DON McCORMACK
Paying another visit to the variety store...
Mark your calendar
It’s kind of difficult to fathom, but the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation will be celebrating its seventh birthday in 2010.
The ACBF, which was the brainstorm of Nick Iarocci and Mike Joslin, will celebrate birthday No. 7 in January.
The organization has announced that its annual dinner and awards banquet — the single biggest celebration of Ashtabula County basketball every year — will be held Sunday, March 28. It will once again being staged at the Human Resources Center in Conneaut.
That day, the seventh class of the ACBF Hall of Fame will be inducted and the organization will be handing out a ton of awards and also its annual scholarships.
Much more information will be announced going forward, but the date has been set, basketball fans.
Frosh faces
The ACBF will also be staging its first freshman boys basketball tournament Feb. 22 through Feb. 25, with specific dates, times and teams to be announced down the line a bit.
Rejection
An item in the Ashtabula County Sheriff Reports in our Tuesday edition caught my eye.
A 14-year-old Pymatuning Valley Middle School student faces suspension from school for socking another boy in the face during gym class last Thursday.
What did the punchee do to deserve getting busted in the chops by the puncher?
He blocked his shot three times while playing basketball.
Having had my shot blocked more times than I can count, if I had done that every time that happened I’d be a fulltime resident of the local gray-bar motel.
Spiked!
Seattle police say a man who thought he was a ninja was impaled on a metal fence when he tried to leap over it.
An officer who was looking for an assault victim nearby Monday night heard the man screaming for help.
Police supported him to prevent further injuries until medics arrived and took him to a hospital, where he was in serious condition in intensive care on Tuesday.
Police spokeswoman Renee Witt wrote in a department Web site posting that officers thought the man might have been involved in the reported assault, but he insisted he was just a ninja trying to clear a 4- to 5-foot-tall fence.
Witt says the man was “overconfident in his abilities,” and that — shockingly! — alcohol likely played a role.
You think?
His name was not released.
Deerly beloved
Hundreds of rotting deer carcasses in a southwestern Pennsylvania yard are causing a stink among the neighbors.
Randy Good of North Buffalo Township has a contract with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to remove the animal carcasses from roads in five counties.
Good says he has been picking up 50 to 100 carcasses a day. To cope with demand, he has been dumping a few hundred at a time in his yard. He says weekend landfill closures and a broken truck have worsened the backlog.
Neighbors a half-mile away say they have resorted to burning candles in their homes to mask the stench.
Sort of what happens when you’re within a two-mile radius of The Skipper after he has a hearty meal (or three).
Good says he has gotten a trash container that will help, but it will take a week or two to remove them all.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. McCormack is the sports editor of the Star Beacon. Reach him at donmac@suite224.net.
