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said. “You’ve got to be up thofl ready to play ball and if you fl don’t and you get beat then 9 you’ve got to go home.” 9The Coppinger has returneflto that single-elimination for-9 mat, with the 16-team, seven-9 day tournament beginning on*April 16. ■“Personally, I like that for- ■ mat,” Peery said. “Whether ■ than knowing that you can go I up there and you’re going to 1 play three games and you canl have a lackluster game and ydl can still come back and win it,l like to win them all and go froii there.” 1Peery has the same wish for I his Bulldogs, and definitely for] Wagner. ]“It’s still the same,” Peery |said. !“I still get nervous when he comes in a game. I still want him to strike out everybody and be perfect, but that is justpart of it.”— Contact Brian Woodsor at bwoodson(a bdtonline.conAstros, Phillies, Mets and Red Sox, joined the Braves during the offseason, a team he had always longed to play for.Peery last spoke with Wagner when the Braves were still in spring training, where his prized pupil was trying to prove that he was recovered from the elbow surgery that left him sidelined for much of last year.“I haven’t talked to him in three or four weeks, but the last time I talked to him he said he was enjoying being down there,” said Peery, in an interview last week. “He was enjoying being in Orlando.“I think he is going to be fine there. He says he feels good, his arm is not hurting him so that is good.”Peery is a fan of pitching — which is often said to be 90 percent of the game — and he loves to watch the game at all levels. He has spent plenty of time over the years watching the Bluefield Orioles at Bowen Field, an organization that has produced future big leaguers like Boog Powell, Don Baylor, Bobby Grich Cal Ripken, Jr., and Dean Chance.“I used to always watch teams with dominating pitching, like Baltimore, when they had those three 20 game winners, and Boog Powell,” Peery said. “When I was a kid he was up at Bowen Field and I watched him at 18 play.“I watched him until he got out and then we had (Don) Baylor and a lot of others thatcame through there. I remember the old wooden grandstands and stuff like that, and Billy Hunter, when he was the manager.”Peery has led the Bulldogs to an average of 14 wins a season, including 10 SWD regular season titles since 1990, and 10 tournament crowns since 1986.(Tazewell also won the SWD crown in 2005 when Peery took a season off, and Jeff Brintle — who has served as Peeiy’s pitching coach in the past — led the Bulldogs to the title).In addition to all the district, regional and state tournament appearances, Peery has long been a fan of the Coppinger Invitational, the annual prep baseball tournament at Bowen Field that’s been part of the area for more than three decades.“I don’t know how long it has been going, but it’s been about 25 years that we have been going up there and it was sin gle elimination then,” PeeryWelcome to the New FrontierGOT Abut it's ONLY for new High-Speed Internet customers!Very Hush-Hush!
Newspaper Details
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Bluefield, West Virginia, US
Thu, Apr 08, 2010
Page 13
Full Page
Clipped by
Becky K.
NA, 02 Jun 2023
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