American Legion Baseball standout Ron Franklin earns June Athlete of the Month honor

NEW ORLEANS – Ron Franklin has been selected as the Greater New Orleans Amateur Athlete of the Month for June after an outstanding month for the Gibbs Construction American Legion Baseball team. Monthly award-winners are chosen in voting by the Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee, sponsored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

In the month of June, Franklin helped lead the Cardinals to an 11-3 record. He hit .380 with an on-base percentage of .594 and a slugging percentage of 1.103. He hit seven home runs, including three against eventual Legion state champion Gauthier Amedee (one on June 10 and two on June 14). He finished the month with 20 runs batted in. A 2019 graduate of Archbishop Rummel High School, Franklin played in five games this spring for Bossier City Community College before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down sports.

Franklin was selected for the honor over two other local standouts.

• Grayson Gilbert, a member of the UNO golf team, posted a third-place finish in the Louisiana Amateur Championship at Bayou Oaks at City Park on June 11-14 against 144 of the best amateurs in the state. A sophomore from Monroe, Gilbert matched the course record in the second round with a 67. Trailing by three strokes entering the final round, he nailed a 30-foot chip for birdie on hole two to gain early momentum – another birdie two holes later tied him for the lead entering the back nine. He finished with a three-round score of 281, two strokes behind the winner John Humphries. It was the second straight win for the 40-year old Humphries, from Woodworth, who also won the 2003 title. Gilbert’s finish was the best by a Privateer golfer since 2010 in the event which has been a crown jewel of the Louisiana golf scene since 1920.
• Joshua Orr, a right-handed pitcher for Ponstein’s American Legion, played infield in six games and batted .313 with a .688 slugging percentage. He also tallied nine innings of relief work on the mound in five games, recorded an earned-run average of 2.33 with 16 strikeouts. Orr will be a senior at Holy Cross this fall.

The Greater New Orleans Sports Awards Committee has been selecting an Amateur Athlete of the Month each month since 1957. The athlete must be a native of the greater New Orleans area or must compete for a team in the metropolitan region in order to be eligible.