ASHLAND, Ky. – Every year at this time, there is a television force that draws me right into it. What is it about the Little League World Series that makes it must-see TV?

Part of it is how the games are covered by ESPN with the backstories of the players and the shots of their mothers and fathers in the stands who are like cats in a room full of rocking chairs.

I’m not sure if any of the mothers really ever watch their sons play. They are usually sitting with their hands covering their faces when their son (or daughter) comes to the plate.

I can understand that. There’s so much pressure on these young boys to perform. You feel it as a parent in a regular season Little League game. Multiply that times about a million.

When the Little League World Series rolls around, it always reminds me of 1963 when Ashland American nearly made it to Williamsport. That’s right, almost to Williamsport. They fell one game short, losing to Houston, Texas, 6-3 in the Southern Regional championship game in Norfolk, Virginia. I’m sure those players who were on that team have special memories of that time. Mine have come from writing stories and doing research about the ’63 Boys of Summer, including a chapter in my book Tomcat Dynasty (shameless plug).

Several of those boys will have a mini-reunion on Saturday during the CP-1 Hall of Fame ceremony as part of the class of 2017. Tim Huff, Johnny Mullins and Bo Carter were part of those all-stars and will all be enshrined Saturday.

Here is the 1963 Ashland American roster with their regular-season team in parenthesis: John Mullins (Indians), David Staten (Twins), Tim Huff (Yankees), John Brislin and Jocko Greening (Angels), David McPeek and Mike Griffith (White Sox), Robert Ison and Mike Johnson (Orioles), Ricky Dixon, Mike Tackett, Charles Jackson, Joe Mantle and Jackie Daniels (Tigers). There was some diversity – Johnson and Jackson are black – during a time when race riots were raging, but not in Ashland.

Jim Stewart was the manager and George Riffe his assistant. Stewart was hard-nosed, a taskmaster who demanded perfection but who loved his players like his own sons.

Back then the tournament was one-and-done. You win or you go home. So you had to be perfect. Early in tournament play, Ashland faced a young lefthander pitcher from Greenup named Don Gullett and escaped with a 2-1 victory.

Mullins and Huff were starters and stars, pitchers and home run hitters. But the best player was Ricky Dixon. They rode their stud in a 3-1 win over Louisville Buechel in the state championship game in Lexington with 15 strikeouts and then in the Southern Division championship game he was the winning pitcher against St. Albans, West Virginia, 4-2 in a game that was played in Central Park.

That victory advanced Ashland to Norfolk where Florida, Mississippi and Texas awaited.

Ashland blanked Sarasota, Florida, 2-0 as Dixon and McPeek crushed back-to-back home runs in the fourth inning to break a scoreless tie. Mullins almost made it three in a row as his long blast curved foul in the same spot in right field where the other homers had gone. Mike Griffith pitched a three-hit shutout.

Houston belted Biloxi, Miss., 11-1 and looked invincible. It would be Texas vs. Kentucky in the championship game.

Ashland gave them a battle, leading 3-2 before a three-run rally put it away for Texas in the fifth inning. Ashland had only one hit, a single by Dixon that scored two runs in the third inning.

Houston was on the way to Williamsport the next day and Ashland was on its way home.

Can you imagine if Ashland had been the team going to Williamsport instead? How much would we have celebrated them over the years? Legendary wouldn’t begin to describe it. Yet they lost, just once, and they’re just another team.

Kind of sad isn’t it?

Houston, by the way, fell to Granada Hills, California, 3-2 in nine innings in the first game of the 1963 Little League World Series. The California team went on to win it all.

ASHLAND, Ky. – Saturday is going to be an emotional day in Central Park.

The third class of the CP-1 Ashland Baseball Hall of Fame will be enshrined beside the big diamond where these men and their families spent countless hours.

We started this three years ago and it’s become a summer highlight. And I know it’s going to be emotional because the first two years certainly had their moments.

Watching “Big” Ed Hughes be wheeled up to the podium and hold the bat that he used to hit one of the longest home runs in park history and then watching even bigger Juan Thomas fight back tears while talking about his mother who had recently died.

The thread between all of these classes is interesting to watch unfold. J.D. Browne, a 1961 Holy Family graduate, even has a tie to our oldest honoree, Nard Pergrem, who officiated basketball and baseball games when he played.

Nard isn’t with us anymore but his family is coming out in full force to represent him.

Browne also played with Jim Speaks in the early 1960s. Don Frailie, a schoolmate and teammate of Browne, said he first heard Speaks threw hard when he pitched for Charles Russell Elementary’s team. That’s right, in the 1960s, even the elementary schools had baseball teams.

Ashland has such a rich baseball heritage and this Saturday is the day to celebrate it. We will be dedicating the Kentucky historic marker recognizing Central Park.

I know how special the park is to everybody because the fundraising for the marker took about two days. Everybody wanted to contribute to the cause. Well, your marker is up already and we’ll put the official touches on it before the Hall of Fame ceremony.

Every one of this year’s honorees has a story to tell and they will have the opportunity to do it from 1 to 4 p.m. in front of the big diamond. Come with casual dress and enjoy The Show.

But sure to bring a hanky.

The 2017 class:

J.D. Browne

Bo Carter

Joe Conley

Kevin Gothard

Mike Gothard

Dale Griffith

Steve Hemlepp

Tim Huff

John Mullins

Nard Pergrem

Mike Smith

Jim Speaks

John Thomas

Dear Fruit Cove Baptist Church family,

You were there.

You were always there.

And for that, we will never forget.

You were there when my brother – and your pastor – received the most heart-wrenching news he would ever receive in his life. His Pam, the absolute love of his life, his confidante, his partner in ministry, his dear Pam, had brain cancer. There is no reasoning, no understanding when that kind of news is delivered. It’s like being pushed off a cliff.

But you were there.

You were waiting at the gates, reaching out, reaching deep for some kind of comfort even as the early diagnosis came in and overtook their lives in an unrelenting storm. Their love never waivered and neither did yours. Bad news hit them at every corner. It was a living nightmare for them. I don’t have to tell you that because, well, you were there.

You did what churches are supposed to do. You loved collectively, prayed earnestly, and you were there. Sometimes it’s the best thing we can do. Sometimes it’s the only thing.

With life in a free-fall for your pastor and his wife, you did what you could to make the landing not as bad as it maybe could have been for them and you did it by being there. You gave them space when it was needed and a comforting hug when that was needed. You cried out to God for them and kept them in your every prayer.

I know it was hard on you too, Church, and it will continue to be in the days ahead. But as my brother so often reminded you, we have a good, good father.

Our Good Father has used you, Church, to be a blessing. He did it by asking you to be there.

Whether it was bringing food every day since this horrible news came into their lives or the show of support exhibited at the funeral for sweet Pam on Tuesday, you were there. Phone calls, text messages, Facebook posts. It was you. You were there.

You have been at the center of their storm and helplessly watched for the past four months as Tim and Pam did their best to cope with a situation that we pray nobody has to ever experience. They were examples of courage and strength the likes of which clearly shows us that, yes, we serve a good, good father. Tim said it was the greatest message they would ever preach and he’s right.

When you didn’t know what to do, you did the only thing you could do.

You were there.

When my wife and I came up for a brief visit at the end of June, we didn’t once leave their welcoming home. We had a near revival in their living room with some straight talk. We experienced a closeness to God that makes you yearn for more. You made that possible, dear church, by providing meal after meal after meal.

You allowed Tim to put all of his focus, all of his energy, and all of his ministry into caring for Pam. Your staff stepped up for him, filling the pulpit with the same kind of great preaching that has come to be the norm at Fruit Cove. Your deacons led and kept the church on task with reaching the needs of a lost world. The church must keep that focus.

You took care of financial and physical needs for them. But it wasn’t just the food or even the money. It was the prayers, the encouragement, the cards and letters, the way you collectively wrapped loving arms around Tim and Pam that meant so much. I have been blessed by watching you, dear church.

You were there.

Always there.

We looked into your eyes on Tuesday as the receiving line curved through the auditorium with seemingly no end in sight. With photographs of Pam and Tim and their family playing on the walls behind us, we looked at your faces and felt the pain you were feeling too. You were hurting yet your compassion ministered to us.

The funeral was a Celebration of Life like I’ve never witnessed. It was two hours long and ended far too soon. Every seat was taken and every eye moist. God met with us in that place.

But you know all that because, well, you were there.

ASHLAND, Ky. – Virginia “Ginny” Carter was officially a mother to three children: Kenny, Bo and Susie.

Unofficially? Well, they lost count years ago.

Ginny Carter enjoyed the 1960s more than the Beatles did. While Liverpool England’s band was punching out hit after hit in the decade, Ginny Carter watched “her boys” in the Ashland American Little League do likewise – only on the baseball field.

She was as much a fixture in Central Park as some of the beautiful trees that line the baseball fields in one of Ashland’s most picturesque settings.

Ginny loved the park and all it has meant to so many. She was a regular at the CP-1 baseball reunions and hall of fame ceremonies. Her goal this year was to make it to watch her son Bo be inducted on Aug. 19. But God had other plans and took this sweet 96-year-old woman to a heavenly hall of fame on Wednesday night with family by her side.

Ginny Carter is a part of Ashland’s rich sports heritage, part of the landscape that makes this one of the greatest places to live and at least part of the reason why many “boys” from the 1960s era became great men.

They will remember the mother who came to the games on Saturday wearing her lucky gold shorts and carrying a picnic basket. She was there for the day and so were her children. That’s just how she rolled. Ginny didn’t watch only her son’s games with the Tigers. No, that wasn’t enough. She watched – and cheered – for everybody else’s teams, too. Single games were played Monday through Thursday and then everybody played on Saturdays. She was there for all of them.

Ginny’s boys won back-to-back state championships in 1963 and 1964 and came within a game of reaching the Little League World Series in ’63. They were also valuable cogs in the Ashland Tomcat baseball dynasty era from 1965 to 1969 that produced the first state championship three-peat from 1966-68.

If these boys weren’t playing Little League games that counted in the standings then they were likely somewhere in her neighborhood or inside her house. She would feed them, watch over them, counsel them and even scold them when necessary.

She had a welcoming home with an open-door policy to her children’s friends. Ginny was a mom’s mom, a role model and one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met.

She loved her own children, but she cared for everybody else’s too. She and her late husband, David, often made sure those who didn’t have the best of family situations had what everybody else had. They didn’t want any attention for their kindness. The reward was in doing the deed itself.

This is what you need to understand about Ginny Carter: She gave more than she received and that’s the way she wanted it.

She worked 75 years as a volunteer for the American Red Cross. You read that right: 75 years of volunteer work.

Who does that? She was given the Clara Barton Lifetime Commitment Award in 2013 by the Northeast Kentucky Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Even as she grew older, she remained active in community affairs and events. Her daughter, Susie, has made her mother’s golden years simply that with a heart that could only have come from Ginny. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Susie was such a blessing to her sweet mother as a friend, caregiver and devoted daughter.

I will miss seeing Ginny next Saturday when the third CP-1 Hall of Fame class is inducted. So will everybody else, especially those men quickly approaching 70 who she once proudly called “her boys.”