Alfa Corp. won’t condemn the home – determine the home is no longer fit for human inhabitation – because insurance would have to pay for the estimated value to rebuild her home. Instead, it is stating the conditions of the house were “pre-existent,” Gladney said. 

An Alfa Corp. spokesperson stated the claims department couldn’t comment on individual claims.

“Now, she’s stuck,” Hampton said. “Her whole life was in that house. And now, that’s it.”

The post For disaster victims trying to rebuild their lives, their last hope: volunteer groups appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The deadline for voter registration for the Aug. 8 Mississippi statewide primary is Monday.

You can register in person at your county circuit clerk’s office or municipal clerk’s office by 5 p.m. on Monday, July 10. Mail-in registration applications can be found here, and must be postmarked no later than July 10 for voting in the primary.

In-person and mail-in absentee ballots are available at county circuit clerks’ offices. To verify eligibility for voting absentee, check this secretary of state’s guide or contact your local circuit clerk’s office.

For absentee voting, your county circuit clerk will confirm you are a registered voter in that county by checking the Statewide Elections Management System, confirming your address, and checking your photo ID. For more information on Mississippi’s voter ID requirements, check here. You will also be asked your reason for absentee voting.

For those unable to go to their circuit clerk’s office during weekdays, Saturday in-person absentee voting dates are July 29 and Aug. 5, from 8 a.m. to noon.

The post Voter registration deadline for Mississippi primary is Monday appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Protestors gathered outside the offices of Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Rankin County Sheriff Brian Bailey on Wednesday, calling for the indictment of six Rankin County deputies accused of torturing two Black men and shooting one of them in the mouth while he was restrained. 

“We want them charged. We want them sentenced.” said John C. Barnett, one of the organizers of the protest. “We’re not asking. We’re demanding.” 

Fitch and Bailey would not meet with the protestors. Organizers said they reached out by phone, letter and email for the past week before attempting to meet with the officials in person and have received no response. 

Neither office responded to requests for comment by Mississippi Today. 

“Their silence is their answer,” said Sherrell Potts, an organizer with the New Black Panther Party. “We won’t be silent.”

The Department of Justice and the FBI opened an investigation into the incident in January. Last week, Bailey announced that the deputies involved in the alleged torture had been fired. 

“This isn’t a decision that Sheriff Bailey made,” Barnett said. “He’s only doing what the Department of Justice put pressure on him to do.”

On Jan. 24, Michael Corey Jenkins, 32, and Eddie Terrell Parker, 35, were at Parker’s home in Braxton when Rankin County deputies burst inside to conduct a narcotics raid, allegedly without a warrant. 

The deputies restrained the two men while shouting racial slurs at them, according to a federal lawsuit filed last month. While they were handcuffed, the men were beaten and tased. Court documents also state the men were waterboarded – an illegal torture technique in which a person is restrained, a wet rag is placed over their mouth, and liquid is poured over it to simulate drowning. 

The deputies proceeded to sexually assault the two men using a sex toy, according to the lawsuit, before one of the deputies, Hunter Elward, placed a gun in Jenkins’ mouth and fired, breaking his jaw and lacerating his tongue. Jenkins would have died, if he had not received life-saving surgeries, according to his lawyer, Trent Walker. 

The day after the incident, Elward signed an affidavit claiming Jenkins had pointed a gun at him, which the federal lawsuit against the deputies called “false.” No firearm was recovered.

“If you are going to shoot him because you claim he had a weapon, then the entry wound would’ve been from outside his mouth,” Walker said. 

The deputies did not turn on their body cameras during the incident, according to sheriff’s department’s records. Court documents claim a surveillance camera within the home was taken by the deputies during the arrest and never returned. 

Elward’s affidavit stated two bags of methamphetamine were found during the raid. Jenkins was charged with assaulting an officer and drug possession. Parker was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and disorderly conduct.

“They came there to torture these young men, and that’s what they did,” said Walker, who has asserted the incident was a hate crime. 

Walker said one of his clients was living in the home of a White woman with whom he was not romantically involved. “These officers had a problem with that,” Walker said. 

“No one is being held accountable,” said Priscilla Sterling, a cousin of Emmitt Till, who was present at Wednesday’s protest. 

The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department has faced several investigations into police misconduct, some involving the deputies present at Jenkins’ shooting. 

In 2021, a man named Damien Cameron died in police custody after being tasered and restrained by Elward and another deputy. 

Cameron’s mother, Monica Lee Cameron also spoke outside the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department, demanding justice for her son. “Sheriff Bailey needs to go,” Cameron said.  

In 2021, a man named Cory Jackson died in custody at the Rankin County Jail. Jackson’s family was attempting to take him to a hospital because he was suffering from a psychotic episode when Jackson fled. He was arrested by a Rankin County deputy and suffered injuries while in custody. He died that same night. 

In 2019, Pierre Woods was shot and killed by Rankin County deputies including Deputies Christian Dedmond and Hunter Elward.

“This has been happening for many years,” said Charles Muhammad, a community organizer from Jackson who told the crowd at Wednesday’s protest that his son, Andre Lemond Jones, died after he was taken into custody by the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department in 1992. Muhammad said that 19 hours after his son’s arrest, Jones was found dead — strangled with his own shoelaces in Simpson County Jail. Muhammad believes his son was killed because of his family’s involvement in civil rights activism. 

“I wanted to add my voice,” Muhammad said, “and let the world know that this has been happening way before this incident.”

John C. Barnett said that if the organizers of Wednesday’s protest did not hear from Attorney General Fitchor Sheriff Bailey by the end of the week, they would return with greater numbers.

“We will be back,” Barnett said. 

Nate Rosenfield is an Immersion Fellow with the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, part of Mississippi Today.

The post Activists seek reckoning for Rankin deputies’ alleged abuses: ‘We’re not asking. We’re demanding.’ appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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JACINTO — Candidates for the state’s highest offices were stumping under the historic Jacinto courthouse at the community’s annual Independence Day festival, but certain people in the area won’t have a say this year in which of those candidates represent them. 

Mississippi is one of fewer than 10 states that places a lifetime voting ban on people convicted of certain felonies, resulting in more than 10% of the state’s voting-age population being barred from the ballot box, according to one study.

Numerous people from nearby communities in northeast Mississippi have petitioned state politicians in recent years to return their voting rights. But because of the state’s convoluted system for getting those rights restored, their efforts have been unsuccessful. 

The U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to hear a case challenging Mississippi’s process for stripping voting rights from people with certain felony convictions, leaving the future of this system in the hands of state officials. 

“I’m open to doing something,” Republican Rep. Nick Bain of Corinth told Mississippi Today. “But we frankly can’t do anything until we get the governor on board,” Bain said.

READ MORE: Supreme Court refuses to hear Mississippi felony suffrage appeal

Once a person has had their suffrage taken away from them, it’s incredibly difficult to get it back. 

To do so, a disenfranchised person must get a lawmaker to sponsor a suffrage restoration bill on their behalf and get two-thirds of both the House and Senate to approve of the legislation. The Legislature did not approve of any suffrage restoration bill this year.

A governor can also pardon a convicted felon, but both Reeves and his predecessor, former Republican Gov. Phil Bryant, have declined to issue any pardons. 

Reeves’ campaign did not make the governor available for questions from the press on Tuesday, but he has previously told reporters that he is hesitant to change the current disenfranchisement process.

Brandon Presley, Reeves’ Democratic opponent, said he wants to establish a criminal justice task force to examine felony suffrage and other measures but stopped short of calling for an overhaul of the system.  

“I think there is a common sense approach to dealing with this issue, and it’s clear that when you go an entire year, and no one’s right to vote has been restored, that we’ve got a system that needs to be looked at,” Presley said. 

While candidates debate whether the system should be revamped, the current process has real implications for a significant number of Mississippians. 

More than 235,000 people in the state cannot vote because of a felony conviction, according to an estimate by the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice non-profit organization. Black people make up more than half of that disenfranchised population. 

The lieutenant governor, who leads the Senate, has a direct impact on legislative policy. Incumbent Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and his challenger, state Sen. Chris McDaniel of Jones County, are both competing in the Republican primary this year.

Both Hosemann and McDaniel told reporters on Tuesday they want to maintain the status quo and leave the system intact for the foreseeable future. 

“I don’t approve of violent criminals,” Hosemann said. “If you’re a murderer and rapist, I’m not giving you your right to vote back. You’ve cut yourself out of society.” 

The current structure stems from the framers of Mississippi’s 1890 Constitution crafting the law to prevent Black citizens from voting by targeting crimes they were believed to commit. 

The state constitution strips voting rights from people convicted of 10 felonies, including forgery and bigamy. The Mississippi Attorney General issued an opinion in 2009 that expanded the list to 22 crimes, including timber larceny, carjacking and felony-level bad check writing.

Bain leads the House committee with jurisdiction over the state’s criminal code, and he has repeatedly said the Magnolia State should have a more consistent, fairer way to decide who has their voting rights restored instead of having politicians decide the outcome. 

Bain last year led the efforts to clarify that those who have had a disenfranchising crime purged, or expunged, from their criminal record can obtain their voting rights back. 

But Reeves vetoed that legislation because he believed it “created a pathway to restoring rights” that went beyond what the state constitution allowed.

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves vetoes bill easing Jim Crow-era voting restrictions

The post Thousands of Mississippians can’t vote because of felony convictions. Many top candidates want to keep it that way. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Yazoo City native Rod Walker, a Mississippi State-educated engineer, switched careers and became an award-winning sports writer, first at the Clarion Ledger and now at the New Orleans Times Picayune. His bank account’s loss was the sports world’s gain. Rod joins us to talk New Orleans and Mississippi sports.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: New Orleans sports writer Rod Walker, a Yazoo native, joins the Pod. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

JULY 5, 1827

A day after those enslaved were freed in the state of New York, 4,000 Black Americans marched along Broadway through downtown streets with a grand marshal carrying a drawn sword. They arrived at the African Zion Church, where abolitionist leader William Hamilton said, “This day we stand redeemed from a bitter thralldom.” 

Celebrations took place as far away as Boston and Philadelphia. In New York’s capital, Nathaniel Paul, pastor of the First African Baptist Society, declared, “We look forward … (to) when this foul stain will be entirely erased, and this, the worst of evils, will be forever done away … God who has made of one blood all nations of men, and who is said to be no respecter of persons, has so decreed; I therefore have no hesitation in declaring this sacred place, that not only throughout the United States of America, but throughout every part of the habitable world where slavery exists, it will be abolished.” 

Among those freed by this act? Sojourner Truth, who was born into slavery and had escaped to freedom just a year earlier. The Fifth of July is still recognized and celebrated in New York City.

The post On this day in 1827 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

As this is written, the Atlanta Braves, who have several Mississippi markings, have the best record in baseball. The Braves are insanely hot at present, having won 23 of their last 26 games to improve their record to 56-27.

How hot are they? The Braves just completed a three-game sweep of the second place Miami Marlins. And check this out: The Braves are 9-1 against the Marlins, who are a remarkable 47-28 against every other team they have played.

How hot are the Braves? Eight Braves will play for the National League All-Stars, including the entire infield. You could have made a good case for other Braves, as well.

How hot are they? In Saturday’s game at Atlanta, Marlins starter Eury Perez entered as baseball’s best pitcher having not given up more than five hits in any of his previous nine starts and having given up only one run in his last 33 innings. You read right: one run in 33 innings. Perez had not given up more than four runs in any appearance.

So former Mississippi Brave Ronald Acuna homered to lead off the bottom of the first inning, and then former Mississippi Brave Ozzie Albies homered behind him. Eury had allowed one run in 33 innings. He gave up two in two batters. Before the first inning carnage was complete, the Braves would score six runs. Against a pitcher who had not allowed more than five hits in any game, the first six Braves hit safely. Against a pitcher who had not allowed more than four runs in any game, the Braves scored six before Eury could record his second out. In fact, he never did get that second out.

And, dear reader, the Braves are doing this game after game after game. Now this is baseball, and the Braves will undoubtedly cool down. And some other team will get hot — watch out for the Phillies — and perhaps make a race of it in September. We will see.

But the Braves are playing the best baseball these eyes have seen in a long, long while. The scary part is they have achieved most of this with two of their best starters — left-handed ace Max Fried and right-hander Kyle Wright (21-5 last season) — sidelined with injuries. They will be back. Fried and Wright are former Mississippi Braves, too. And so is Michael Soroka, a Major League All-Star in 2019, who finally appears to be returning to that form after career-threatening injuries. Soroka, you may recall, won 11 games for the 2017 M-Braves with a 2.75 earned run average.

Now seems a good time to look at all the former M-Braves who are producing, big-time, in Atlanta. Acuna, the best player in baseball not named Shohei Ohtani, leads the list and is surely the mid-season leader for National League MVP honors. Acuna hit .327 with nine home runs and 19 stolen bases in 56 games for the 2017 Mississippi Braves. 

Albies, the second baseman, hit .321 with four home runs, seven triples, and 22 doubles for the 2016 M-Braves. Southaven native Austin Riley, the former DeSoto Central wunderkind, hit .333 with an eye-popping slugging percentage of .677 in just 27 games for the 2018 M-Braves.

As has been written in this space before, the last piece of Atlanta’s everyday lineup puzzle is none other than 22-year-old Michael Harris II, who was playing for the M-Braves just last spring when he hit .305 with five home runs, 16 doubles, two triples and 11 stolen bases during the first 43 games of the Southern League season. He skipped Class AAA altogether and was called up to Atlanta on May 28. Since then, Harris has hit .286 with 26 home runs and 30 stolen bases and has turned untold doubles, triples and home runs into outs as one of the best centerfielders in the sport.

READ MORE: Atlanta Braves’ No. 1 prospect Michael Harris is a chip off the old Alcorn State block

Another measure of just how good these Atlanta Braves are: Harris bats ninth in the order. He would bat first, second or third for most Major League teams.

And then there’s Spencer Strider, the fire-balling 24-year-old with a 10-2 record and 155 strikeouts in just 98 innings. Hard to believe Strider was 3-7 with a 4.71 ERA, pitching for the M-Braves in Pearl just two years ago. It is true.

We would be remiss not to mention perhaps the most important of all the former Mississippi Braves contributors to the current Atlanta Braves success. He would be skipper Brian Snitker, a Braves lifer who managed the 2005 Mississippi Braves. “Snit,” as his players and friends call him, is the glue that holds it all together.

Watch Snitker, a 67-year-old grandfather, and you cannot tell whether the Braves are down 12-0 or up 5-4. He never changes expression whether the Braves are two games behind in the standings or nine games ahead, as they currently are. Snit is a throwback to Hall of Famer Bobby Cox, whom Snitker constantly praised back in 2005 when he spent the season in Pearl.

Said Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer Jay Powell, who did a rehab stint under Snit back in the summer of 2005: “There are certain managers or coaches you just want to do the best you can for them. There’s a respect there, a trust. I was fortunate to play for some Hall of Fame managers including Bobby Cox and Jim Leyland, and I put Snit right in there with them. He just gets it. He gets baseball.”

To which Snitker would probably tell you: “It’s pretty easy to manage with guys like Acuna, Albies, Riley, Harris, Strider and all the rest.” 

There’s some truth to that, too. But it is an amazing blend of talent, management (in the front office and on the field, and esprit de corps the Braves display night after night. And we watched a lot of it in Mississippi before it became, at least for now, the best in baseball.

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