PRISM Press Group Florida State League All-Star Game Coverage — Parmelee Launches His Way To Home Run Derby On Home Field

PRISM Press Group is proud to present the debut entry of its newest mem­ber, sports­writer Jor­dan Lop­er­ena.  Jor­dan was on site at Saturday’s 2009 Florida State League All-Star Game and pro­vides our read­ers with recaps of both the Home Run Derby and the All-Star Game itself.

All writ­ten mate­r­ial is the sole prop­erty of Jor­dan Lop­er­ena, as pro­vided for pub­li­ca­tion by PRISM Press Group.  Arti­cle may not be reprinted with­out proper per­mis­sion, which can be obtained by con­tact­ing Jason Roberts at jason@prismpressgroup.org.  Accom­pa­ny­ing pho­tographs pro­vided by lead con­trib­u­tor Jason Roberts and are his sole prop­erty.  Per­mis­sion to use shots may be obtained by writ­ing Jason at the email above.

FORT MYERS, FL — Chris Parmelee of the Fort Myers Mir­a­cle out­slugged the St. Lucie Mets’ Kirk Nieuwen­huis 3–2 in the final round to clinch the 2009 Florida State League All Star Game Home Run Derby title.  Despite Nieuwenhuis’s best efforts to steal the show, the Mir­a­cle first base­man was able to take home the title in front of a home crowd of over 5,000 peo­ple with 13 total home runs over the Derby’s  three rounds.

It was a South Divi­sion show­down in the final round of the Home Run Derby, but ear­lier rounds included two addi­tional mem­bers of the South Divi­sion who participated,Carlos Guz­man, also of the St. Lucie Mets, and Cody Cipri­ano of the first-year Char­lotte Stone Crabs.  Con­tes­tants from the North Divi­sion included Tim Ken­nelly (Clear­wa­ter Thresh­ers), Austin Romine (Tampa Yan­kees), Zeal­ous Wheeler of the first-half cham­pion Bre­vard County Man­a­tees, and Robin­son Chiri­nos of the Day­tona Cubs, who entered the com­pe­ti­tion lead­ing all con­tes­tants in home runs with ten.

Parmelee men­tioned that it’s dif­fi­cult to hit home runs in Ham­mond Sta­dium, more so towards cen­ter field.  “Our field doesn’t really carry too much in the gaps, more so down the line,” said Parmelee, who as a left-handed hitter, launched a major­ity of his home runs over the right field fence.

The home­town Home Run Derby cham­pion cre­ated an excit­ing start to get the crowd going  for what was an evening of won­der­ful fes­tiv­i­ties at Ham­mond Stadium.

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