JOHNSTOWN —
Former Baltimore AAABA pitcher Gavin Floyd was named American League pitcher of the month in July.
The 6-foot-6 right-hander went 3-1 with a 0.80 ERA in five starts last month. He allowed just three earned runs in 33 2⁄3 innings. He finished July with back-to-back scoreless outings.
Floyd’s gotten off to a great start in August as well. He took a perfect game into the sixth inning against Oakland on Aug. 2, then had another quality start in beating Baltimore on Saturday.
He is 6-1 with a 1.17 ERA in his past nine outings.
Floyd played for Baltimore in the 2000 AAABA Tournament.
As a 17-year-old, Floyd consistently threw in the 90s and mixed in a breaking ball in the mid-80s as the Maryland Orioles edged Johnstown’s Galliker Dairy 4-1 on the second night of the 56th annual tournament.
The Phillies selected Floyd in the first round, with the fourth pick overall, in the 2001 draft.
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Champions league: Baltimore has a tournament-best 26 championships and six runner-up finishes.
New Orleans won its 13th AAABA Tournament crown last summer and the Boosters also have 10 second-place finishes.
Neither of the next two franchises on the all-time list are here this year.
Washington D.C., with 10 championships and 12 runner-up places, pulled out just prior to last year’s event and isn’t eligible to participate this time.
Washington has been in and out of the tournament picture for various reasons since the mid-2000s.
Detroit, with seven titles and five second place finishes, hasn’t been in the tournament since 1994.
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High or low?: Johnstown’s Delweld had the opportunity to play in either the upper or lower bracket as the city playoff champion, according to national tournament rules.
“When there was only one team from Johnstown it was written in the rulebook that (Johnstown AAABA League Commissioner) Dr. Hartnett is to inform the national committee on whether the Johnstown representative was going to play in the upper or lower bracket,” Austin said.
With two Johnstown teams, Austin said, the playoff champion is the official representative.
Despite the option to choose, Johnstown traditionally had participated in the lower bracket for the past two decades. Delweld did so again this year.
When the two-bracket system first was implemented in 1981, the upper bracket included eight franchises that finished in the top half of the standings the previous tournament.
Regional tournament finishes also were taken into consideration.
Later, Johnstown was given the option of playing in the lower bracket each year, AAABA executive John Austin said.
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On the air: The familiar AAABA radio broadcast team of Don Stanton and John DeFazio will call the games on 1490 WNTJ AM and 990 WNTW AM.
Stanton is working his 24nd AAABA Tournament, and DeFazio, his 26th.
The pair will call tonight’s Johnstown Delweld game against Cleveland starting at 7:20 p.m., with the rest of the broadcasts starting at 6:50 p.m.
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On the net: The Tribune-Democrat will be providing live scoring updates throughout the tournament on Twitter. Just follow @TribDemSports to find out what's happening in the tournament.
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