With the crazy stats floating around the baseball and softball world, there should almost be a carnival barker announcing them to the world.

“See PN-G’s amazing 17-game winning streak that keeps growing and growing. Marvel at the astronomical strikeout totals by Nederland’s Brett Brown. Be astounded by the unfortunate history made by that Lady Bulldog team against 17-4A.”

Sorry to disappoint, but the carnival just left town. All you’re left with is me, but I’m about to drop some knowledge on you, statistic-style.

Let’s start with Brown. He finished the season with 164 strikeouts. That’s not quite as high as we predicted he might go, but it’s still good enough to put him in some very elite company.

For instance, Brown now is second in the nation in strikeouts, behind Converse, Lousiana’s Dillon Crane, who has 180 Ks, according to MaxPreps.com. Brown leads the state of Texas right now, ahead of second-place by 10 strikeouts.

That second place contender is Joseph Gonzalez of San Antonio Brackenridge, who’s listed as second in the nation on Max Preps, but who only has 154 strikeouts.

Let’s move further down the line. Brown’s strikeout total was more than all but four pitchers had last season, more than all but eight in 2010 and more than all but three in 2009. That means that in Brown’s four-year high school career, only 15 pitchers posted season numbers better than he did.

In the entire nation.

If that’s not enough to impress, let’s keep moving. What about recent high school draft picks or prospects for this June’s draft? Brown had more than the fourth overall pick last season, Oklahoma high schooler Dylan Bundy, who had just 158 in 71 innings last season. He also has more than both California high schoolers Max Fried and Lucas Giolito, Florida high schooler Lance McCullers and Ohio high schooler Matthew Smoral. All of those players are projected as first-round draft picks this season and Brown had better strikeout numbers than all of them.

Moving further along, Brown’s total strikeouts would lead the entire NCAA in Division I, Division II and Division III. The current DI leader is Duke right-hander Marcus Stroman, who has 119, while the DII leader is J.J. Jankowski with 126 and Trinity College’s Ben Klimesh leads DIII with 142.

The Southland leader this season is Texas State’s Travis Ballew, who has 95 strikeouts. Last year’s SLC leader was Texas State’s Carson Smith who had 129 in 113 innings.

Oh, and just for good measure, Brown’s 164 strikeouts were more than all but 10 minor league pitchers last season.

I think adding that slider to his repertoire worked out just fine.

Nelson’s possibly in good company

Again, I don’t want to jinx him, but it appears that PN-G pitcher/center fielder Jayce Nelson will be in very good company if he does indeed get named to the District 20-4A first team in baseball, football and basketball this season.

Thanks to a couple of astute readers, we’ve got two names from the Indians past who also accomplished the feat. The first comes via Kay Doucet, who pointed out that former standout quarterback Greg Davis was named to the first team in football, basketball and baseball in 1969.

Of course, Davis went on to play quarterback at McNeese State before becoming a highly successful college assistant coach. Davis is currently the offensive coordinator at the University of Iowa.

Jack Herford also pointed out that prior to Davis, Lance VanZandt accomplished the rare four-peat in 1956 and again in 1957. VanZandt is all over the PN-G football record books, but also made the first team in baseball, basketball and track. VanZandt went on to also be a very successful college assistant for Nebraska and coached with Bum and Wade Phillips in the professional ranks.

Nelson was already etched in the PN-G record books for football, but could he possibly have a career ahead of him as an assistant coach as well?

Prom and testing make scheduling tough

Wondering why the Port Neches-Groves baseball team is playing a double-header Friday evening against Mongtomery in the Class 4A area round best-of-three playoff series?

Well, the answer is a simple scheduling nightmare. Both Montgomery and PN-G have their proms scheduled for Saturday night, so neither team liked the idea of playg a doubleheader on Saturday.

So, why not play one game Thursday and another Friday? Or even a Wednesday-Friday split, like PN-G did last week against Baytown Lee? To answer that, you can again look to state testing. The statewide STAR tests are going on for 9th graders this week, meaning no teams can play before Friday.

That leaves both teams in a quandary and is a big reason why they will be playing a night/late night doubleheader Friday. When asked if he wanted the sweep on Friday to keep his prom plans intact, PN-G senior Grant Guidry laughed.

“It’d be nice,” Guidry said. “But it’s really not that big a deal. If it means playing and winning a playoff series, I don’t mind pushing things back a bit Saturday.”

Complicating things further is the weather forecast for Friday, which calls for a 90 percent chance of rain in Baytown. All area round series must be wrapped up by Sunday, May 12, so prom plans may get moved around despite the best laid plans.

Indians keep on winning

The longest winning streak in Major League Baseball history is 20 games. PN-G is just three games behind that after winning 17 straight to this point.

Assuming they play three-game series from now until the state playoffs, that streak could get as high as 27 games. That’d give the Indians a state championship with a 33-3 record, which would be the least losses by a Class 4A state champ since Corpus Christi Calallen went 42-1 in 2008.

The state record for most consecutive wins is 65 by Waxahachie in 1924-27. The national record is 68 games, set in 1963-66 by Briarwood Archbishop Molloy in New York.

Indians head coach Mark Brevell said he couldn’t remember one of his teams ever going on this kind of streak before, but he did have one of his Lumberton squads go 24-3 one season.

Ned softball and the 17-4A jinx

It may not be a thing yet, but the past three seasons has seen a 17-4A school knock the Nederland softball team out of the playoffs. Two seasons ago, it was Magnolia beating them in the regional quarterfinals. The past two seasons, it’s been Montgomery playing the spoilers and marks the third straight playoff series Montgomery has won against Nederland.

Going back to 2004, Nederland is just 1-5 against 17-4A teams, with the lone victory coming against Brenham in 2009.  Four of those losses also came in the area round, ending the Lady Bulldog season earlier than they might have liked.

Is that enough to make Montgomery the playoff foil for Nederland, much like Brenham has proved a worthy playoff foe for PN-G over the years? Maybe not yet, but it sure looks like we’re moving in that direction.