THE LATEST LINE: SEMO ACE FACING A BIG WEEK

Southeast Missouri State University pitcher Todd Pennington showed tremendous poise all spring as he put together an All-American season that ranks as arguably the finest in SEMO history.

Although the season ended a couple of weeks ago, Pennington just might need to summon up some more of that poise in just a few days.

That's because the annual Major League Baseball Amateur Draft begins Tuesday. As a player at a four-year college who has completed his junior season, Pennington is eligible to be selected.

And, although the former Shawnee (Ill.) High School star is not ranked as one of the top prospects on any of the pre-draft lists I've seen, the kind of year he had means Pennington will likely stand a solid chance of being picked somewhere along the line in the selection process that generally lasts 50 rounds.

The draft is always a very inexact science at best. Sometimes players who were expected to go high fall way down the list for whatever reasons. And sometimes players who were expected to go fairly low shoot up the charts.

It's not likely that Pennington will be a very high draft choice. He simply doesn't have the blazing fastball that scouts covet and teams are willing to pay a lot of money for.

But the fact Pennington put together such eye-popping numbers this year -- going 12-2 with a 1.33 earned-run average while allowing just 51 hits in 95 innings -- warrants status as a potential draftee.

And if he is drafted, then Pennington will face the extremely difficult decision of whether to go pro or return to SEMO for his senior season. So much of it would depend on where he is taken and what kind of money he would be offered to sign.

As Pennington's sensational season progressed and scouts really began to take notice, he acknowledged that he could very well have a tough decision to make, but he told me he would just wait and see what unfolded during the draft.

Well, that time is just about here. Stay tuned.

* I had the pleasure Saturday afternoon to attend a very classy tree dedication ceremony in memory of Ron Michel, held at Capaha Park near the Capaha Field baseball diamond.

Michel, a longtime coach and overall supporter of amateur baseball in Cape Girardeau, passed away in February.

Kudos to Doc and Barbara Yallaly, along with everybody else who played a role in the dedication, for a job well done.

* This has been sitting in my notepad for a few weeks, but OVC commissioner Dan Bebe told me at last month's OVC baseball tournament in Paducah, Ky., that the conference would love to secure a 12th member, which would then make for handy six-team divisions for the league's highest-profile sport of basketball.

The fairly recent announcements that two Alabama schools -- Jacksonville State and Samford --will be joining the OVC no later than June of 2003 will give the conference 11 members, although two of them (Morehead State and Austin Peay) do not compete in the league for football.

* The NBA Eastern Conference finals series has been great, with Philadelphia and Milwaukee taking turns beating up on each other heading into today's seventh and deciding game.

But I don't think the Lakers are shaking in their sneakers over the prospects of facing either the 76ers or Bucks, do you?

~Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian.