Sports stats



Central League names players of the week

June 20, 2005 - Central Baseball League (Central League) News Release


Shreveport DH Chad Gambill and Fort Worth RHP Mike Smith were selected by SportsTicker, the Central League's official statistician, as Batter and Pitcher of the Week for the week of June 13-19.

In six games, Gambill went 9-for-22 with a double, three home runs, five RBI and an .864 slugging percentage despite a difficult week for the Sports, who went 1-5. The Clearwater, Florida, native was 4-for-4 with a home run, two RBI and two runs scored during Tuesday's 4-3 loss to El Paso, and followed it up the next evening by going 3-for-5 with two home runs and three RBI in the Sports' 14-9 victory over the Diablos.

Gambill, 30, is hitting .253 with eight home runs, nine doubles and 23 RBI in his fifth season in independent baseball. A sixth-round pick of Colorado in the 1993 draft, he spent six years in the Rockies organization, making it as high as AA New Haven in 1998. Out of baseball for two seasons, Gambill joined the Atlantic League's Lehigh Valley Black Diamonds in 2001, where he played for current Shreveport manager Bob Flori. He then played two and a half years with Atlantic City of the Atlantic League before moving onto the Northeast League's Aces in mid-2004, also managed by Flori, where he hit .316 with six home runs in 51 games for the traveling team.

Smith was superb in both of his outings week as Fort Worth went 6-1 and extended their lead to 4 ½ games over second-place Pensacola. On Tuesday, he pitched a complete game, giving up one run on six hits and striking out nine in the Cats' 6-1 victory over Edinburg. He was even better on Sunday, twirling a one-hitter as Fort Worth downed Shreveport 7-0. Smith, 41, has now pitched three of the eleven one-hitters in Central League history.

The San Antonio native is currently second in the league with six wins and third with 59 strikeouts. Now in his seventeenth season of professional baseball, Smith was signed out of Ranger JC in Texas in 1984 by Cincinnati and spent time in the Reds, Orioles and Brewers organizations, including seventeen major-league appearances in 1985, 1989 and 1990. 2005 marks his eighth season in the Central/Texas-Louisiana League; he has also spent time with Abilene, Springfield/Ozark, Amarillo, and Coastal Bend. Last season, Smith led the league with 11 wins, playing for both Coastal Bend and Fort Worth.

• Discuss this story on the Central Baseball League message board...

Central Baseball League Stories from June 20, 2005


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.


Sports Statistics from the Stats Crew
OurSports Central