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PSU media day notes: Barkley, Franklin and position battles

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Big rise in number of Justice Department active leak probes

<p>MOOSIC &#8212; Mason Williams met 12-year-old Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders fan Mark DeVoe, or &#8220;Marky&#8221; as the outfielder calls him, a couple of years ago before one of his games.</p><p>But DeVoe is special.</p><p>Despite battling Choroideremia, a rare retinal disease that causes progressive vision loss, DeVoe still continues to play baseball in his hometown of Washington, N.J.</p><p>At the moment, DeVoe can see during the day but has trouble seeing out of one eye during the night.</p><p>&#8220;I kind of just fell in love with him and his family and just listened to each other&#8217;s stories and basically listened to what he was going through,&#8221; Williams said. &#8220;I just thought to myself what I can do to help because, as being an athlete, sometimes, I guess, I have a platform that other people don&#8217;t have and I want to take advantage of that.&#8221;</p><p>After building a relationship with Athletes Brand, a fashion brand developed by athletes, during its Striking Out Poverty campaign in May, Williams decided to take a more active role in helping to fight Choroideremia.</p><p>He decided to develop a T-shirt through Athletes Brand to raise money for Choroideremia. The proceeds will go to the Choroideremia Research Foundation.</p><p>&#8220;You guys see me in here, I&#8217;m usually a clown most of the days,&#8221; Williams said. &#8220;I&#8217;m just all into being yourself and being into who you really are because at the end of the day, the only person you really have is yourself. I just want to be true to myself and same thing for everyone else. I just want them to be themselves.</p><p>&#8220;Now that I&#8217;m doing this shirt on my own right now, I&#8217;m just real fortunate and just blessed to be &#8212; like have &#8212; an opportunity to help and reach others who are going through the same thing Marky&#8217;s going through.&#8221;</p><p>The New York Yankees-themed shirt will be sold on AthletesBrand.com until Monday.</p><p><strong>State of the IL</strong></p><p>International League president and treasurer Randy Mobley spoke to members of the media in Moosic on Tuesday. Highlights included time of play, extra innings, the use of video replay and the change of schedule next season.</p><p>In its third year with a pitch clock, Mobley is generally pleased with its impact on games. Even though &#8220;there are probably still some more tweaks to be had&#8221; he believes they&#8217;ve eliminated most of the idle time between innings and pitches.</p><p>While game length of time has remained the same in the MLB, they&#8217;re up seven minutes from last year in the International League, according to Mobley. He attributes it to the raise in strikeouts and walks.</p><p>&#8220;If there are more time-related adjustments to be made, I think we probably are now looking at the game itself,&#8221; Mobley said. &#8220;People like to talk about the number of trips to the mound. People like to talk about the number of pitching changes.&#8221;</p><p>While the rookie levels of the minor leagues are putting a runner on second base at a point in extra innings, it&#8217;s not something that the International League &#8220;was interested in for this year and I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s something we&#8217;d be interested in for next year.&#8221;</p><p>Video replay isn&#8217;t a topic that has came up in league meetings recently.</p><p>Mobley said the biggest challenge is the finances because not every ballpark has the ability to provide the needed camera angles.</p><p>&#8220;I often say I&#8217;ve learned over the years not to say never because I would have never dreamed that we would have graphic artists a part of front offices designing scoreboard animations because we do or having grounds keepers with graduate degrees &#8212; we do,&#8221; Mobley said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t see instant replay coming any time soon, but I&#8217;d hesitate to say never.&#8221;</p><p>The International League will reduce the number of games it plays from 142, which was the number this season, to 140 in 2018.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s been received OK,&#8221; Mobley said. &#8220;There are more off days in the schedule, and next year there will be even more, but it has an economic impact on the operations of the clubs. We want to have this nice new ballparks and the amenities that go with it, but that all costs money and the fewer times that you can open your gates, it has a cost effect.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Andujar stays hot</strong></p><p>RailRiders third baseman Miguel Andujar went 3-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored to extend his hitting streak to 17 games. That&#8217;s the second-best active hitting streak heading into Saturday&#8217;s game against Pawtucket.</p><p>Red-hot at the plate as of late, he&#8217;s 28 for 68 in his last 17 games, boosting his Triple-A batting average to .341.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Mason Williams&#8217; vision for his &#8220;Be You&#8221; shirt is simple. &#8220;I&#8217;m just all into being yourself and being into who you really are because at the end of the day, the only person you really have is yourself,&#8221; the RailRiders outfielder said. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/web1_Mason-Williams-Be-You-CMYK.jpg</photo0><caption0>Mason Williams&#8217; vision for his &#8220;Be You&#8221; shirt is simple. &#8220;I&#8217;m just all into being yourself and being into who you really are because at the end of the day, the only person you really have is yourself,&#8221; the RailRiders outfielder said. </caption0><photoCredit0>Photo provided </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/web1_Mason-and-Mark.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders outfielder Mason Williams, left, created an Athletes Brand &#8220;Be You&#8221; t-shirt in honor of Mark DeVoe, right, and his fight against Choroideremia. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/web1_Mason-and-Mark.jpg</photo1><caption1>Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders outfielder Mason Williams, left, created an Athletes Brand &#8220;Be You&#8221; t-shirt in honor of Mark DeVoe, right, and his fight against Choroideremia. </caption1><photoCredit1>Photo provided </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By DJ Eberle</p><p>djeberle@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach DJ Eberle at 570-991-6398 or on Twitter @ByDJEberle</p></shirttailMeta></div>

RailRiders Weekend Notebook: Mason Williams doing his part to raise awareness for Choroideremia