Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
How about three cheers for this guy?
Armand Fernandez-Pierre, a 335-pound defensive tackle from Episcopal School in Dallas, doesn’t just dominate opponents in the trenches. He also roots for his high school’s football team as a member of the cheerleading squad.
The senior defensive lineman, who has drawn interest from Miami and UCLA, is also involved with the school choir, works at Best Buy on the Geek Squad, participates in theatre, plays lacrosse and powerlifts.
Fernandez-Pierre was able to participate in both sports by convincing his coaches to work out a compromise.
“The deal was that he and my cheer coach would have to figure a way that I could play both sports in the same season,” Fernandez-Pierre said.
Football and cheer are radically different sports, but FernandezPierre notes there are some similarities between the two, although he also embraces the sports’ individual qualities.
“[Cheer] is about encouraging each other and moving forward as a group and a team,” he said. “When it comes to football I love being able to be, I guess — how could you say it? — brutal.”
Playing fetch
Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez was fined $250 and sentenced to a year’s probation for mailing himself a package of marijuana addressed to his dog.
Wrote Dwight Perry of The Seattle Times: “The pooch, apparently, wasn’t much of a retriever.”
End of an error
While the Pittsburgh Pirates finally have ended their 20-year streak of losing seasons, they know they will have to score more runs to have a long October run.
They entered the weekend 10th in the National League in scoring, but Manager Clint Hurdle is encouraged by the recent additions of Justin Morneau and Marlon Byrd. They played their parts in the Pirates scoring fiveplus runs five times in a stretch of seven games recently.
Hurdle is hitting Morneau cleanup against right-handed pitchers and dropping Pedro Alvarez to the No. 6 spot with Byrd between them. With Andrew McCutchen as the No. 3 hitter, it gives the Pirates a rightleft-right-left mix three through six.
“You have a guy who absolutely has done it — and a guy growing into it,” Hurdle said of Morneau and Alvarez. “This balances it better one through eight. And [Alvarez] has shown the ability to drive in runs from the six spot, so now you have danger there too.”
The Pirates have been winning with pitching all season, and that usually plays well in the postseason.
“It’d be disappointing if we’d look back and say the biggest thing we accomplished was having a winning season,” righthander A.J. Burnett (North Little Rock, Central Arkansas Christian) said. “We want more. We want a championship.”