May 31, 2011
HOUSTON Hes still got some rocket fuel in that arm. Not quite as high-octane as before, but when he starts chucking which he does nearly every day he can still make a glove pop. Its been a few years since he threw to get someone out, mind you. Batting practice for his high school team in the Houston suburb of Pearland is all he serves up now. But, whenever a batter gets too cocky or starts showing bad habits, he would start hitting his spots just to show what good pitchers can do. Matt Maysey was one of those. Better than that. He was one of the top two or three hurlers to ever come out of Hamilton. Good enough that he landed in the Major Leagues for a couple of years with the Montreal Expos and Milwaukee Brewers. Good enough to get into 25 games under the bright lights. Now good enough to be coaching some elite kids with dreams as big as his once were. This is what I shouldve been doing a long time ago, the 44-year-old says of his coaching gig. Born in Hamilton, he split his childhood between this area and Buffalo dads job required the family to move once in a while until Grade 8 when the family headed south. He played a little of just about every sport here, but not a ton of anything. Certainly not much baseball as he recalls. So, when he got to Texas, he was quite a project. I was way behind, he chuckles But he had an arm. A wild arm, but one touched by lightning. To teach him to throw strikes, his coach laid down the ground rules right off the bat. Every time he walked two batters in a row, hed be pulled from the game. When he harnessed his control, he became a star. The San Diego Padres drafted him in 1985 but released him six years later. He signed on with the Expos not long after and got into two games with them the year the Toronto Blue Jays won their first World Series, making him just the second pitcher from this town since 1894 to reach the bigs. The following season, he signed as a free agent with Milwaukee, where he earned his lone Major League win in a 7-6 decision over the Oakland As, and later his only big-league save. He was released at the end of the 1993 season and didnt return to the majors. In time, he went into mortgage banking. Then, five or six years ago, he stumbled into something he never would have expected. His brother is a lawyer. One day, he called Matt up and somewhat out of the blue suggested professional mixed martial artists needed an association like athletes had in other pro sports. Before the conversation was over, Maysey was involved with the Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association. Never heard of it? No worries. Youre not alone. Maysey admits its been a struggle to get much traction. With one organization the Ultimate Fighting Championship owning most of the sport, fighters are scared to join the MMAFA for fear of being blackballed. You want to make demands? Fine, well find someone else to fight. See ya. Its not about that, he insists. Its not a union, its an association. Its not about playing hardball, its about helping fighters in other ways. Still, that�s a hard case to make with most. His job is making contact with trainers mainly, and explaining to them how this can help them and their fighters. It�s a tough sell. He acknowledges, for it to take off, a few of the biggest-name fighters will have to sign on. Guys who sell tickets and who aren�t easy for the UFC to replace. Is he optimistic that�s going to happen? �Yeah,� he says. �We put a lot of time and energy into this sucker. I�m praying.� In the meantime, he�s sticking close to his true love. All these years after throwing his final big-league pitch in a game Sept. 28, 1993 � he lost that day to the Jays � he�s never really been far from baseball. In addition to offering private instruction and his high school work, he�s coached travel teams with kids as young as nine years old in his baseball-crazy adopted city. Pearland has so many kids playing Little League, they had to divide the kids into two leagues. And they have so many good kids playing that one of those leagues went to the Little League World Series American final last year. �Baseball here is like hockey up there,� he says. So has he ever thought of bringing some of his Canadian roots to Texas and switching to teaching hockey? To maybe bump up its presence in the south? He laughs. �I�ll stay in this.�

12/30/12
Thanks to high achievement on Advanced Placement exams, 242 Dawson and Pearland high school students have earned AP Scholar Awards.