[7/22/03]Some of the finest baseball players from Warren Central will return to play in a Saturday doubleheader beginning at 6 p.m. at Bazinsky Field.

Former Vikings stars Taylor Tankersley, Brian Pettway, John Morgan Mims, Kevin Coker, Joey Lieberman and Bo Newton will return as part of the Semi-Pro 96ers, comprised of standout college and minor-league players from the Jackson and Vicksburg regions.

“It’s been fun getting back with all these guys that I haven’t played with,” said Coker, a catcher for Southern Miss and coach of the Vikings’ summer league team. “We still do the same handshakes we did back at Warren Central.”

The 96ers will face the Southland Hogs from New Orleans in an exhibition to prepare for the National Baseball Congress World Series, which begins Aug. 1 in Wichita, Kan.

After winning last weekend’s Mississippi semi-pro state tournament, the 96ers are one of 48 teams to qualify for the national tournament.

The 96ers began as a group of players between high school and college looking to play summer baseball. When they got too old for AAU, they began competing as a semi-pro team.

“We’re mostly a college team and we’ll be playing a lot of ex-minor leaguers and big leaguers,” 96ers manager Joe McCaskill said.

The players will have to make the adjustment to playing with wooden bats. Coker said playing with wooden bats can help other teams with older players.

“It’s an advantage because they’ve done it in their careers,” he said. “They’ve gotten paid to do that.”

Pitchers, such as Ole Miss’ Pettway, are looking forward to the wooden bats.

“It’s a lot easier pitching to guys with wooden bats,” Pettway said. “Trying to hit with them is going to be a different story.”

The Hogs will compete in a tournament of their own the United States Baseball Congress World Series beginning next week in Evansville, Ind., after they won Alabama’s state tournament.

Most of the Hogs are from a 100-mile radius of the New Orleans area, but they have several players from outside the state, including Alabama and California.

“We’ve been playing this stuff since 1989 when the kids got to be 19 and had nothing to do,” Hogs coach Joe Tevton said.

In their 14 years, the Hogs have featured 91 Division-I players, and 11 have gone on to play in the majors.

The 96ers (20-2) have defeated the Hogs (37-6) all five times they’ve played this year, but each game has been very close. A friendly rivalry has developed between the teams as the Hogs knocked the 96ers out of the state tournament the past two years.

Both teams hope the two games will provided a good warmup as they head into their respective tournaments.

“It’s going to help us fine-tune our defense and pitching,” Pettway said. “And it’ll help keep our hitters on top of the ball heading into the tournament.”

They also hope to provide some entertainment for fans as the game will have no admission charge at the gate and an autograph-signing session between games.

“To have that many great players and great minor leaguers on the field at the same time and the Governor’s Cup right next door, it’s going to be a lot of fun,” said 96ers coach Sam Temple, who coached Warren Central to a state championship in 2001.

Coker is looking forward to returning to play for the home crowd.

“I heard we were playing in Vicksburg and it fired me up,” Coker said. “This will be good for Vicksburg and good for Warren Central baseball.”