There are plenty of long-time Atlanta Braves baseball fans around and certainly there should be plenty of Braves’ stories to go around.

Well, Turner South wants to hear about it.

The &uot;What’s Your Favorite Braves Story&uot; contest will award the winner a chance to have their story aired on the network along with the use of luxury suite at a Braves home game for 20 of their guests. Five second-place winners and 100 finalists will also receive gifts.

Braves announcers Pete Van Wieren, Don Sutton, Skip Caray and Joe Simpson will be calling play-by-play during spring training and giving away tickets and prizes to listeners.

The contest, open to all legal residents, 18 or older, of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, South and Tennessee, begins today.

Sorry about that for you folks across the river. I put in a call to public relations and asked about Louisiana residents and was told that Turner South does not go that far.

Maybe you can bribe a friend in Natchez to enter a story for you.

All entries must be 100 words or less and received by April 28.

For Official Rules or to submit an entry, access www.turnersouth.com or write to Braves Favorite Story Contest, P.O. Box 739, Atlanta, Ga., 30301.

Johnson has been with the Braves association for more than 50 years as a pitcher and announcer.

&uot;One thing I remember more than anything were the pre-game activities when we hired Bob Hope to handle public relations and increase the attendance at the games,&uot; Johnson said. &uot;One idea was to put a guy in a straight jacket, and haul him up on a crane and watch him try to escape. We have held ostrich races, camel races, bathtub races, cow-chip throwing contests and once Ted Turner competed against Tug McGraw by pushing a baseball around the bases with their noses.&uot;

Van Wieren’s memory involves Otis Nixon catching a fly ball by Andy Van Slyke that appeared to be going out of the park.

&uot;It was probably the most unbelievable catch any of us has ever seen. You often see a catch where a player’s glove is over the fence, but you rarely see a player use the fence to vault himself up higher. That catch preserved the victory and also gave the Braves the sense that if they could win that game with only one hit and a catch like that, maybe they could make it to the World Series.&uot;

Of course, a lot of people are going to say Hank Aaron’s home run and that’s rightly so. So if you think of a favorite Braves’ story, send it in. And, even better, send me a copy and we’ll share it with the rest of the Miss-Lou.

— Nicholls State’s baseball team was probably glad to get out of Southern Mississippi Sunday.

After losing to the Eagles 9-3 Friday, Nicholls lost 17-5 Saturday.

Nicholls State coach B.D. Parker became so enraged at a call by plate umpire Sean Sigworth in the fifth inning of Saturday’s game, that he bumped the official while arguing with him.

Parker was tossed from the game, but Sigworth also gave the sign that the contest would be forfeited.

Things cooled down a bit after an impromptu meeting at the plate with Parker and USM coach Corky Palmer, and it was decided the game would continue.

Vidalia, La., native Josh Hoffpauir had to be happy about that after collecting a single and triple in the contest.

Joey Martin is sports editor of The Democrat. He can be reached by calling 446-5172 ext. 232 or at joey.martin@natchezdemocrat.com.

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