We continue to lose state and national sports icons.
On the last weekend of June, we heard of the passing of former Oklahoma wrestling coach Stan Abel just about a day or so before the passing of Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda.
Abel and Cepeda join Basketball Hall of Famers Bill Walton and Jerry West, Football Hall of Famer and former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Larry Allen and Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays who have passed away recently.
Abel, who wrestled at OU and later served as coach from 1973-93, led the Sooners to the 1974 national championship and is the program’s alltime leader in wins. He achieved 279 dual victories at OU and finished with a .690 winning percentage. During his 21-year tenure as OU’s wrestling coach, Abel guided the Sooners to a national championship (1974) and four runnerup finishes (1975, 1981, 1985 and 1986), and finished outside the top 10 only once. He coached 15 individual champions and 74 All-Americans, leading OU to three Big 8 Conference titles.
Cepeda was an 11-time All-Star and played the majority of his career with the San Francisco Giants, but also played with the St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Braves, Oakland Athletics, Boston Red Sox and Kansas City Royals. Cepeda hit 379 home runs and had 1,365 runs batted in during his 16-year career.
I may need to ask which sports legend will be the next to pass before the 2024-25 school year will begin.
R.I.P., Stan Abel and Orlando Cepeda.
••• Speaking of baseball, the 2024 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, a.k.a. “The Mid-Summer Classic,” will take place Tuesday night at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas — the home of the World Series champion Texas Rangers.
Of course, the four “regional” MLB that we see the most around here — the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League and the Rangers, Kansas City Royals and Houston Astros in the American League — have at least one representative.
Despite being in third place in the AL Central entering play Monday, the Royals have the most representatives with four players — two of them pitchers, Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans, along with catcher Salvador Perez and shortstop Bobby Witt Jr.
As of press time, the Astros have two players in the starting line-up — second baseman Jose Altuve and designated hitter Yordan Alvarez. However, Alvarez was hit by a pitch around his knee during this past weekend’s road series at Minnesota. It’s not totally certain if Alvarez will get to play in Tuesday’s game, which would mean someone else will take his spot if that happens.
The defending World Series champion Rangers have two players on the AL All-Star roster — pitcher Kirby Yates and second baseman Marcus Semien.
As far as the NL All-Star roster goes, there’s only one Cardinal — relief ace Ryan Helsley.
Last y e a r ’ s All-Star Game was won by the National League, which beat the American League 3-2 at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park as Colorado’s Elias Diaz, playing in his first “Mid-Summer Classic” hit a two-run home run in the eighth inning to put the NL up for good to earn the game’s Most Valuable Player Award.
Who will this year’s MLB be? How competitive will the game be? Will the NL win once more, or will the AL come out on top? We’ll know Tuesday night.
Of course, the Home-Run Derby takes place Monday night, which last year was won by Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., which made history as it made him part of the first-ever father-son duo to win the event. His dad, Vladimir Guerrero, did the honors in 2007.
••• If there are any sports camps taking place this summer, please let me know.
We will run the briefs about them in our editions, then I will come out for action shots for later publications.
Also, this is just a reminder to you coaches about letting me know if any of your senior athletes will be signing letters of intent in the near future.
I would prefer to have two-day notice, but oneday notice is sufficient, to let me know where and when the signing will take place because if I’m notified, I will be there to catch the moment.
My contact information is at the end of this column.
••• The last two weeks of June, I got to spend time with my 97-year-old mother from Enid. The last full week of June, we went to Oklahoma Awesome Adventures near Hugo where we had Ila the Elephant serve us breakfast, and there were close to eight elephants on site. It’s a unique small trip in which kids and adults alike will enjoy. Check out www.oklahomaawesomeadventures. com for additional information.
The week before, we went to see “Queen Esther” at Sight and Sounds Theater in Branson, Mo. It was well worth the price of admission. Now that my mom found out “David” is coming next year, she’s already thinking about returning to Branson next spring/summer.
These past two weeks, I spent a total of six days on vacation, the most I’ve been able to take in about 15 years. I want to thank my newsroom cohorts — Editor Amie Cato-Remer and staff writers Lynn Adams, Jade Phillips and Jaci Walker (the latter two our our summer interns) — for picking up the slack in my absence, and for allowing me to not feel any concerns about being out of pocket. Thanks, guys.
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Seeley is the sports editor of The Vian Tenkiller News. He can be reached by telephone at (918) 7754433, Ext. 139 or by e-mail at davids@cookson.news.
