Jun 2, 2023 5 min read

As president of Washington Youth Baseball’s Pony league and the head of the Founder’s League, which includes teams from Washington, Canon-McMillan, Burgettstown, Fort Cherry, Avella and Chartiers-Houston, I see a lot of youth baseball over the course of each spring.

I also umpire a lot of games as well as coaching a high school level tournament team, increasing the number of games I see.

Along the way, you see a lot of players and get to know a lot of families.

And no matter how much you try not to do so, you do, at times, find yourself having an appreciation for players to do well. Now, you don’t do it at the expense of the game, but you enjoy watching kids who play the game the right way.

So it was for me with Alex Wilson.

Alex Wilson played in the leagues at Washington Park until a few years ago and was followed by her younger brother, Joe.

In her 14-year-old season, she was one of the best players in the league. Yes, she.

According to her father, Lank, Alex moved from girls softball to baseball at age 9 when the fastpitch team on which she had played to that point didn’t have enough players to continue.

There have been a number of girls who have played, and still play, baseball each year but, in my humble opinion, Alex was the best.

In her final season of Pony, she hit a grand slam to deep left-centerfield at Lew Hays Pony Field that had everyone buzzing at the time.

She could swing the bat with anyone in the league.

Unfortunately, Alex is no longer with us. She was killed in a one-car automobile accident in April, robbing the world of a bright young lady.

The 18-year-old Washington High School student had planned on attending Kent State University in the fall and had been accepted into that school’s pre-med neuroscience program.

Yeah, she was that kind of student.

Tragically, she won’t get to pursue that dream. But when the Washington Pony League playoffs begin Monday at 6 p.m., Alex will be honored in a ceremony prior to the start of the game.

Many of the coaches who worked with Alex in her time in WYB will be in attendance. And anyone else who wants to celebrate her life is welcome.

Ironically, the player off of whom Alex hit her grand slam, her cousin Parker Mulhmann, is no longer with us, as well.

Parker died a little over two years ago while having surgery on a congenital heart defect that never kept him from pursuing the sport he loved, just like so many other kids.

I’m often asked why I continue to stay involved with the sport long after my own children have gone through the program. It is because of kids like Alex and Parker and so many others.

They make it worthwhile.

• The Steelers are halfway through their on-field offseason workouts and there’s less than 100 days remaining between now and the start of the 2023 regular season.

It seems hard to believe, but another NFL season is right around the corner.

• After their hot start, it seemed unlikely the Pirates could falter quite like they did in the month of May.

They didn’t win a single series in May until taking two out of three games from the San Francisco Giants earlier this week.

That left their record at 28-27 heading into June.

As the team turned a 20-9 start into that barely-above-.500 record, there has been a lot of grousing from fans that they need to call up this prospect or that prospect from the minors. But the more prudent way to approach, and the one they’ve chosen to take, is to stick with their plan and not rush players to the majors, hoping to steal a win or two.

The current braintrust has a plan in place. That plan shouldn’t include bringing up prospects before they’re ready. Doesn’t anyone remember players the team has rushed to the majors in the past, only to see their development retarded by that process?

I get it. With just a handful of winning seasons over the past three decades, the Pirates as an organization might not deserve a lot of faith.

But the plan is the plan. The Pirates should stick to it.

• Hard as it might be to believe, becoming the general manager of the Penguins just might not be all that prime of a job.

The team’s stars are aging quickly, and the team is saddled with a bunch of contracts that will make signing help in free agency pretty difficult.