The "Justin Hargett Power" Equilibrium

While 78,000-plus walked through the gates in Tuscaloosa to see Nick Saban win his ninth game as the head coach at Alabama (seven regular season + two spring games), I headed down to Auburn for a quick trip filled with stories, fun and a baseball game. Since I slept in a little too late for the early church service, now seems as good of a time as any to write this post.

As I wrote earlier this week, I was a bit under the weather Wednesday and still felt the effects well into the evening hours of Thursday. I had been wanting to go down to Auburn to see at least one of the South Carolina games, but I couldn't force myself to drive all that way for one game if I didn't feel at least 90 percent.

Friday morning, I felt better as the day went on, and I went ahead and made the call to go around lunch. I drove home to pack up so that I could leave straight from the office to the Plains. The drive included several phone conversations with people about some things I'm working through in my mind right now (more on those later...probably much later).

When I got to Auburn, it was Brick Oven for dinner with Andrew. Soon afterwards, Andy headed out to edge of forest to hang out at the camper. We swapped glory stories of little league seasons gone past (inspired by my team's scrimmage Thursday night). Things were great until Andy decided at 2:45 in the a.m. that he was hungry for some Taco Bell. An hour later, he got his "nourishment" but we had some good laughs about it.

Saturday, I hung out at the camper until it was time to go to baseball. I made a quick stop in the press box to say hello to Dan Froehlich (Auburn's baseball SID) and Andrew Kitick (South Carolina's baseball SID) while waiting on the game to start and for Andrew to show up. After catching up a little with those two, I headed down to the stands and sat with some of the players' parents for a couple of innings.

Andrew arrived around the bottom of the third, and we headed to Section 111. Normally, I hate sitting here thanks to the riffraff clientèle, however Saturday was the exception to the rule. From this perch, we found a blast from the past, circa summer 2004. Sitting a couple of rows ahead of us was "Music Appreciation Girl" from Andrew's class that summer semester. I think her name is Caroline, but "Music Appreciation Girl" is what has stuck.

After confirming with 100 percent assurance that MAG was in our presence, we both noticed around the same time her wedding ring. Andrew then rattled off three phrases which should go down in our friendship's long and storied lore: "Woah, she's married now. Wow, she's waayyyy married. She's married to the Justin Hargett power."

To explain, our first baseball game experience this spring was enhanced by the support from Justin Hargett's (AU's second baseman) mom. We heard "Super Justin" and it's stuck with us through text messages and conversations over the last couple of months. The ring on MAG's finger had at least 20 diamonds wrapping the band and surrounding one massive mega-diamond. I think I still have a minor headache from the glare it caused when the sunlight caught at the right angles. We laughed about this the rest of the game.

As far as the game is concerned, South Carolina has one of the three best lineups our pitching staff will face from the 1-9 holes in the order. This does not really set up well for true freshmen on the mound. Cory Luckie had a very good outing and left with a chance for the "W" as AU was up 5-4. I would have pulled him before seeing the lineup for a third time, but I'm not making the decisions.

After a clutch two-out dinger from ninth-year senior Gamecock Phil Disher, AU's fate was pretty much sealed. The experience level gap just is too much for a team starting five freshmen. You just have to hold out hope that the missed opportunities diminish as their careers develop more. I have faith in their ability, and they have really good chemistry. It doesn't seem like there's really any quit in them and there's no deficit they feel is too great. You have to like that.

Another positive was finally seeing Hunter Morriss go yard. Almost on cue, Andrew and I both were talking about how we hadn't seen him really do anything in person aside from a couple of seeing-eye singles here and there. He turned on an inside pitch and knocked it into the hands of the K-Corner patrons atop the right field wall.

After the game, we headed to Buffalo Connection for dinner (which was great - to the Justin Hargett power) and I got back on the road. Most of the ride was spent talking some stuff over with the big guy upstairs, but I also was able to listen to my fair share of "old man music." I made it back to the house in record time (3:53), which saddens me and excites me at the same time. You'd think that I could make it to Auburn in record time and just take my time coming back. Oh well.

As always, thanks for reading. War Eagle.

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