FIRST & GOAL COLUMN: VOTER FRAUD IN THE POLL? SAY IT AIN'T SO

I guess it’s only fitting that this space turned something so innocent into a lighting rod of controversy this past week. After all, my goal was to get people talking about sports in our community in one place. I didn’t, however, expect such craziness from a poll question about the boys basketball season.
The poll started out well, picking up a good amount of votes in its opening day.
But all hell soon broke loose and we had ourselves a wild couple of days that had me writing and uttering the phrases “voter fraud” and “IP addresses” as easily as wins, losses, points and rebounds.
Nevertheless, I tried my best to keep the poll as honest as possible, as we didn’t want to get anywhere near the Nomar Garciaparra controversy of 1999 or the NHL All-Star game voting this year.
Fans around here should remember the Garciaparra episode fairly well. Red Sox fan Chris Nandor, after seeing that Garciaparra was trailing Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter in the AL voting, voted 25,000 times using a computer program. Major League Baseball, however, did manage to figure out what Nandor was up to and disallowed the votes.
Of course, something similar just had to happen in our sports-crazed towns, right?
Votes in our First & Goal poll had to be discounted twice — once because a spammer was up to 100 picks in a manner of minutes for one player, and later from a private business that did the same (in lesser numbers) for another player.
However, when all was said and done — and believe me, I let out a huge sigh of relief because trying to keep everything legit was downright exhausting — we were finally able to crown a true winner.
So, the people have spoken and the player they would select No. 1 overall in an all-town, all-player draft is Bristol Eastern’s Cody Bayne.
And while there were votes spread out among several finalists, I don’t think anyone could argue with Bayne’s selection.
The Eastern scoring machine pulled in 34 percent of the vote. Bristol Central’s Jake Hasler was second with 32 percent. St. Paul’s Ryan Moore and Damon Alston joined Terryville’s Mike Garrow in rounding out the top five vote-getters.
Bayne, for many, was the easy choice. He is the leading scorer in the CCC South at 21.7 points per game. He also, not surprisingly, leads all local scorers in points per game. Jason Pranulis, of Terryville, is second at 20.1.
In the heat of the voting controversy, and with a showdown with Central on tap Friday night, Bayne had a game to remember. There, he picked up 25 points, grabbed eight rebounds, had two blocked shots and dished out three assists in the Lancers’ 19-point victory over the Rams.
Saving his best game for the biggest game of the season to date is why many voters went with Bayne as their first pick.
Hasler, the runner-up, finished that game with nine points. He got support from a host of people, including his brother Steve, who posted this on bradcarrollgameday.blogspot.com: “I chose my brother, Jake Hasler, because of the hard work that he has put in over the years, ever since he was little. He’s definitely become a very good player and I wish him the best of luck.”

(Mike Orazz photo, top, of Bristol Eastern's Cody Bayne.)