East Tennessee is a beautiful part of the state what with the Smoky Mountains, Big South Fork, Cumberland Plateau, Appalachian Trail, Cumberland Trail, scenic rivers, and famous Civil War battle sites just to name a few.
Were it not for Knoxville it'd be almost perfect. A lot of people don't realize how close we came to being in a separate state from Knoxville. Back during The War of Northern Aggression times the eastern part of the state was pro-Union and, after lawmakers in Nashville voted to secede from the Union, a rump group of politicians and citizens in about 30 counties in the middle/eastern part of the state met to decide whether to secede from Tennessee, much like West Virginia seceded from Virginia.
It was a close vote but too many delegates to the convention supposedly got drunk on moonshine one night and couldn't be roused in time the next morning to actually vote and the proposal failed to pass due to the lack of quorum. I actually doubt most of the delegates were intelligent enough (I'm from that part of the state so I am quite familiar with the intelligence levels in that general area simply by attending various family reunions) to understand what a quorum was but that's a different, rather sad story.
Had the proposal passed the new state was considering one of the following names:
-- East Tennessee (duh)
-- Franklin (in a previous existence this was the name of the state after separating from North Carolina)
-- Rocky Top (only because they already had a stupid state song)
-- Fulmervania (named for a famous Mexican War corporal who was borne to an unmarried couple in Pennsylvania that migrated to Tennessee after being kicked out of Pennsylvania for "moral depravity", something they could do back in those days. Alas, states can't do that anymore and, consequently, we are stuck with various state lawmakers.)
As a result the in-state ETSU Buccaneer baseball team invades The Hawk this afternoon. No idea why they are called Buccaneers (West Indies pirates) since there were, to my knowledge, no Spanish pirate ships operating on the Tennessee or Holston Rivers and East Tennessee is a long, long way from the West Indies. If there were I wouldn't be surprised, however, given the many knuckleheads that live in that part of the state (as evidenced by their VFL persona.)
ETSU is 9-2 on the season but have zero significant wins and both losses were to real teams, Virginia Tech (9-3) and Clemson (14-3.) So one would think today's final score would be in the range of a 12-3 win for the Dores. Of course, given how Vandy beats up on Clemson each year of late maybe the score will be 24-3 again.
Here's the expected Commodore line-up with averages:
Davis .388
Martin .480
Bleday .435
Scott .302
Clarke .280
DeMarco .205
Paul .440
Duvall .167
Ray .222
Team .327
Once the bottom of the order gets going (we saw signs of that yesterday) this will be perhaps the strongest 1-9 line-up in the country (if it isn't already.)
Were it not for Knoxville it'd be almost perfect. A lot of people don't realize how close we came to being in a separate state from Knoxville. Back during The War of Northern Aggression times the eastern part of the state was pro-Union and, after lawmakers in Nashville voted to secede from the Union, a rump group of politicians and citizens in about 30 counties in the middle/eastern part of the state met to decide whether to secede from Tennessee, much like West Virginia seceded from Virginia.
It was a close vote but too many delegates to the convention supposedly got drunk on moonshine one night and couldn't be roused in time the next morning to actually vote and the proposal failed to pass due to the lack of quorum. I actually doubt most of the delegates were intelligent enough (I'm from that part of the state so I am quite familiar with the intelligence levels in that general area simply by attending various family reunions) to understand what a quorum was but that's a different, rather sad story.
Had the proposal passed the new state was considering one of the following names:
-- East Tennessee (duh)
-- Franklin (in a previous existence this was the name of the state after separating from North Carolina)
-- Rocky Top (only because they already had a stupid state song)
-- Fulmervania (named for a famous Mexican War corporal who was borne to an unmarried couple in Pennsylvania that migrated to Tennessee after being kicked out of Pennsylvania for "moral depravity", something they could do back in those days. Alas, states can't do that anymore and, consequently, we are stuck with various state lawmakers.)
As a result the in-state ETSU Buccaneer baseball team invades The Hawk this afternoon. No idea why they are called Buccaneers (West Indies pirates) since there were, to my knowledge, no Spanish pirate ships operating on the Tennessee or Holston Rivers and East Tennessee is a long, long way from the West Indies. If there were I wouldn't be surprised, however, given the many knuckleheads that live in that part of the state (as evidenced by their VFL persona.)
ETSU is 9-2 on the season but have zero significant wins and both losses were to real teams, Virginia Tech (9-3) and Clemson (14-3.) So one would think today's final score would be in the range of a 12-3 win for the Dores. Of course, given how Vandy beats up on Clemson each year of late maybe the score will be 24-3 again.
Here's the expected Commodore line-up with averages:
Davis .388
Martin .480
Bleday .435
Scott .302
Clarke .280
DeMarco .205
Paul .440
Duvall .167
Ray .222
Team .327
Once the bottom of the order gets going (we saw signs of that yesterday) this will be perhaps the strongest 1-9 line-up in the country (if it isn't already.)
