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| The bat that Tary Scott will give to Sonny Miller. (Copyright, Sports on CT-69) |
At 3 p.m. today, Wolcott’s baseball team will depart the high school and head on a 12-hour ride to Tennessee.
What’s in Tennessee for a Connecticut baseball team in the middle of the regular season? A chance to see the game played in a different way in a different part of the country, and a chance to experience a different way of life.
For Tary Scott, it’s an opportunity to go home. Wolcott’s first game in a two-game Tennessee stretch is against David Crockett High School of Jonesborough, Tenn., the same school that Scott attended. The Scott family was a multi-sport dynasty in Jonesborough, and Tary was no slouch. He played in the JUCO World Series and he got as far as AA in the Boston Red Sox organization.
The second game is against Chuckey-Doak on Monday.
A special relationship with Crockett head coach Sonny Miller helped Tary Scott change his negative attitude, and it has influenced his time as a coach at Wolcott High School.
Scott wants his players to have fun, but he also wants them to play the game the right way. A patented phrase of Scott’s is “Don’t be lazy,” which is what he tells his hitters when he wants them to meet a pitch out front with their bats.
Not being lazy is something that was instilled in Scott by Miller. Miller became a father figure to Scott after his father died, and the man is very important to Scott. He gets to honor Miller at the Crockett game when he presents him with a bat inscribed “DAVID CROCKETT VS. WOLCOTT/TO SONNY MILLER/2018”. That will happen at the Wolcott-Crockett game, where the 1978 Crockett state runner-up team will be honored. Tary’s brother Dale starred on that team.
Here’s my full story on Wolcott’s trip for the Waterbury Republican-American.
