Here are a few tids and bits as we were given a nice surprise by Mother Nature with a gorgeous Sunday:

—- Chad Epperson has made it to Fenway Park, or will soon when the Sox return home, in the third base coaches box in the wake of Alex Cora firing. Epperson has gotten rave reviews over the years from his players including former Silver Knight Mickey Gasper.

Who is Chad Epperson, some may ask?Well he was the coach-like catcher on the 2000 Atlantic League champion Nashua Pride, a team that season that oculd be the best professonal team Nashua has ever seen. He was beloved by his manager, Butch Hobson, and you could tell he was a manager in waiting. He’s been in Portland as the Sea Dogs manager since 2022 but for 12 years was the Sox catching coordinator. The guess here is it won’t be long before he’s managing in the Major Leagues.

—- What a time in Nashua sports as the athletes who were just youths a decade ago with big time dreams are now on the verge of having the chance to live them, and see those dreams possibly come true. In the days and weeks that follow Nashua North alum Curtis Harris-Lopez and former Nashua South standout Jason Compoh will hope for a possible NFL minicamp invite, etc.. Compoh also has a standing invitation from Toronto of the CFL.

And how about Eubeka Okorie? When has a Nashua athlete ever declared himself eligible in the modern NBA era for the NBA Draft? Think about that. There’s never a dull moment.

—- Congrats to Nashua’s Jack Young for his entire march through the Elks Hoop Shoot from the Nashua competition through the district, state level, regionals all the way to the Nationals. It’s the second time in four years a Nashua athlete made the Nationals, and it’s a long standing local tradition. The Elks treat these kids like royalty, and that’s great.

The Nashua Elks and the youths had one of the best advocates they could ever have in the great late Al Savage, who pounded out press release after press release at every level of competition. The publicity was fantastic, and you have to know that with the local success the program has had lately that Savage would be extremely proud. Not only was he a great organizer, he was the biggest advocate these youths could ever have. He is missed, but their success is a tribute to him and the dedicated work he did.

—– We’ve seen a few games lately as the spring high school season has begun, and we come to the conclusion we’ve had for the last several years: The sport of baseball in the Nashua area is in trouble, especially in the city limits. If you look above to the lead of this column on the athletes looking to move on to the highest levels, when is the last time that’s happened here in baseball? Of course, there’s Gasper and Amherst’s Cam Devaney – he is now playing in Japan, by the way – but they were from past eras and not from Nashua per se. The bottom line is this: a well-played, and especially well-pitched, high school game is an extreme rarity these days. But if you braved the cold and saw the pitchers duel between Nashua South lefty Brendon Doughty and Bishop Guertin righty Ben Geiger, you got a baseball treat. Doughty repeated that on Saturday with a complete game shutout. We need more of those.

—- If the New England Patriots, as expected, give up a No. 1 pick in any post June 1 trade for Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown, they’re nuts. Not worth it. You want to get younger, faster, etc. Dealing top picks for veteran receivers just not the way to go. Sure, Brown is 28, but the key is drafting someone seven, six years younger and cheaper. Every year there seems to be the chase for the veteran star receiver. How about drafting one for a change?

—- It looks like, once the NHIAA Council approves everything in May, that hockey players who attend Souhegan will have a place to play next winter, the most logical place – with the current Alvirne-Milford co-op. That didn’t happen this past season because there were only a couple of Saber players and an Alvirne-Souhegan-Milford tri-op by enrollment would have had to move up to Division I; there aren’t any petitions in the middle of a two-year cycle. Now that cycle is up, there are said to be a few more players and a school that had a once-proud program can have its name on a program again, the Admirals.

—- Congrats and best of luck to James Mulvey, the city of Nashua’s Stellos Stadium caretaker, who retired last weekend. Before he was a Stellos, Mulvey worked at Holman Stadium and took great care of both facilities. But we’ll always remember him yelling up at yours truly in the Holman press box from home plate blaming us for a Silver Knights game that lasted an eternity in extras. What did we do? We mentioned how it had happened a year earlier and could go that long again. Oops. Seriously, you’ll be missed James.

—- Some 30 years ago then-Telegraph assistant sports editor Steve Daley wrote “Dem Little Bums”, a spectacular book about the Nashua Dodgers and how Nashua/Holman was the site of the U.S. Baseball color barrier being broken.

Another book has been written about the same topic, this time by New Hampshire writer Bill Ranuaro. He’ll be at Balin Books at Somerset Plaza of Amherst Street in Nashua next Saturday, May 2 at 2 p.m. to talk about the book, “The Chosen City”. If Balin sounds familiar, it’s the same bookstore where former Celtics great Robert Parish had his book signing last month. You can call the store for more info.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on X, formerly known as twitter, @Telegraph _TomK.