West Alabama Tuesday Briefing
Good morning!! It is Tuesday May 21, 2024.
The Southeastern Conference Baseball Championship Tournament gets underway at the remodeled Hoover Met this morning. It is the 26th consecutive time for the event in Hoover. The tourney is a big deal, not just for the teams playing for a title but for the SEC, Birmingham/Hoover area and baseball as a whole.
Well above 100,000 fans attend the week of games, many bring their motor homes and campers and hangout all week. It put $18 million into the coffers of the City of Hoover last season. Plus, the national attention centered on the games gives the area publicity they couldn't buy.
It is a fun week if you are a baseball nut, people have been coming to the tourney for years and have made fast friends with other fans. Even a couple of proposals of marriage have reportedly taken place.
The marks the final year of the current tournament format. Upon conference expansion with Texas and Oklahoma, the 2025 SEC Tournament will move to a 16-team single elimination tournament
The contract for the tournament is coming up for renewal. Some schools want to move the tournament to Dallas and play it in a major league stadium, others want to play the games in the Triple-A stadium in Nashville. But with Hoover being pretty much in the heart of the soon the be expanded SEC, the Hoover seems the be the best place to keep it.
The City of Hoover is investing millions into upgrading and remodeling the facility. Additionally, the SEC offices are just down the expressway in downtown Birmingham.
Here is hoping the conference keeps the games in Hoover where they don't have to share the week with big league teams. Keep the attention on college ball, that is what it's all about.
The games this week will begin with beautiful and warm weather. As the weekend approaches there will be scattered showers that could prompt a delay or two but overall, the chances for rain are expected to be relatively small.
The Forecast:
One dead, three wounded, that is the violence count at Brookhaven Apartments on Tuscaloosa's southside in two separate shootings in less than a week. Stray shots went into several apartments, prompting residents to demand the violence stop. This has prompted TPD to increase patrols in the area.
Tuscaloosa District 4 Councilman John Faile, himself a former cop, says police are working on it but they can't do it by themselves. He says residents who have information need to report it. They can do so confidentially.
Tuscaloosa has seen 14 homicides and numerous people wounded in shootings so far this year.
Gov. Ivey has again authorized Juneteenth— the day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States — as a state holiday. She was forced to do that because legislative efforts to make it a permanent holiday in the state have so far failed.
Ivey’s office says June 19 will be a holiday for state workers coinciding with the federal holiday. Juneteenth has been a federal holiday since 2021. This will be the fourth year that Ivey has designated it as a state holiday.
Football season is still weeks away, but Delta Airlines has announced it is adding non-stop flights from Birmingham and Huntsville for Alabama fans headed to Wisconsin in September for the Tide games with the Badgers.
The long Memorial Day weekend is just ahead and that has state safety authorities concerned. Most people see the holiday as the unofficial start to summer. Many hit lakes and waterways to celebrate but Alabama Department of Conservation Commissioner Chris Blankenship warns that too many don’t practice safe boating and swimming.
Alabama Marine Police will be out to enforced boating laws during the holiday weekend.
Alabama U.S. Senator Katie Britt has introduced legislation that will withhold federal Medicaid funds if a state passes a law making invitro fertilization illegal. The bill is an outgrowth from an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that claims embryo are children. That ruling emboldened Republican states with strict anti-abortion laws to consider adding laws that would equate destruction of an embryo as an abortion.
Topping Sports:
Bama Baseball begins play in the SEC Championship Tournament this afternoon against South Carolina. The Crimson Tide finished fourth in the west in the final year of the east and west division format.
Bama needs to string some winds together to get into the NCAA post-season. 1st pitch will be around 1pm.
Alabama baseball's Zane Adams and Justin Lebron each earned Southeastern Conference postseason honors, the league office announced Monday afternoon.
Adams and Lebron were each named to the league's All-Freshman Team, while Lebron also garnered first-team and all-defensive honors from the conference's head coaches.
Have a terrific Tuesday and ROLL TIDE!!