(From the league offices in Dublin):

The Golden Baseball League announced OF Kane Simmons of the Reno Silver Sox and RHP Jeremy Zick of the Long Beach Armada have been named Player and Pitcher of Week Five. Sponsored by Spalding Baseball, these weekly awards recognize the most outstanding position player and pitcher in the league each week.

Kane Simmons, 23, the Reno Silver Sox outfielder goes back-to-back as he repeats his last week’s award winning performance with even better numbers this past week. He is the first two-time winner of the award in the GBL this year. Just signed on June 27th after completing his collegiate career at NCAA Division 1 Belmont University where he led his team in home runs, RBIs, and slugging percentage while garnering all-conference honors, the slugging lefty led the GBL in hitting for the week with a .522 average, in home runs with 3, in runs with 9, in RBIs with 11, and in Slugging Avg. at 1.087. Although joining the league late due to college graduation, he now leads the GBL in home runs with 9 while only having played 16 of the first 37 games.

Jeremy Zick, 24, was moved from the bullpen into a starting role for the Long Beach Armada early in the season and has responded by posting an undefeated record and leading the league in E.R.A. Last week he continued his dominance as he pitched 8 scoreless innings, giving up only 2 hits and striking out 8 while walking only a single batter as we went 1-0. Originally drafted in the 15th round by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004, he spent three years in their farm system advancing to the Single-A team before being released. All 57 of his games in the Cardinals organization were as a reliever where he utilized his mid-90s fastball as a closer and in middle relief. Starting for the first time in his career, he is now one of the top starters in professional independent baseball.