Jody Hamilton and Cary Page, who shared Morehead State’s career home run record of 49, have some company at the top of that list.

Ryley Preece, a senior slugger from Paintsville, tied the two former MSU sluggers with a blast against Ohio University on Tuesday in a 20-10 slugfest victory for the Eagles.

A few days before, Hamilton and Page were on the same baseball field as Owensboro Catholic scrimmaged South Warren. Hamilton is coach of Owensboro Catholic and Page is helping at South Warren where he has a son who is a sophomore.

“I hadn’t seen him in more than 20 years,” Hamilton said. “He hollered at me and told me our record was about to be broken. It’s funny how things happen.”

Hamilton said before last Thursday, he hadn’t seen Page in more than 20 years, but they happened to be together as Preece was about to tie them and likely surpass them with most of the college season ahead of him. Preece, who played baseball and football (QB) at Johnson Central, has nine home runs this season to rank fifth nationally. He hit 20 bombs as a junior.

Hamilton’s career at MSU was from 1977 to 1980. Page (2000 to 2003) tied his record 22 years later and 22 more years later it was tied again by Preece … for now. All three are left-handed sluggers who have taken advantage of the unusual dimensions at Sonny Allen Field.

But there was nothing cheap about anybody’s home runs. Hamilton hit some prodigious home runs that would have been out of any park and the same could be said for Page and Preece. Hamilton, who graduated from Ashland in 1976, said if the record had to be broken, he was glad it was from a fellow eastern Kentuckian.

When, or if, Preece hits No. 50, he would be only the ninth player in Ohio Valley Conference history to accomplish the feat.

For what it’s worth, Hamilton’s 49 home runs came in less at bats than Page or Preece.

Hamilton was a two-time All-OVC First-Team selection and was named the OVC Player of the Year in 1979 when he won the league’s Triple Crown. Hamilton set numerous MSU career records, including batting average (.385), runs scored (139), home runs (49), total bases (376) and runs batted in (155).

He also set MSU’s season records for home runs (19 in1979), total bases (130 in 1979) and runs batted in (60 in 1979) in the Triple Crown season. Hamilton is in the Morehead State University Athletic Hall of Fame.

Hamilton played two years in the New York Yankees organization before embarking on one of the best high school coaching careers in Kentucky history. In his 39^th year of high school coaching, he has a record of 986-390 (71.6 percent) with stints at Raceland, Boyd County, West Jessamine and Owensboro Catholic. That win total ranks fifth all-time.

Hamilton could join the 1,000-win club this season and has won state championships at Boyd County (2001) and West Jessamine (2015). He was named the National High School Athletic Coaches Association’s Coach of the Year in 2016.

Hamilton was among the inaugural selections into the Ashland Baseball CP-1 Hall of Fame in 2015.

Of all the marvelous achievements that happened in Don Gullett’s career before his days with the Cincinnati Reds, the one that draws the most acclaim is the football game where he scored every point in McKell’s 72-7 victory over Wurtland in the last regular season game of the 1968 season.

Gullett, who was a senior, scored 11 touchdowns and kicked six extra points.

Fans who actually witnessed the game probably numbers in the hundreds but fans who say they were at the game is more in the thousands today.

Nevertheless, it was a performance that is not lost upon those who experienced it on the field.

Say hello to Bob Bryson, a classmate and the center on the 1968 McKell Bulldogs.

“Looking back on it now, what more than 45 years later, I’m kinda proud to say I played in that game when a national record-setter,” Bryson said.

Bryson said McKell went into the game trying to make Gullett the state scoring champion. “We knew if he scored four or five touchdowns, that would be enough. We had beaten them like 46-0 in the Grid-O-Rama (preseason) so we knew he was scoring. The idea was we wanted him to get the state scoring title.”

Coach Jim Hastings made sure that happened by handing it off to Gullett as much as possible. He carried 25 times for 415 yards against the outmanned Wurtland Warriors.

It wasn’t Gullett’s plan to score 11 touchdowns and he’s never been one to talk much about the game. But everybody knows about it. It was on the back of several baseball cards. Whenever his name was mentioned when the Reds were broadcast on television, the subject came up with announcers. It was part of the Don Gullett Legend.

“He would have only had 10 touchdowns if it wasn’t for me,” Bryson said. “I recovered a fumble of his at the 1-yard line and he scored on the next play.”

There were some other instances, too. McKell running back Hoby Burke broke off a long run and was tackled at the 1-yard line. Hastings sent in the next play and it was an off-tackle to Gullett, who really wanted Burke to get the touchdown. He took the handoff and plowed into the pile and fell down at the 1-yard line. Hastings sent the play in again for Gullett. He went down at the 1-yard line again. It was the same on third down. On fourth down, the same play to Gullett was called and this time, knowing it was fourth down, he went on into the end zone.

“He didn’t want to hog the spotlight, ever,” Bryson said. “He thought Hoby deserved the touchdown.”

But Hasting had pre-determined it was going to be Gullett’s night.

“Don was kind of embarrassed by it,” Bryson said. “It was something that Hastings did.”

As if 72 points wasn’t enough, Bryson said it could have been more.

“He had an off night kicking,” he said.

While Gullett certainly made the correct career path by choosing baseball — his 109-50 career major league record is one of the best winning percentages in history — he could have made it big in football or basketball, too.

Bryson said, in his estimation, football was Gullett’s best sport.

“He was probably at his best when you put a football in his hands,” Bryson said. “He had a scholarship offer to Alabama (when Bear Bryant was coach). He would have been in the same backfield with Johnny Musso. He was very similar to the way Don ran … always down low and legs churning.”

Musso was an All-American in 1971 for the Crimson Tide, finishing fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting.

The 1970 and 1971 Alabama teams won 10 and 11 games, respectively.

Meanwhile, Gullett was throwing fastballs for the Reds.

“He (Gullett) probably made the right choice,” Bryson said.

No matter what he decided to do, Gullett was going to be successful. He also never let it go to his head, Bryson said.

“One thing that always impressed me about Don is I’d see him in the winter time after playing in the World Series with Reds and Yankees and he was still same ol’ country boy I knew in school, always humble.”

Former Cincinnati Reds’ pitching great Don Gullett, the greatest athlete in northeastern Kentucky history, died Wednesday. He was 73.

There was never a sport that Gullett couldn’t master. He loved them all — at least, baseball, football and basketball.

Gullett is not only the greatest athlete in northeastern Kentucky history but also the greatest three-sport athlete.

Just call him The Natural.

Consider this: Gullett had 17 major college basketball scholarship offers, 35 major college football offers (including Notre Dame, Ohio State and Alabama) and was a projected No. 1 professional baseball draft choice as a senior at McKell High School in 1969.

“I remember playing softball in grade school at Lynn Elementary, out there competing with the older boys. I was in the second grade and playing against sixth- to eighth-graders,” he said.

And he was playing barehanded.

“Walter Willis, who was in the educational field in Greenup, he was the guy who gave me my first glove,’’ Gullett said in a 2014 interview. “I remember that black glove he gave me. He said, ‘Here, you need a glove.’ I was out there barehanded playing softball.”

Gullett wasn’t big for his age either but he was talented for his age.

“I loved it all really,” he said when asked about his favorite sport. “Baseball was the game I first started playing in the second grade. We didn’t have any organized football or basketball, so I played baseball a longer period of time.”

Gullett learned the lessons of sports from his older brother Jack, who never played high school sports but knew how to play them all.

“We’d play backyard community ball — football, basketball, baseball,” Gullett said. “He never played any organized sport at all but he certainly knew a lot about the game and helped me a lot.”

Gullett began playing organized and competitive football and basketball when he became a sixth-grader and fell in love with those sports, too. Gullett was a natural at whatever he did. Gullett is mostly remembered for his blazing fastball that took him to 109 major league victories in an injury-shortened career. But those who played football and basketball against him remember a competitor who was always tough to beat.

Gullett played on two of McKell’s greatest teams in 1967 and 1968. It was during that ‘68 season that McKell trampled Wurtland 72-7 and Gullett scored every point in the game. It was not uncommon for him to score in the upper 30s during basketball games and, of course, there was no more dominating pitcher than Gullett, even as an eighth-grader at Wurtland.

The late Larry Jordan invited the late Malcolm Conley, then the sports editor at the Ashland Daily Independent, to come out and watch this eighth-grade pitching phenom throw. It was that same year that Reds scout Gene Bennett first feasted his eyes on the prized left-hander. He left practically drooling over what he had witnessed.

Gullett’s legend grew throughout his high school days in all sports, but especially in baseball.

Bennett said it was a game between McKell and Portsmouth Clay right before the postseason tournaments in 1969 that secured Gullett’s legacy.

He struck out 20 of 21 Clay batters in the perfect game effort. The last batter bunted the ball back sharply to him and he threw out the runner for the third out.

That sensational effort came with “23 or 24 major league scouts watching,” Gullett said.

His last game in high school was a 1-0 loss to Ashland in the 16th Region Tournament semifinals in Morehead.

Dave Damron had the only hit for the Tomcats, a triple, and he came home on Mike Tackett’s sacrifice fly. Gullett struck out 11 and walked only one in six innings. However, Tomcat pitcher Tim Huff matched Gullett practically pitch for pitch in shutting out the Bulldogs on three hits.

Ashland was a thorn in McKell’s side, although Gullett performed well in big moments.

As a junior in 1967, he had 80 yards rushing and scored all three touchdowns in McKell’s 21-20 loss to the eventual state champions.

As a senior, he scored 21 points in the region basketball tournament against the Tomcats and then pitched the semifinal gem but was on the losing end.

“They had some great teams, championship teams,” Gullett said of the Tomcats. “Two particular individuals, Bobby Lynch and Bill Lynch, those were great baseball players. We met them in Little League and through high school, all the way through. It’s something I’ll always remember. They weren’t the only two guys on the team. They had some really good players.”

By the time he was a senior, Gullett was considered the possible No. 1 overall draft choice in the June amateur draft. He went in the first round with the 14th overall selection to the Cincinnati Reds. Slugger Jeff Burroughs was taken first by the Washington Senators at the urging of the great Ted Williams. The second player chosen was fireballing J.R. Richard by the Astros. He won 107 games with a 3.15 ERA before having his career cut short by heart issues.

However, only two players from the first round had a better WAR (wins above replacement) ranking than Gullett — Richard and Gorman Thomas of the Brewers, who had 268 home runs in a lengthy career.

Gullett won 109 games with the Reds and Yankees, including six World Series appearances. He was on a World Series champion from 1975 to 1978 — two apiece with the Reds and Yankees.

After the 1976 season, he became a free agent, and the Yankees signed him to a six-year contract, totaling $2 million. He was 14-4 in 1977. By July, 1978, his career was over because of a torn rotator cuff. Gullett’s nine-year record was 109-50.

He came bounding into our lives almost 11 years ago as a scared little toy poodle, about two months old with a furry red coat.

Opie was our third dog, proceeded by a black lab named Lucky and a poodle that we had for 17½ years named Mopsy. She was going to be our last dog. The heartbreak of having to put one down that was part of the family for that long is gut-wrenching.

My wife was teaching at the time and the more she went back to our empty home after school, the more she knew another dog was needed for her to get over the grief.

I was her stumbling block. I did not want another dog.

So, she devised a plan.

She talked to me about a red-coated boy poodle that we could name Opie, touching on my love for the “Andy Griffith Show.” Her plan worked. I caved.

She found what she was looking for in Wayne, W.Va., where a woman was breeding poodles. We went to her home and she showed us three babies from the latest litter. Opie was one of them and my wife picked him out of the crowd because he pooped in her hand. It wasn’t much poop but enough of a sign for her that this was our Opie.

We could not take him home yet and the breeder sent us photo updates and invited us to visit until he was old enough to leave his mother.

My wife timed his homecoming so that she would be out of school for the summer. We did a poor job of training Mopsy, but she vowed it would be different with Opie. She may have missed her calling. It wasn’t long before she had Opie doing some simple tricks with treats as rewards. More importantly, he was potty trained in a short amount of time. As she advanced her potty training with him, she draped bells on a string over our doorknob on the back door and taught him to ring them when it was time to go to the bathroom.

Opie was a good dog and very smart. He learned to use the bells when it was time to use the bathroom but also figured out that he could use them just to get out of the house and into our fenced-in backyard to run and play, too.

The bells rang a lot at our house.

We called Opie a quirky dog. When he was uncomfortable with a situation, like his ball rolling too close to a table, he scratched vigorously with his back legs. He was friendly with everybody although our daughter’s beagle, who probably was four times bigger than him and had a bark bigger than that, scared him when it came to mealtime.

My wife would get between them, letting Ace know who was in charge. Ace ate out of his bowl and she fed Opie by hand. That then became the norm. Did I mention he was spoiled?

Opie loved his toys and he was familiar with all of them. When we picked up his toys to run the vacuum or pick up before company came, he was not happy. After we returned them to where he liked them, it was like he counted then by touching his nose against each one. He was such a good boy.

His favorite toys were an orange pig ball that squeaked, was soft and would bounce in different directions. The other was a floppy-eared dog he could sling around a room with the shake of his head. When he was young, he loved to play fetch and would fly around the yard at top speed until wearing out.

Opie was a good dog. And boy was he fast!

He loved when people visited and especially loved his second home at my in-laws when we would go out of town. They loved him so much and always told us that Opie was such a good boy.

He had keen senses, especially hearing. When he heard a doorbell ring on television, he sprung up from the couch and raced to the front door. We had a doorbell, but it had not worked since Opie became part of the family. We never understood how he knew to go to the door. One of life’s mysteries. He could hear our car as we pulled into the driveway or hear someone come in the front before anybody else. He was like Radar on “MASH.”

We moved from Ashland to Florence two years ago to be near our grandchildren. We don’t have a fenced-in yard now, so Opie would have to adjust with us. He did. And he and I would take our 25-minute walks around our condo neighborhood. He basked in just being with me. The condo neighbors loved him.

Opie was most definitely my wife’s dog, but he knew who to beg from when food was on the table. I made sure to always have something for him.

He was equally loved by his humans.

We had to say goodbye to Opie on Sunday. He had congestive heart failure and his overall health was in serious decline. Life was not the same for him. The walks had stopped, he wasn’t eating or drinking. He was coughing, sometimes for long periods. It was such a sad day for us. He died on my wife’s lap. We chose to be with him to the end.

Opie was such a good boy.

They say dogs don’t have souls, but looking into those expressive dark eyes often made me wonder.