April 20, 2010
Publisher's Message
For this week's issue, we look at a non-league softball game that the Awesome American Fork Cavewomen won at home over the Ravenous Carbon Dinos on April 15. We will also have an essay on why American Fork should have a newspaper again. Let's get to those items.
Dean Von Memmott
Publisher
deanmemmott@hotmail.com
Awesome Lady Cavebatters Split Non-League Softball Doubleheader Against Ravenous Carbon Dinos
By Dean Von Memmott
Timp Sports Weekly Publisher
The Awesome American Fork Cavewomen split a doubleheader at home against the Ravenous Carbon Dinos in non-league softball action. The Ravenous Dinos won the first game 10-0. However, in the night capper, the Awesome Cavewomen came from behind to win 4-2.
The first game lasted six innings. Doubles from Kylie Lessar and Megan Tubbs powered the Dinos to gobble up the Cavewomen in a hurry.
The second game turned out to be a more happy story for American Fork. American Fork Coach Duke Sorensen said, "We played way better defense in the second game. We made only one error during it. Our batters attacked the ball much better. We hit the ball into more holes than we did in the first game."
During the first game, singles from Kenzie Cave and Tubbs soon resulted in Carbon taking a 2-0 lead. This time, though, the American Fork defense, under the leadership of Cierra "Red Mist" Loveless, held the scoreless during the next six innings.
Pitcher Briana Hurdsman held the Cavewomen scoreless in the first two innings. In the bottom of the third, however, Lexi Morris doubled in Loveless and Sorensen.
For the top of the fourth, Carbon got singles from Marissa Smith and Nicky Williams. Both Ravenous Dinos soon stole into scoring position on no outs. However, the game took a bitter turn for Carbon. After Hurdsman had grounded out, Loveless struck out Shaylee Jones and threw Angie Kiahtipas at first.
Hurdsman man kept a Katelyn Romboy single from making it possible for the Cavewomen to pul ahead in the fourth. During the top of the fifth, shortstop Jen "Munchkin" Hardman turned up a double play that stopped the Ravenous Dinos cold. Loveless retired them to the field by striking out Alexis Oliver. Hardman's double play helped to give the Awesome Cavewomen momentum in the bottom of the fifth.
After Kim Sorensen and Morris had gotten on base via a walk and single respectively during the fifth, Maegan Hansen doubled them in on two outs. As thrilling as that double was, it alone did not win the game for the Awesome Cavewomen. Other factors did. One of them involved a controversial call in the top of the sixth.
That inning opened with Lessar singling into left. After Smith had grounded out to Loveless, Lessar attempted to avoid getting pinched in a fielder's choice play at third. Though the Ravenous Carbon Dino avoided third baseman Jordy Van Wagner's effort to touch her, she still got called out for running outside the baseline. Carbon's head coach angrily protested the call, but it still stood. Van Wagner soon snatched a Hurdsman fly ball to end the sixth.
For the seventh, Carbon got singles from Jones, Cave, and Tubbs. However, the Cavewomen didn't let any Dino reach home plate, and Loveless struck out Oliver to end the game.
Publisher's Column
American Fork Still Needs a Newspaper
By Dean Von Memmott
Timp Sports Weekly Publisher
Fourteen months have passed since the demise of the American Fork Citizen, a weekly newspaper that had been an icon of the American Forkers' culture for four generations. In the time since then, a minority of American Fork households have been receiving news about their community from the Provo Daily Herald, which I still despise. (I rip up copies of that publication whenever I get my hands on them. Sorry, but a hatred for the Provo newspaper never goes away.)
Rather than whine about the Herald's shutting down the Citizen, I am going to discuss the need for American Fork, my hometown, to have a newspaper. Last fall, Lehite Chris Jones and Pleasant Grover Cal Walker didn't buy into Daily Herald Publisher Rona Raife's claim that the residents of northern Utah County can all the news about their communities from her newspaper. A real estate businessman, Mr. Jones set up the semi-monthly Lehi Pioneer-Independent, and Mr. Walker, the owner of P.G. Printers, started putting out issues of the Timpanogos Times after sharing some conversations with my longtime friend Tom Hollingsworth on how to publish a weekly. Tom, by the way, had worked as the head ad man for the Citizen for 12 years before one of Mrs. Raife's predecessors had pushed him into quitting. Both Meers. Jones and Walker are still publishing their newspapers, thank God!
Mr. Walker had told me that he had been receiving phone calls from American Forkers curious to know when he might start putting out a paper for their town. The Times publisher said, "I can't publish a paper for AF yet. I still got to work on making my newspaper business stronger before I can do that."
In an e-letter that I had received several months ago, Marc Haddock, my former editor at New Utah, informed that American Forkers had told him that they still missed the Citizen. He added that American Fork still needed a weekly newspaper.
When I was at the April 15 softball game between American Fork and Carbon, Anne Rasmussen Hardman, the mom of Cavewoman shortstop Jen "Munchkin" Hardman, "Since my house does get the Herald, I don't see much sense of subscribing to an American Fork newspaper. Why should I pay for two newspapers when I can get all my information about AF from one?"
Anne has a good point. However, she and other American Fork subscribers do need to remember something, though. Lots of American Forker families do not subscribe to the Daily Herald. In fact, when it did away with the Citizen, there were American Fork families that canceled their subscriptions to the Provo newspaper, and daily copies of it merely end up as piles of litter in front of many American Fork homes.
Because so many American Fork households subscribing to the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News are never going to ask for copies for the Herald to be delivered to their doorsteps, a new weekly newspaper must get started in my hometown, so that its residents can read about their community again.
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