Courage award, feds vs. state, gambling talk : Down in Alabama

Welcome back, folks.

If you’re a Roy Wood Jr. fan, or you’re following the lead-up to the MLB at Rickwood Field game, you definitely want to give the podcast a listen today.

Either way, your report is below. Thanks for reading.

Award for courage

Yancey Young was playing with a travel baseball team last summer when he started having back pain.

He had been to a couple doctors and figured it to be a muscle strain.

The pain didn’t go away, and he ended up in a UAB freestanding ER in Gardendale, where they found a mass dangerously close to his heart. They immediately sent him to the hospital, did a biopsy, diagnosed him with Stage 3 T Cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma and started chemotherapy within two days.

That cancer is very treatable. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Young had 30 treatments, five hospitalizations and four surgeries while insisting he would be playing his senior season of baseball at Sumiton Christian.

And he did just that, making it to every game when he wasn’t in the hospital. He managed to play in 14 of the team’s games and got to the plate 33 times.

His inspiring effort, reports AL.com’s Ben Thomas, won Young the Jimmy Smothers Courage Award — a statewide honor that was presented to him at the annual Alabama Sports Writers Association banquet this past Sunday.

The dramatic part of this story, at least the on-the-field part, is that in the final game of the Class 1A state finals against Sweet Water, Young was the designated hitter and batted 3 for 4 with a walk, three RBIs and a run scored to lead Sumiton Christian to the state championship.

Federal vs. state

The U.S. Department of Justice has taken the side of a lawsuit challenging the new Alabama law that targets ballot harvesting, reports AL.com’s Mike Cason.

The law criminalizes the distribution of prefilled absentee-ballot applications or turning in an absentee-ballot application for someone else, unless that person has a medical emergency.

The point being argued here is whether the state can restrict who voters get help from as they apply for absentee ballots. The state contends that the Voting Rights Act doesn’t prohibit the state from restricting certain parties from gathering or delivering the applications. Plaintiffs and the Justice Department argue that the Voting Rights Act restricts employers and labor unions from helping with the applications and that states cannot restrict anyone beyond that.

The G-word

We can’t stand it.

We just can’t wait until the next legislative session to pass along news about an effort to put gambling and a lottery on the ballot.

Never bet on these things, but David Bronner, the CEO of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, told reporters after a quarterly meeting that he wants Gov. Kay Ivey to call a special session to try to get something done that hasn’t gotten done in 24 years, reports AL.com’s Mike Cason.

Many Alabama lawmakers just put a year’s work into getting a lottery/gambling bill passed only to see it fall one vote short in the Alabama Senate.

The reason Bonner said he would like to see a special session is that he believes a combination of recent tax cuts and leaner times ahead will eventually leave the state badly needing funds.

“That train is coming down the track,” Bronner said.

Quoting

“In Italy, he is called The Miracle Boy.”

Lindsey Sanderson, who has organized a GoFundMe on behalf of New Hope High School grad Hayden Hill, who survived a 60-foot fall from a cliff in Rome during a class trip but needs a medical flight to return to the U.S.

By the Numbers

That’s the percentage of Alabama third graders who were reading on grade level this spring. State and local officials and media have previously interpreted and reported the data to mean 91% were reading on grade level. Our collective math skills notwithstanding, there has been some confusion over literacy stats as the state aims to decide which students need to be retained for reading.

More Alabama News

Born on This Date

In 1930, comedic actor and singer Jim Nabors of Sylacauga.

In 1969, NFL fullback and plaintiff in a high-profile concussion case Kevin Turner of Prattville.

In 1973, NBA player Jason Caffey of Mobile.

On the podcast

Comedian and Birmingham native Roy Jones Jr. talks about Rickwood Field, Negro-league baseball and the podcast “Road to Rickwood.”

You can find “Down in Alabama” wherever you get your podcasts, including these places: