Albion

Town of Batavia's newest fire truck, Ladder 25, saw its first live firefighting Thursday at the large factory fire in Albion. Photo by John Spaulding, a Livingston County-based fire services photographer. For complete coverage of the fire and its aftermath, visit Orleans Hub and scroll down.

CORECTION: First structure fire. The truck was used in Ed Arnold Scrap fire. 

If you're looking for coverage of the homicide in the parking lot of Walmart in Albion, The Batavian won't be covering the story. We concentrate our limited resources on Genesee County.

However, WBTA has coverage.

Friday night, in the bottom of the fifth inning, Batavia Muckdogs infielder Alan Ahmady smashed a home run over The Batavian's right field promotional sign.  The opposite field shot from the right-handed slugger made the game an especially memorable one for Jacoby Miller of Albion.  Miller was the lucky fan that night to have his name drawn in The Batavian's Fifth Inning Home Run Contest.  He won $250, which he picked up at The Batavian's office this afternoon.  We also presented him with an autographed baseball from Ahmady.

Ahmady, from Fresno Calif. (my parents and a brother live just a couple of hours south in the same San Joaquin Valley in Bakersfield), is one of the Cardinals top prospects.  Maybe some day that autographed ball will be worth more than $250.

The home run was Ahmady's first as a professional player (just to be clear, the autographed ball is not the one he hit over the sign -- I don't know what happened to that ball -- hopefully it was retrieved and given to Ahmady for his own collection).

Miller's father, Kevin, said Friday night, "This is something he will never forget."  Today, Kevin Miller told me he and both his sons are huge baseball fans and they attend many Muckdogs games.

Albion grad Derek Kinder was just selected with the 251st overall selection in the seventh round by the Chicago Bears.

Kinder was a standout running back for the Purple Eagles and was switched to wide receiver at the University of Pittsburgh. He tore his ACL during his senior year and received an injury red shirt.

He bounced back this season to catch 36 passes for 422 yards and three touchdowns.

It was reported that Kinder had worked out for Chicago and Cincinnati in the weeks prior to the NFL Draft.

A 60-year old Darien Center man has been charged with one count of committing a criminal sexual act in the third degree as well as one count of official misconduct after an investigation into an incident at Albion Correctional Facility.

Samuel E. Williams is receiving the charge after the State Police and Department of Corrections investigated an allegation made by a female inmate in the fall of last year, stating the civilian employee made inappropriate sexual contact.

Williams is scheduled to appear in Albion court on March 24.

Back in 1982, the Batavia Lions Club and Pete Arras decided putting together a basketball tournament would be a good idea to give some good basketball teams a chance to play on the court at Genesee Community College and make it possible for Batavia and Notre Dame to play each other.

Little could anybody have known, here we are in 2008 and the tournament is stronger than ever. It is also probably regarded as one of, if not, the best boys basketball holiday tournament in Section 5. There are typically around 2,000 people that attend the tournament at GCC every year.

That original tournament featured Batavia, Notre Dame, a very good Byron-Bergen squad and Albion. (The photo above is the original photo of the coaches).

With the Fighting Irish and Bees hooking up late in the previous season, so that was a great way to start the tourney. The two squads played in February with B-B winning 51-48. 

The opening round rematch was a stunner, with Byron-Bergen knocking off Notre Dame 54-43. Albion knocked off Batavia 62-45 

The Bees went on to claim the first Batavia Lions Club championship with 35-30 win over Albion, with Bill Ferris claiming the MVP trophy.

Ferris was also the MVP in the second year as the Bees routed ND 47-30 and then Batavia 80-43.

Notre Dame was the favorite when they matched up with B-B in the finals in the tournament's third year, but it was again the Bees claiming the title with a 52-48 victory. Notre Dame's Jim Pursel was actually the MVP of that tournament, mostly because of his 29 point effort in the opening round win over Albion.

History was made in 1985 when Batavia and Notre Dame finally had a chance to play each other in the finals. With ND playing in the Genesee Region League and Batavia in the Monroe County League, these teams never get a shot to go against each other.

Tournament MVP Ron Nenni dropped in 20 points and the Fighting Irish toppled Batavia 65-52.

The tournament has seen many changes in participants over the years, with teams like Oakfield-Alabama, Attica, John Marshall, Nichols, Bishop Timon, Perry, Williamsville North, Akron, Pembroke, Le Roy, Caledonia-Mumford, Iroquois and Alexander all having experienced playing in the classic tournament.

Despite not winning until 1989, Batavia leads the tournament with wins with 13. The Blue Devils have won the last four titles, and seven of eight. Timon knocked Batavia off in overtime in the opening round of the 2003 tournament and then toppled Notre Dame 48-44 in the finals.

Byron-Bergen - which hasn't played in the tournament since 1994 is tied with Notre Dame for  second in tournament titles with five. 

Perry has won two championships and Timon has the other.

There have been some special performances over the years. The most recent was by Batavia's Michael Chmielowiec - a senior at the University of Rochester - who set the single game scoring record with 40 points against Bishop Timon in 2004. He also owns the tournament scoring mark with 64 points.

There have been four other 30-plus point performances: Tom McCulley of Notre Dame dropped in 38 in 1991, Batavia's Phil Santiago scored 35 points in 2002, PJ Leavy of Batavia had 33 in 1995 and Notre Dame's Tim Wascott had 32 in 2002.

Leavy had 57 points in that 95 tournament, Albion's Ernie McDonald had 49 total points in 1983 and Batavia's Rick Lundy had 48 in 1997.

This year's tournament features the same four teams that have been in the last three tournaments. Batavia opens up against Albion at 7 p.m. Monday night, with Notre Dame and Perry following at 8:45 p.m.

The consolation game is at 7 p.m. Tuesday with the finals at 8:45 p.m.

Admission is only $2, includes a program with rosters and money raised helps the Lions Club to provide scholarships to local students.

If you are interested in checking out basically the entire history of the tournament, check out this link on Flickr for over 80 photos and stories from tournaments in the past.

Here is a link to the entire history of the tournament, with the scores for every opening round, consolation and championship game as well as MVP of that year's tournament.

Also, feel free to share past memories if you've played or watched memorable tournaments.

Also, here is the video from this year's team at the Lions Club dinner introducing the teams.

(most clips in the post and flickr gallery are used with permission from The Daily News)

Joanne Beck covered last night's meeting of the Batavia City Council in a pair of articles in today's Daily News. Both stories—a parking ban on Oak Street and a discussion on changing the city's system for payment of trash collection—were featured on WBTA this morning. The Batavian referenced both articles in our morning news roundup.

Genesee County sheriff's deputies are looking into a string of complaints about a contractor not providing services that were paid for in advance. Lakeside Home Beautification, operated by Martin A. Miller, is based in Stafford. One homeowner, Jennifer Taberski, told Scott DeSmit that she paid Miller $3,800 to fix their roof in June. Nothing has yet been done, and her money was never returned, she claims. "He basically kidnapped my money," she said. Another homeowner was recently refunded their $1,750 after Miller allegedly failed to repair a roof.

DeSmit reports:

Miller, 48, served two one-year jail terms from a criminal case in Wyoming County.

He pleaded guilty in 2002 to four counts of petit larceny for scheming people out of more than $12,000.

Sheriff's deputies are encouraging anyone with information about Miller, or anyone looking to make a complaint, to contact them at (585) 343-5000.

In other news, Virginia Kropf put together a folksy piece on five Albion families who got together Monday for a reunion of their golden retrivers, all of which—unbeknownst to the owners—came from the same Valentine's Day litter. Interesting.

We encourage you to pick up a copy of the Daily News at your local newsstand. Or, better yet, subscribe at BataviaNews.com.

A dozen prison farms across the state will be closed down over the next six months, according to WBTA's Dan Fischer. That includes the farm in Attica. The State Department of Corrections has said that the cost of maintaining the farms exceeds the revenue brought in by the produce. Don't know about anyone else, but I was surprised to hear that these farms still existed.

A JP Morgan Call Center based in Albion will remain open, and its 850 employees will remain at work. Fischer reports that there had been concern over whether the center would remain open after Chase acquired Washington Mutual two months ago.