By MIKE FITZPATRICK

The Associated Press

 

NEW YORK — Brandon Phillips and the Cincinnati Reds are getting the good bounces right now. Ike Davis and the New York Mets certainly are not.

Phillips sent a strange double spinning over first base to break a ninth-inning tie and the Reds completed a 3-game sweep of the struggling Mets with a 7-4 victory Wednesday.

Joey Votto homered and Zack Cozart had a career-high four hits, all off Matt Harvey, in a game that featured a little bit of everything — including a testy exchange in the dugout between Cincinnati starter Mat Latos and teammate Jay Bruce.

“It was just an issue between the team and it’s going to stay that way,” Bruce said. “The only reason anyone knows about it is because the TVs caught it but stuff happens all the time. It’s over. We’re a team; we’re a family. Things like that happen, so everything’s good and it’s a non-issue.”

After their spat, the Reds regrouped and won for the 10th time in 12 games. They finished a 7-2 trip against the bottom three teams in the NL East, moving a season-best 11 games over .500 at 29-18.

“We closed it out strong. We won the last three innings even though they made it tough and they had the winning run on second a couple times,” manager Dusty Baker said. “We were kind of flirting with danger quite a few times but our defense saved us.”

Harvey appeared headed for his first loss of the season before the Mets rallied.

Rick Ankiel had three extra-base hits and two RBIs for New York, including a tying triple with two outs in the seventh. Daniel Murphy added three hits and drove in two runs from the leadoff spot.

With the score tied at 4 in the ninth, Shin-Soo Choo legged out a leadoff double against Bobby Parnell (4-1) and reached third on a groundout. Votto was intentionally walked before Phillips hit a cue shot toward first base.

The ball hit the baseline and bounced over Davis’ glove in front of the bag. Determining he had no chance to throw out Choo at the plate or start an inning-ending double play, Davis shied away from touching the ball — thinking it would go foul. But it bounded over the bag and was called fair by umpire Phil Cuzzi.

Choo scored the tie-breaking run and Davis was left shaking his head as Mets manager Terry Collins came out to argue.

Pinch-hitter Todd Frazier fisted a 2-run single into center to make it 7-4.

Alfredo Simon (4-1) worked around Cozart’s throwing error in the eighth and Aroldis Chapman got his 10th save in 12 tries.

New York fell to 2-11 in its past 13 home games.

In a matchup of unbeaten young right-handers, Harvey and Latos took a 2-all duel into the seventh, when Cozart sparked a Reds rally with his fourth hit. Votto also singled and Phillips grounded an RBI single just inside third base.

That was it for Harvey, who walked off to a warm ovation from a crowd of 30,415 that included more than 8,000 area students on Weather Education Day at Citi Field.

Bruce’s run-scoring groundout gave Latos a 2-run lead but he couldn’t hold it. Murphy hit an RBI single with two outs in the seventh and Ankiel tripled high off the left-field wall to tie it.

J.J. Hoover retired David Wright on a popup to keep the score tied.

Harvey was charged with four runs and a season-high nine hits in 6 1/3 innings. He had allowed three runs or fewer in 16 straight starts dating to last season.

“It’s not like they crushed him,” Mets catcher John Buck said. “They did do a good job of making him throw a little bit more, working counts, making him pitch to get them out.”

Murphy and Ankiel gave the Mets a quick lead with consecutive doubles to start the first inning.

Cozart doubled in the third and Votto went the other way with a 3-0 pitch for his seventh home run, extending his hitting streak to 11 games.

In the bottom half, Cozart robbed Wright of a run-scoring hit with a diving grab at shortstop. Lucas Duda also lined out to end the inning and Latos took that 2-1 lead into the fifth, when Ruben Tejada hit a leadoff double and advanced on Harvey’s sacrifice bunt. Murphy hit a sacrifice fly to shallow right, and Tejada scored with surprising ease when Bruce’s weak throw was off target.

After the inning, cameras caught Latos and Bruce having an animated argument in the dugout.

Latos wouldn’t comment.

NOTES: Jack Hannahan started at 3B in place of Frazier because Baker wanted to get another left-handed bat in the lineup against Harvey. Baker said he’d been thinking about giving Hannahan a start at 1B soon but Votto has been too hot to sit. … Davis has one hit in his last 38 at-bats after going 0-for-2 with two walks. He flied out to the center-field warning track to end the sixth, leaving him hitless in his last 25 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

St. Henry 6, Ottoville 2

St. Henry

ab r h bi

Rindler cf 4 1 2 0, Stout lf 2 1 0 0, Mikesell p-2b 1 0 0 0, Paul p-lf 2 0 1 1, Lundvall rf 2 1 0 0, Holloman c 3 2 2 1, Froning 3b 2 1 0 0, Jacobs 1b 2 0 1 3, Post ss 3 0 0 0, Stammen dh 3 0 0 0, Kremer 2b-p 0 0 0 0. Totals 24 6 6 5.

Ottoville

ab r h bi

D. Schimmoeller cf-p 3 0 1 1, Turnwald lf 3 0 1 0, L. Schimmoeller p-ss 3 0 0 0, Boecker rf 4 0 0 0, Fanning 1b 3 0 1 0, Horstman ss-cf 3 1 1 0, Beining 3b 1 1 0 0, Fischer dh 2 0 0 0, Markward pr 0 0 0 0, Van Oss c 0 0 0 0, Odenweller 2b 1 0 0 0. Totals 24 2 4 1.

E — Mikesell (2), Kremer, Boecker, Odenweller. 2B — Rindler. 3B — Horstman. SAC — Froning, Paul, Turnwald, Horstman. SF — Jacobs. SB — Paul, Froning. LOB — St. Henry 2, Ottoville 11.

Score by Innings

St. Henry 011 004 0 — 6 6 3

Ottoville 000 002 0 — 2 4 2

St. Henry ip r er h bb so

Paul (W) 5 1/3 2 2 3 4 2

Mikesell 0+ 0 0 0 2 0

Kremer (Sv) 1 2/3 0 0 1 1 1

Ottoville ip r er h bb so

L. Schimmoeller (L) 6 6 5 6 2 6

D. Schimmoeller 1 0 0 0 0 3

WP — Paul, Mikesell, L. Schimmoeller. HBP — By Paul (Odenweller in fourth).

Records: St. Henry 24-5, Ottoville 9-11.

——

Poling, Stinson miss out on regionals

FOSTORIA — Elida’s Quentin Poling and Brandon Stinson finished fifth in their respective finals at Wednesday’s Division II District Track and Field Meet.

Poling finished fifth in the boys discus (136-6); Stinson was fifth in the long jump (19-9.75).

Nick Pauff tied for seventh in the pole vault (12-0) as Elida tied for sixth with nine points.

Bulldog boys advancing to Friday’s finals were the 4x4 of Stinson, Clark Etzler, Pauff and Poling, third; Stinson, fourth in the 400-meter dash; the fourth-place 4x1 of Pauff, Desmend White, Avery Sumpter and Khory Kesler; Pauff, sixth in the 100-meter dash; Poling, sixth in the 300-meter hurdles; Kevin Russell, eighth in the 110-meter hurdles; and the eighth-place 4x2 of White, Etzler, Sumpter and Kesler.

On the Lady Bulldog side, Aubrey Williams was eighth in the District 2 high jump (4-8).

Erin Kesler qualified sixth in the 200-meter dash.

The Van Wert boys 4x800-meter relay team of Kase Schalois, Connor Holliday, Seth Kopp and Jared Fleming placed third in 8:19.64, good for six meet points and a trip to regionals.

Those are the only six points scored by the Cougars through four events, good for 10th place presently.

Fleming qualified first for Friday’s finals in the 1600-meter run with a time of 4:41.7. Fleming also qualified in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:07.05.

Kopp qualified first in the 400-meter dash with a time of 51.75 and teamed up with Nick Krugh, Quincey Salcido and Fleming to qualify first in the 4x400-meter relay in 3:30.82.

Krugh qualified first in the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.27.

Kevon Pierce, Krugh, Terrence Branson and Caleb Lloyd combined to qualify third in the 4x200-meter relay with a time of 1:35.18.

Pierce, Lloyd, Branson and Krugh qualified third in the 4x100-meter dash with a time of 45.78.

Finally, Branson qualified seventh in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.59.

——-

Knights dethrone 2-time champs

COLDWATER — Crestview junior lefty Damian Helm limited 2-time defending Division IV State Champion Minster Wildcats, limiting them to three hits in his complete game as the Knights pummeled the Wildcats 10-2 in district semifinal action at Coldwater.

The Knights used a 7-run first frame to do the damage.

Helm fanned 10 and walked two.

They play St. Henry 7 p.m. Friday.

Score by Innings:

Crestview 7 0 2 0 1 0 0 - 10 11 0

Minster 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 - 2 3 2

WP: Damian Helm; LP: Devon Poeppelman. 2B: Devon Poeppelman 2 (M), Jordan Roop (C), Brock Rolsten (C), Damian Helm (C), Ethan Wolf (M). 3B: Damian Helm (C), Bryce Richardson (C). Records: Crestview 16-6; Minster 21-3.

By KEVIN WANNEMACHER

DHI Correspondent

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ELIDA – With his team down 3-1 heading into the bottom of the third inning, Lincolnview head coach Kent McClure had no reason to think his squad wouldn’t respond.

And they did just that.

Lincolnview scored three times in the third inning and blew out Continental from there in routing the Pirates 15-5 in five innings in Division IV district semifinal action at Elida’s Dorothy Edwards Field.

With the win, the Lady Lancers move on to face Parkway in Friday’s district championship contest at 5 p.m.

 

By JIM METCALFE

Staff Writer

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ELIDA — Kalida baseball mentor Jim McBride knew that his 31-year head coaching career was coming to an end with the finish of the 2013 season but wanted it to last as long as possible.

That end came at the hands of St. John’s senior ace Curtis Geise and the Blue Jays as they put out McBride’s Wildcats 6-0 in the nightcap of the Division IV Elida District semifinals Wednesday at Ed Sandy Memorial Field.

“It’s been enjoyable; I enjoyed working with the players — that’s who this is about — and the coaches. I wouldn’t change anything; I’ve had a great career,” McBride, who ended at 352-262, observed.

In the opener, played earlier in the afternoon in occasional rain, Miller City pounded Allen East 14-4.

The winners advance to play each other 5 p.m. Friday with a Patrick Henry Regional berth on the line.

 

By JENNA FRYER

The Associated Press

 

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Bruton Smith just can’t help himself sometimes.

The eccentric track owner this week suggested he might move a race away from Charlotte Motor Speedway at the exact same time a committee is considering electing him into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

When the 54 voters cast their ballots today, it will be impossible to overlook Smith’s most recent headline-grabbing stunt. He told Charlotte television station WBTV on Monday there’s a “70 percent chance” he’ll move the October race at Charlotte to his Las Vegas property.

He backtracked Tuesday in a statement that indicated his comments were out of anger in his fight with Cabarrus County over taxes.

“No final decision has been made regarding any race date move and I have not discussed this with NASCAR,” he asserted, before listing $100 million in improvements at CMS the past six years. “We’ve done this without asking for a handout from the government, like we’ve seen from so many other sports facilities, teams or franchises, and yet at the same time property values are falling during the recession, our Cabarrus County taxes have doubled since 2005.”

Smith was left off the list of 25 nominees the first four years of the Hall of Fame. He maintained he didn’t care but when his name was finally added last month to the list of nominees, the overwhelming congratulations made him realize the magnitude of the honor.

“It wasn’t something I was particularly concerned about,” Smith said in a recent interview from the office he works out of at his Ford dealership. “But then I was nominated and became a candidate and all the people around me told me how wonderful it was. So it was wonderful.”

The public tax squabble could jeopardize his chances to become a first ballot Hall-of-Famer. But that’s who Smith is — he says what he thinks at the moment and doesn’t much worry about consequences. He also likes to bluff and the game is much easier when you’ve got as many chips as the billionaire owner of Speedway Motorsports Inc.

It’s a game he’s long played with NASCAR, dating to the early days when founder Bill France Sr. was still building his regional stock-car series. Smith has been hooked since his family took him as an 8-year-old to the old Charlotte Fairground for his first race.

“I loved it so damn much, I needed another set of eyes because I couldn’t see enough,” recalled Smith, who was driving cars at 11 and figured out by 16 the vehicles he had access to didn’t go fast enough for his liking.

His plan wasn’t to become a race promoter; Smith maintains he was “talked into that” during a driver meeting. But he agreed to give it a shot and despite heavy rains the day of the race, made enough money on his first event that his interest was piqued.

So Smith tried to promote a second race and made a little more money, correcting the mistakes he’d made in his first outing. By the time he promoted his third event, he was hooked.

“Making money can be quite habit forming,” Smith said.

He soon began working with France in promoting races for the fledgling National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing,and Smith built his first permanent motorsports facility — Charlotte Motor Speedway, which opened for business in June 1960 with NASCAR’s first 600-mile race.

“It was hot. God it was hot,” Smith replied when asked his memory of that first event. But he also takes pride in that when he opened Charlotte, he did it with a bang: “The World 600 was the longest race — there’d never been anything like it. It had the largest purse, $100,000, and nobody had ever heard of a purse of $100,000 for a stock car race. But we wanted to be the biggest and we wanted to be something special. So that’s what we did.”

Only he was $400,000 in debt to his creditors after building the track and Smith was unable to get any loans; he went into bankruptcy reorganization and SMI emerged debt-free.

He was off and running from there, building a portfolio of eight tracks that currently host 13 races on the Sprint Cup schedule. And SMI has set the gold standard in amenities and fan experience because of the vision Smith has had.

Smith pours money into his tracks, paying for upgrades at outdated facilities and finding ways to enhance the fan experience. He was the first promoter to install permanent lights for a NASCAR race and bought Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee and transformed it into a must-visit event.

Smith made enemies along the way and sparred often with Bill France Jr. during his reign as head of NASCAR.

He told The Associated Press his greatest regret in racing is letting France Jr. roll over him at a time they could have formed a partnership. Smith claims the late France Jr. asked to speak to him during an event at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and asked Smith “to help me build NASCAR.

“I said to him, ‘Billy, what the hell do you think I’ve been doing all these years’?” Smith recalled. “I’ll always regret that I did not drive a harder bargain with Billy. I helped him with no compensation.”

As a result, Smith’s status in NASCAR has never changed: he’s viewed as just another track promoter. Only he’s got the biggest mouth, the fattest checkbook and the ability to push every button in the NASCAR hierarchy.

The at-track experience is what it is today because of Smith and the initiatives SMI has taken has pushed NASCAR sister company Speedway Motorsports Inc. to up its game, too. And that’s what is most important to Smith.

“I wanted race fans, when they come to a race, a year or two later they may not remember who won that day,” Smith added. “But they are going to remember the pre-race show, they are going to remember their experience at the track and what was good and what worked and what didn’t work. That has always been our goal to make sure the fans had the time of their lives at the track.”doing all these years’?” Smith recalled. “I’ll always regret that I did not drive a harder bargain with Billy. I helped him with no compensation.”

As a result, Smith’s status in NASCAR has never changed: he’s viewed as just another track promoter. Only he’s got the biggest mouth, the fattest checkbook and the ability to push every button in the NASCAR hierarchy.

The at-track experience is what it is today because of Smith and the initiatives SMI has taken has pushed NASCAR sister company Speedway Motorsports Inc. to up its game, too. And that’s what is most important to Smith.

“I wanted race fans, when they come to a race, a year or two later they may not remember who won that day,” Smith added. “But they are going to remember the pre-race show, they are going to remember their experience at the track and what was good and what worked and what didn’t work. That has always been our goal to make sure the fans had the time of their lives at the track.”