USCAA
DAY TWO, GAME ONE: The 10 seeds – the BLUEFIELD STATE BIG BLUES – faced another elimination game, this one against the 2nd seeded UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI AT CLERMONT COUGARS. The Big Blues had already sent (6) Southern Maine College home and were looking for another scalp.
After a scoreless 1st Inning Bluefield State went up 3-0 in the 2nd. The Big Blues added another Run in the 5th and rode it the rest of the way for a 4-0 Shutout victory. Bluefield State Pitcher Austin Stambaugh threw for the entire game.
DAY TWO, GAME TWO: The top-seeded NEWPORT NEWS APPRENTICE SCHOOL BUILDERS (Shipbuilders) clashed with the 4 seeds – the WRIGHT STATE AT THE LAKE LAKERS. When the Builders grabbed a quick 4-1 1st Inning lead few knew that they would only score 1 more Run the rest of the way.
Meanwhile the Lakers drew to within 4-3 in the 5th Inning and knotted things up at 4-4 in the 6th. Newport News Apprentice School would slam in their final Run in the 8th Inning and won the game 5-4 behind Pitcher Thomas Packert. Continue reading
DAY ONE: GAME ONE – The 4 seeds – the WRIGHT STATE AT THE LAKE LAKERS – took the diamond against the 5th seeded MISSISSIPPI UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN (now co-ed) OWLS. The Owls went up 1-0 in the 1st Inning following which neither team scored in the 2nd through 4th. 
THE HISTORY OF TIME TRAVEL (2014) – This is not a bad movie, it’s simply a weird movie and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s a low-budget affair done as a faux documentary and since those have been done to death this film has not gotten the kind of attention it deserves. 
CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: The top seeds – the TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE TROLLS – did battle with the 2nd seeded HANNIBAL-LAGRANGE UNIVERSITY TROJANS. After 2 scoreless Innings the Trolls went on top 2-0 in the 3rd. 
PART SEVENTEEN: Resuming my look at James Larkin Pearson’s Fool Killer (Or Fool-Killer as he wrote it). In August of 1919 Pearson brought the Fool Killer (I prefer no hyphen) out of his latest hibernation with the words “After resting for two years the Fool-Killer goes on duty again.” 
*** People still pushing Democrat President Woodrow Wilson’s claim that the World War (1914-1918) was fought to “Make the world safe for Democracy.” The Fool Killer would swing away at such people while pointing out the less-than-democratic nature of some of the Allied Powers governments from the recent conflict, especially England, Italy and Japan. 
*** A preacher who publicly said that he “almost wishes sometimes that Jesus would come already.” The Fool Killer added a joke wondering how that preacher would feel if he was on a trip and his wife said that she “almost wishes sometimes” that he would come back from his trip already. (Pearson was, sad to say, very religious and often took shots at clergy members he found insufficiently “devout.”) 
AT THE END OF THE RIVER – More Weirdness at the End of the World, this time with an adventure featuring Spain’s answer to Mad Max: Hombre himself. This character was created by Antonio Segura and Jose Ortiz in 1981 in the Spanish publication Cimoc. Hombre went on to appear in notably “adult” comic books and magazines around the world, including reprints in Heavy Metal here in America. 
The title character Hombre roams our post-apocalypse planet armed to the teeth and ready to kill or be killed on a daily basis. His first-person narration echoes the best aspects of hard-boiled Film Noir detective stories while the action and mis en scene combine the best elements of Spaghetti Westerns, Post-Apocalypse movies and Martial Arts flicks. Think Six-String Samurai but without the rock and roll samurai. 
Segura mostly avoided easy narratives and my least favorite storyline involved Atila, the badass woman warrior. The character was great, but the tale seemed very UN-Segura-like to me. I probably would have liked her in her own spin-off story but having two such nigh-indestructible figures in one tale put things too far into the realm of upbeat fictional tropes to me. I’m virtually alone on that, by the way, since most fans LOVE the Atila story. 
SECOND SEED 
THIRD SEED 
LAWRENCEVILLE BRACKET 
MACON BRACKET 
SANTA BARBARA BRACKET 
PART SIXTEEN: James Larkin Pearson, poet and newspaper man, carried on the Fool Killer tradition from 1910 to 1917, then again from 1919 to 1929. Pearson’s fellow North Carolinian Charles Napoleon Bonaparte Evans had written the Fool Killer Letters of the 19th Century so it’s appropriate that another Tar Heel continue the lore for so many years of the 20th Century. 
In August of 1917 Pearson’s nationwide publication called The Fool-Killer changed its title and format because of America’s entry into World War One four months earlier. That change from the hard-hitting satire of Fool Killing was made to show solidarity while the war raged. 
