Uhls event brings chance for Cards' sightings

Last year's inaugural Joe Uhls Memorial Golf Tournament and Dinner was a rousing success, with former Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog serving as the featured guest of the tournament and keynote speaker for the dinner.

Southeast baseball coach Mark Hogan just might have outdone himself with the lineup for this year's event, which is a fund raiser for the Redhawks' program.

It has been known for some time that former Cardinals all-star catcher Tom Pagnozzi would be the tournament's special guest and the dinner's speaker when the event takes place Monday.

But Hogan revealed over the weekend that Herzog again will play in the tournament and perhaps appear at the dinner, while former Cardinals slugger Jack Clark will play in the tournament and attend the dinner.

Hogan also said there is a chance ex-Cardinals pitcher Danny Cox will also be at the festivities, but that is not definite.

While all golf slots have been filled for the tournament at Bent Creek Golf Course in Jackson, Hogan emphasized tickets still are available for that evening's dinner and silent auction at the Cape Girardeau Elks Lodge.

The buffet dinner and silent auction portion will begin at 6 p.m. Pagnozzi will address the gathering at about 7:45 p.m., with the event scheduled to conclude at approximately 10 p.m.

Tickets are $30. They can be obtained by calling 651-2645 and leaving a message, or a limited number of tickets will be available at the door at the Elks Lodge on Monday night.

The entire day sounds like a lot of fun.

• A comment in last Sunday's FanSpeak regarding Southeast's struggling baseball season so far points out just how spoiled fans can be.

Sure, the Redhawks entered a weekend series against Eastern Illinois nine games below .500 overall and mired toward the bottom of the Ohio Valley Conference standings.

But it's pretty ridiculous to get on Hogan's case considering the kind of consistent success he's had in the previous 10 years, with just one losing season and several sensational campaigns.

Even if this does end up being a poor season -- and there is still plenty of the schedule left to turn things around -- only a real fair-weathered and short-sighted fan would gripe and moan too much.

• Congratulations to Wendi Zickfield, an eighth-grade student at Trinity Lutheran School in Cape Girardeau who was honored over the weekend for scoring more than 1,000 career points in basketball for the program.

Wendi has played for Trinity's eighth-grade team the past three years -- even when she was younger than those she was competing against -- and she averaged nearly 25 points per game this past season. She will be a freshman at Central next year.

• Charleston's Matt Whiteside is back in the big leagues.

Whiteside, who has played professional baseball since 1990, spent the past few seasons in the minors along with a stint in Japan. Last year, pitching for Class AAA Richmond in Atlanta's chain, he had 38 saves.

After beginning this year with Class AAA Syracuse in Toronto's chain, he was recently called up to the Blue Jays. In one appearance entering the weekend, he allowed four runs in two innings.

• Another pitcher with local ties, John Webb, earned his first major league start Wednesday for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, allowing six hits and eight runs in four innings.

Webb, whose parents were born in Cape Girardeau, was called up from Class AAA Durham solely to make that start, then was sent back down the following day.

Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian.