Hurla wins 300th game as Bishop Ward's manager

By NICK SLOAN, NJSloan212@gmail.com

Believe it or not, there are still individual milestones possible for Bishop Ward baseball coach Dennis Hurla.

With Bishop Ward's victory against Basehor-Linwood on Thursday, Hurla picked up his 300th win as head coach of the Cyclones baseball program.

The accomplishment is the latest in a mile's worth of accomplishments for Hurla as the manager at Bishop Ward.

He guided Ward to 45 straight wins, stretching from 2007 to 2008. The winning streak remains a state record.

Ward also won six straight titles from 2003-08 and Hurla has coached the program to nine state titles - 1998, 1999 and 2010 being the other seasons.

Last year was the first time a Hurla-coached team at Bishop Ward did not make the state tournament in Salina, Kan.

Ward also has the Kansas 4A record for 19 straight state tournament games won.

Though Ward had won three state titles prior to Hurla's arrival, it's safe to say Hurla transformed Ward from a good program to a perennial state power in baseball.

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Kansas City Royals: It's #OurTime to start charging unemployed people for job fairs

By NICK SLOAN, NJSloan212@gmail.com

There's good news and bad news for the Kansas City Royals at the end of the week.

The good news - the Royals 3-9 start and 0-6 stretch to begin the home schedule is now only the second most embarrassing aspect about the franchise right now.

Bad news - the most embarrassing thing makes the Royals look really, really bad.

As KMBC Channel 9 reported Thursday night, the Royals are charging unemployed (or I would guess) people $15 to attend a job fair.

From the story:

Frustrated job seekers said they're upset that the Kansas City Royals are charging a $15 admission to attend a job fair in Kansas City.

David Rehnblom said he's been out of work for six months and was hoping to attend the fair.

"Trying to get my name to be one of the five or 10 they pull out of a stack of 500 for the interview is the part that's the most frustrating," he said.

Check out the full story here: http://www.kmbc.com/money/30924364/detail.html#ixzz1sYC6mp9K

What's even worse than being charged to attend a job fair is the fact everyone who attends will be given a free Royals ticket. You know, a ticket to see a team that's 3-9 and 0-6 at home. If there's one thing that's worse than sitting home unemployed, it might be attending a Royals game right now.

A story like this does not help the perception of Royals owner David Glass being a cheap Walmart guy who looks to make a buck in every way while not investing as much into his team as he should.

It's unfortunate this happened and hopefully the mistake is not repeated.

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Piper Baseball Stays Hot Against Tonganoxie

by David Brox, davidbrox@shukc.com

Piper's baseball team moved to an impressive 10-2 on the season and 10-0 in league with a 2 game sweep of Tonganoxie.

Game one saw a 1-1 game through 3 innings, Piper however scored 3 runs in the top of the 4th.  That was the difference as they went on to win 4-2.

Game two Tonganoxie held a 4-2 lead heading into the 5th inning when Piper's offense exploded scoring 12 runs.

This sets up a showdown with Mill Valley April 26th who has 2 games against Bonner Springs tomorrow.  It will be at Mill Valley and I will plan to be there.

I am working in the background to get some stats.  This is a great story and I have been unable at this point to get some numbers for the team.  I hope to be able to share some information soon.

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