More than a game

More than a game

Brooke Neal honored by visiting Little Rock Central yesterday

WM School District The game took a backseat Tuesday at Tilden Rodgers Complex.

In a show of support to the wife of West Memphis head baseball coach Adam Neal, Little Rock Central coaches and players adorned pink jerseys with Brooke Neal's initials inscribed on the back.

The game, however, was a downer for the Blue Devils, who committed seven errors and had only three hits in an 8-0 loss.

The Neals are in Mexico for special treatment of Brooke's cancer. They've been in Mexico for the better part of two months.

Central head coach Rusty Passini came up with the plan to pay tribute to Brooke.

'I've coached against Adam now for a couple years and I see a lot of similarities with his program and ours,' said Passini.

'When we heard what they were going through…that was just too much.

'It's kind of cliche' to do the T-shirt thing, but we wanted to do something to reach out to them and let them know that we are thinking about them and we care about them. It goes beyond playing the game of baseball.'

Jonathan Crymes, who has been the interim coach for West Memphis in Neal's absence, echoed Passini's sentiment.

'It's a delicate situation with what Miss Brooke is going through,' Crymes stated. 'Those guys coming up here and wearing those pink jerseys is real special to our kids and our community. We're all fighting for Brooke as hard as Brooke is fighting for herself. You don't see something like this everyday in sports. It just shows that Little Rock Central has a lot of class.'

The Blue Devils held their own with the Tigers through four innings, trailing only 1-0, but Central put up a five-spot in the fifth and then added two more runs in the sixth inning.

By Billy Woods