© Associated Press A man places flowers in front Hank Aaron's home run wall, left from when Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium was demolished. Aaron, who hit his record-breaking 715th home run there on April 8, 1974, died Friday.

Illinois Elementary School Association 1015 Maple Hill Road, Bloomington, IL 61705 - PH: 309-829-0114 - FAX: 309-829-0625 Contact the IESA - https://www.iesa.org. . Final validation in Production Content Migration 50. Recreate customizations from 2007 that the business needs to carry forward into 2013. Can be done in parallel to Content Migration Customization Migration 51. Final backup. Turn off VMs. Wait to see if anyone screams “My data!”. Release resources All done! The Black Bears are looking for their fifth win in a row tonight in this game while Decatur hopes to end that losing skid. Austin is coming off of a 45-14 victory over Hartselle in their first. Adcock paid respect to the teams he believes helped Decatur prepare for the moments that it faced in a win-or-go-home situation against Benjamin Russell. Adcock said his team learned plenty from games against Class 6A Huntsville and Austin and 5A Russellville and J.O.

Back in the early 1990s, my life revolved around sports.

Baseball, in particular.

I couldn’t get enough.

I’d played as a youth and at Mukwonago High School. And when I wasn’t playing, odds were I was at County Stadium, watching the Milwaukee Brewers.

I’d just landed a job as an agate clerk at the Milwaukee Sentinel – taking high school results over the phone, updating standings and formatting box scores – with my eyes on one day, hopefully, becoming a sportswriter. Never in my wildest dreams could I have guessed that in 2021 I’d be entering my 11th year covering the Brewers, or that I'd just sent in my first Hall of Fame ballot.

But here we are.

Anyway, I attended most of those games with one of my best friends, Mark Grunske.

A fellow baseball nut who just so happened to be a budding entrepreneur, Mark rolled the dice late in his teenage years and began promoting sports card shows and autograph signings in the Milwaukee area.

He did well from the outset. And what a boon that turned out to be for me.

I quickly became one of the go-to guys for these events – especially when it came to the autograph guests.

Airport pickups and drop-offs were my specialty. Manning the autograph tables became another staple. Taking tickets and handling pens was a small price to pay for the opportunity to spend a few hours interacting with some of the game’s greats.

Willie Stargell. Harmon Killebrew. Enos Slaughter. Bobby Doerr. Billy Herman. Hal Newhouser.

Then there were the hometown heroes, the 1957 Milwaukee Braves.

Warren Spahn. Eddie Mathews. Red Schoendienst. Joe Adcock. Lew Burdette. Bob Buhl. Del Crandall. Johnny Logan. And so on.

All their playing careers had long since ended by the time I began truly following the game, but I knew how special they were. And here I was getting to help them out, listen to their stories, go out for meals with them, watch them interact with the fans who were old enough to have seen them play and still salty about how they had been stolen away from Milwaukee.

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While the Brewers were embarking on what would be a long, painful period in those early ’90s, Mark had brought most of the ’57 Braves back to Milwaukee to a great response.

But there had been one notable player absent from the list: The Hammer.

No question, there was no name bigger than Hank Aaron, no former Milwaukee Brave more in demand. And when he was finally locked into making an appearance at State Fair Park, I had my fingers crossed that I would be the one chosen to sit next to the game’s greatest power hitter.

That’s exactly what happened.

But any hopes I had of chatting him up or listening to him tell stories were quickly dashed. Hundreds and hundreds of people lined up and wound their way through what is now the Cream Puff Pavilion on the State Fair grounds and they all had items to be signed.

Aaron arrived, and after a quick introduction he made his way to the table. And for the next three-plus hours he signed. And shook hands. And signed. And shook hands. And signed some more.

He couldn’t have been more gracious.

All the while I took the tickets, handed him the bats, balls and pictures and handed him the correct pens (caps off, writing end down each time).

Then, without smudging the signature, I’d get the items back to their rightful owners.

Final Ninjaadcock Games By: Austin Adcock Jr

It was tough to keep up, but my focus was solely on getting the job done. As a result, those three or so hours flew by, and before long his time was up.

Other than pointing to where things needed to be signed or passing along specific requests, I never really had the opportunity to talk to him.

Bummer, but still a terrific experience.

He made his way to a side office where he concluded his business. Then he shook the hands of the few lucky employees who were inside (me included) and took a couple pictures while his agent, Bob Allen, pulled a car alongside the building.

Final Ninjaadcock Games By: Austin Adcock 2020

As Aaron bid adieu, he asked me to follow him outside.

And I did, wondering, what could he want?

He made the short walk to the car, opened the passenger door and ducked in for a moment. I stood a few feet away, waiting nervously. Then he turned around, walked up to me and stuck out his right hand for another handshake.

I reached out, grabbed his hand and shook it again.

Except this time, I felt something in my palm.

As I pulled my hand back, I looked down.

I couldn’t believe what I saw.

A crisp, neatly folded $100 bill.

At first, I was confused. Then it hit me.

“I can’t accept this, Mr. Aaron,” I stammered. 'It was my pleasure.'

“You earned it, son,” he said with a smile. “Thanks for all your help today.”

Then he got into the car and it pulled away, leaving me dumbstruck.

Final Ninjaadcock Games By: Austin Adcock &

Baseball’s home run king, the man who broke Babe Ruth’s record, had just tipped me $100.

For doing something I would have paid him several hundred dollars for the chance to do.

It still blows my mind to this day.

In hindsight, as a late 40-something, I can say with certainty that I should have kept that $100 bill and framed it.

But the brain of an early 20-something doesn’t work quite the same way.

So, I did the next-best thing with that $100.

I spent it later that night on a Sega Genesis game system.

I know, I know.

But also, know this: In the years that followed, every time I played it – and believe me, I played it a lot – I smiled and thought about how lucky I was.

I still have that Sega Genesis. And it still works.

And this weekend I’m going to walk past the PS4, fire up the Sega Genesis and play a few games on it to honor one of the greatest ever in my own, unique way.

Thanks again, Mr. Aaron.

And rest well.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 'Thanks again, Mr. Aaron': Nearly three decades later, a once-in-a-lifetime meeting remains indelible

Lancashire official James Adcock is the man in the middle on Saturday as QPR visit the New York Stadium in Rotherham for the first time.

Referee >>> James Adcock (Nottinghamshire), refereed QPR twice during the 2013/14 promotion season, but not since.

Assistants >>> Nick Greenhalgh (Lancashire) and Michael Denton (Lancashire)

Fourth Official >>>> Darren Drysdale (Lincolnshire)

As the half trundled laboriously to its conclusion, Assou-Ekotto neatly summarised the less than inspiring proceedings by foul throwing the ball five-year-old-style six inches from his head and watching it literally plop onto the ground – ground which he surely would have wished would swallow him up if he actually gave a shit.

The rest of the first half was for the most part fairly innocuous sparring. The lesser-spotted Luke Young blocked Rhodes with a last ditch tackle; Simpson earned a yellow for a rash challenge on Conway; Green saved from Rhodes after Gestede flicked on Spurr’s bullet throw; and Morrison had a sumptuous volley well saved by the reliable Robinson after a pull back from Benayoun.

Blackburn Rovers: Robinson 7, Keane 6, Hanley (c) 7, Kilgallon 7, Spurr 7, Cairney 6, Lowe 7, Williamson 6 (Etuhu 85’), Conway 7, Gestede 8, Rhodes 7.

Goals: Gestede, Spurr

QPR: Green 4, Simpson 6, Dunne 5, Young 5, Assou Ekotto 6 (Yun 77’), Hoillet 5, Henry 5, Benayoun 5, Carroll 5 (Maiga 68’), Morrison 7, Keane 5 (Austin 68’)7

Booked: Simpson

Referee: James Adcock 6

The introduction of Bobby Zamora for a hot-headed Austin, who needlessly got involved with Marc Tierney and picked up a booking, signalled QPR’s intent for the final 20 minutes. This is what Zamora does well, supposedly, holding the play up and slowing the game down by keeping the ball. It was hardly an inspiring cameo though, yet his work-rate couldn’t be questioned.

Bolton: A Bogdan 6; A Baptiste 6, Z Knight 7, D Wheater 7, M Tierney 6; T Ream 5 (R Hall 72 7), M Kamara 7, J Spearing 8, C Lee 7; J Beckford 5 (C Davies 67 6), D Ngog 5 (Moritz 67 6).

Subs Not Used: A Lonergan, T Mears, M Mills, O Odelusi

Bookings: Tierney 58 (unsporting behaviour)

QPR: R Green 8; D Simpson 7, R Dunne 7, N Onuoha 8, C Hill 8; S Wright-Phillips 6 (Traore 6), K Henry 8, J Barton 6, G O'Neil 7; A Johnson 7 (Jenas -) C Austin 6 (Zamora 71 6)

Subs not used: B Murphy, Y Suk-Young, T Hitchcock, A Faurlin.

Goals: Johnson 54 (assisted Hill)

Bookings: Dunne 8 (foul), Barton 21 (foul), Henry 49 (foul), Austin 58 (unsporting behaviour), Simpson 84 (foul), Onuoha 87 (foul).

Referee – James Adcock (South Yorkshire) 5 An early booking to Richard Dunne for some reason meant every other wrongly timed tackle was a booking. QPR picked up six yellow cards during a pretty timid affair.

Adcock has refereed 17 matches this season, but only four of those in the Championship. Ominously, he's yet to send a player off in 2015/16. He's booked 43 in those appointments, but never more than four in a single game – he's done that on four occasions so far.

Last season he showed 116 yellows and nine reds in 37 games. I'm not sure everything was alright at home over Christmas, because eight of those dismissals came in a prolific 12 match run over December and January. That included two sendings off at Wigan v Fulham in the Championship. His last Rotherham game was a 3-1 home defeat by Cardiff in March.

League One >>> Andre Marriner, who dropped out of the Swansea v Sunderland match this week with disastrous consequences, returns at Coventry v Burton this weekend.

League Two >>> Trevor Kettle has Accrington v Portsmouth.

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