PRISM Press Group Florida State League All-Star Game Coverage – North Divison Victorious In FSL All Star Game, Castro Takes Home MVP

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 — Star­lin Cas­tro of the Day­tona Cubs brought home the first run of the game in excit­ing fash­ion as he led off a six-run North Divi­sion fourth inning with an inside-the-park home run en route to a 4–4 MVP per­for­mance at the plate.

It took just one big inning from both teams to pro­vide all the scor­ing in the 2009 Florida State League All Star Game, as the South Divi­sion added four runs of their own in the bot­tom of the fifth.  It was not enough, how­ever, as the North Divi­sion took the cham­pi­onship as the away team inside of Ham­mond Sta­dium on Sat­ur­day night, with a final score of 6–4.

The game fea­tured sev­eral of the Florida State League’s top play­ers, includ­ing 5 from the Dunedin Blue Jays:  Tim Collins, Eric Thames, Darin Mas­troianni, Moi­ses Sierra, and Raul Barron.  Dunedin high­lights included the pitch­ing of Collins, who went one inning, surrendering just one hit while walk­ing one and strik­ing out two, and Sierra, who went 3–4 with an RBI and a run scored.

The Char­lotte Stone Crabs dis­played four play­ers of their own in their first-year of exis­tence in the Florida State League, this as  Cody Cipri­ano and Greg Sex­ton started the game for the South Divi­sion at sec­ond base and third base, respectively.

When asked about his expe­ri­ence so far in Port Char­lotte, Cipri­ano said, “To me, it’s been awe­some.  We’ve had great fan sup­port, a gor­geous brand new com­plex. Really, the best part about it has been the fans, you know you go to some of these huge sta­di­ums and they aren’t sell­ing out too much and we’ve had pretty con­sis­tent, good fans all year.”

After catch­ing up with Charlotte’s Matt Gor­gen after the game, he men­tioned that “being able to pitch, hav­ing the coach come and tell me that I’m clos­ing it out, it’s a great feel­ing … rep­re­sent­ing the Stone Crabs and to rep­re­sent the Rays, it feels good.”

Gor­gen also had the fol­low­ing to add regard­ing being able to rep­re­sent the Stone Crabs in the 2009 Florida State League All Star Game, “That’s a great feel­ing, when you hear from other play­ers that they love to come play at our place because of our fan sup­port; play­ing for a good team, it’s fun.”

Despite los­ing the game, I believe Gor­gen put it best by say­ing “It’s fun”.  That is what All-Star Games are about, the fun of base­ball:  the pure tal­ent, being able to come out, smile for the cam­eras, befriend their rivals, swing for the fences, and oh yeah — try and win the ball game.

After talk­ing to the play­ers after the game, the Win/Loss col­umn was the least impor­tant part of the game as these play­ers were all here for the expe­ri­ence and the great time they had with their fel­low All-Star team members.

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