Latches

I took yesterday's game at the Edgar Popowski field yesterday as my "rehab" start and will return to the Miracle games this week, in part because the Hummerheads are coming into town I keep hoping that they will bring Travis Bowyer with them.

I realize that is is unlikely to happen, but a girl can hope can't she? (Yes, I know, if you're a pitcher I will always tell you I will only love you until the next fireballer comes along and I can be very fickle that way, but Trav is well....He's my Bowyer-friend, you know? The stories I could tell about that guy!)

Anyway, I get down to the field and it's locked. So I head over to the front office. The old guy that comes to all the games is sitting in his car. "Is that locked, or just latched."

"It's locked," I say. "Latches wouldn't stop me."

So I thump into the BoSox front office with all my Twins gear and a guy comes out of the back room eating a piece of pie. "Can I help you with something."

"The guest enterance is locked," I inform him.

"Oh, we'll get that taken care of right away."

Took about five minutes but they did finally find the right key and open the gate.

"Sorry for the delay," he says.

"It's okay, 20 years ago I would have just climbed the thing, but I'm not up to that anymore. Besides, the poor fellow in the car with the walker wouldn't be able get in unless we got it open."

They've actually done a nice job on the BoSox Complex over the last three years. There's now a couple of concession stands and what looks like a merchandising booth, none of which are open during GCL games and which are likely only there for Spring Training when the BoSox are in town.

The bathrooms are very nice though and those are open. Especially since in the past all we used to have there was Port-O-Potties.

Michael Cowgill is looking for the bathroom. "Oh, you go around the corner there and there's this trailerrr...." one of his teammates is telling him. "You're in for a treat."

"Don't let him fool you," I tell him. "The bathrooms are really nice."

"I was just telling him..." Ya, but it's the way you were telling him.

Cowgill comes back a few minutes later. "Those ARE really nice." See.

If you're planning a trip to Fort Myers, make sure you stop by the Red Sox Training Complex on the end of Edison Avenue and check out the bathrooms. They're worth the visit. If the gate is locked, make them open it for you.

(Assuming of course the trailer lasts through the next hurricane.)

Loek Van Mil comes over and sits down. He tells me he's feeling under the weather. I can sympathize with this. Even though the weather was a bright and sunny day.

So he's not making his starts this week and will only pitch a few innings out of the bullpen. Good. Well...not good that he's sick, but good that I won't have to feel too bad about not being able to take off work to watch him pitch.

With all the time I have taken off I feel I need to be in the office for a whole week at least before I beg off another day for a ballgame.

Above offer of only loving you until the next fire baller comes along not withstanding, he's already fended off a crush on Dave Bromberg's slider and still remains my favorite in the rotation, so he's doing well. I shall be remarkably unhappy when he goes to Betsy.

Dan Leatherman and Justin Staatz both went to Elizabethton however. We signed lefty Adam Revelette out of the University of Kentucky to replace one and we are receiving Walt Patton back from Elizabethton.

I didn't really understand the promotion as his stats last year weren't all that great. 3-1 with a 7.43 era in 17 games (23.0 innings).

Walt's a nice kid, but he struggled last year at times. Loek says he had a tough extended as well.

I did rather like Abby's blog in which she said "I'd also like to say that I am terribly sorry, Mr Patton, but I fear you have no future in baseball. I know tonight's walks were probably not your fault, but the fact is you've only pitched .2 innings and you have an ERA of 135. That is not good. I am so very sorry."

I saw him make one very good outting but all the rest he needed work on. Hopefully he'll improve and (more hopefully) he's not injured.

We have enough injured boys around this place. Speaking of which...

Jeff Schoenbachler and Kyle Edlich come by. "When are you going to Minnesota?" one is asking the other.

"If you boys want to go to Minnesota, I wish you'd do it the right way already.

"You," I point at Mr. Edlich "Should be pitching in Triple A at least and YOU..."

Oh...don't get me going on Schoey. On July 10th, David Winfree played third base for the Miracle for the first time. YIPPEE!!!!

Jeff Schoenbachler has already broken my heart however, as I seriously doubt he's going to make it the Miracle in another year. Maybe if I'm luck he'll get here for his fourth-pro year. If he ever gets healthy again. ::sigh::

Bowyer was a fourth-yearer, although Bowyer's problems weren't related to his health, but to his control. Now he's out with arm problems too. How depressing.

Mr. Gassner made his first rehab start however and did pretty well, 1 run on 2 hits with 2 strike outs in 2 innings worth of work. Pity we couldn't make that ninth inning rally stand. Although he'd left the park by that time.

At least with Schoey and Edlich I will not have to worry about being left alone. A crowbar couldn't get those kids out of this city right now.

"Well," one says "See you tomorrow."

"No you won't. It's Sunday, you get a day off."

I'm hoping that someone takes Benson and Parmelee off and that they go....bowling, fishing, golfing, to the beach or something suitably fun, get out of the wretched little hotel rooms and relax. The pressure on those two kids is incredibly intense each time they step up to the plate. You can feel it in the air.

They need to get away for baseball for a day and do something fun. Mr. Fox, if he were here, would take them golfing. I miss Mr. Fox. He's a good guy.

Meanwile, Dear Mr. Van Mil:

I realize I have been tied up in my own problems for a while and forgot to offer to make you homemade chicken soup. I'm sure it will take care of your stomach ailment as it's been known to cure just about anything. (Except arm injuries, sorry Mr. Edlich & Schoenbachler.)

If you would like some please let me know. Please take care and get well soon.

(I'm sorry, I realize that oversight was quite unforgivable.)

Anyway, I started writing this all yesterday and accidently deleted it. Now it's Sunday and I really MUST go do laundry as there's a lot of it this week.

So...

Twins! (by the numbers)

The GCL Reds have two guys on their roster named Cabrera -- Angel and Enmanuel. The Pirates have a De Los Santos on their roster, a short stop with the first name of Jose.

Meanwhile the GCL Twins have their own shortstop named De Los Santos, his first name is Esterlin.

The GCL Twins have a Matthew, Mark, Loek and well, Juan on the roster, something the Miracle can't lay claim to. But the Miracle did have Jesus (Merchan) and (Matt) Moses at one time on their roster last year.

They do have an Angel (Garcia) and were only missing a "Mark" for a full house earlier this season.

The most popular given name on the GCL Twins this year is "Joe" although Acosta goes by Jose and William Benson goes by his middle name of Joe.

Through Extended Spring Training, it was "Danny" with Danny Hernandez, Danny Berg and Danny Sanitestban. Now we only have one "Dan" Leatherman, a free agent signee out of the University of West Virginia.

The average height for a GCL Twins player is 6'1". The shortest is Michael Cowgill at 5'9", the tallest is Loek Van Mil who tops out at 7'1".

The average weight for a GCL Twins player is 192 pounds. The scrawniest player is Esterlin De Los Santos, who weighs only 155. The heavyweights on the team are pitchers David Bromberg and Justin Staatz. Both of them weigh in at 230 pounds.

The average age of a GCL Twins player is (not suprisingly) 19. The oldest player on the team is Michael Cowgill, who turns 23 on July 21st. The youngest is Joan "Turtle" Ortiz, who is just 17.

Note that if you take the fielding out of the picture, the average height of our pitching staff is 6'4", the average weight is 199 pounds and the average age is 20.

The Twins travel a total of 398.6 miles weekly for games. Over the course of 9 weeks, that totals out to 3,587.4 bus miles totaled on the season.

The shortest trip the Twins take is to the Boston Red Sox Players Developmental Complex, a short hop of 10.5 miles on way or 21 miles round tip. The longest trip is to Pirates City in Bradenton, a trip of 101.6 miles (1 hour 35 minutes) one way, or 203.2 miles round trip.

The only other trip the Twins take during the course of the regular season, is to Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota, 87.2 miles one way (1 hour 20 minutes) or 174.4 miles round trip.

Twins batting is currently 8th in the 13 team league, with 79 runs on 114 hits during 493 at bats. Their pitching record is slightly worse, 9th in the 13 team league with a 9-6 win/loss record and a combined era of 3.64.

7'1" righty Ludovicus Van Mil is ranked 14th in the league with pitchers who have pitched a minimum of .8 innings per game. He has a 2.03 era with 9 walks and 8 strikes outs in 13.1 innings.

Loek Van Mil is not just a "tall guy", but may be well the tallest guy in his family. His father is tame 6'8", his mother tops out at a lowely 6'1" and his older brother is a mere 6'6". And yes, any one of them would fit in well with our tree toppin' pitching staff.

Second round draft pick Joe Benson is 12th in league with a .308 batting average, acquiring 16 hits, 9 runs in 52 at bats through 14 games.

Twins birthdays this month are Eric Santiago (July 10), Dan Leatherman (July 12), Juan Delgano (July 18) and Michael Cowgill (July 21). A very Happy Birthday to all our July Twins.

None of our Current Twins are a "twin" per say, but Elizabethton Twins catcher Jeff Christy is a quadruplet, one of the famous Christy Quads, the second documented case of quadruplets in the state of Nebraska.

That about wraps it up for this edition of your GCL Twins by the numbers.

Have any fun facts about the GCL Twins you'd like share? Just e-mail me at fmmiraclegal@yahoo.com and I'll get them into an upcoming issue of Twins (by the numbers).

Baseball Advanced Media

Some days I just want to collect all my toys, pack them up, quit, go home and not play anymore. Usually the reason for this is disgust, which is the current problem.

I'm disgusted with Baseball Advanced Media. For those of you not familier with the situation it goes something like this:

MLB decided they wanted to cash in on the fantasy baseball crazy by protecting their stats. That means other places can't have them or use them for Fantasy Baseball. Copyright laws by the way state you cannot copyright a list of facts and figures so basically, stats can't be copyrighted. But MLB will try...oh yes, they'll try.

Then they decided to take it one step further and put Minor League Baseball on the same system. So now, all scoring is done through Baseball Advanced Media (aka BAM).

To a certain extent, as far as the fans are concerned it's great! If you can't listen to the game you can at least check the stats while the game is in progress. How this is actually handled on a club level however...

Well, according to Sean, the broadcaster for the Fort Myers Miracle, Benn - the Miracle statistician - calls into BAM at the end of each inning and gives them an update on what is going on. This is then entered into the computer and published on line. Needless to say, sometimes the person on the other end of the phone gets it wrong, and so Benn then has to call back in, usually at the end of the game, and get it corrected.

Sometimes I have to tell Sean to tell Benn if I notice something erronious, but, Benn is pretty meticulous.

Rather unfortunately, this has not been the case with the scoring for the GCL Twins.

Let's take the roster for example. The Twins drafted a Michael Cowgill in the 40th round, signed him, and sent him down to play Gulf Coast League. He's listed on the roster as Thomas. Okay, so maybe he's trying to change his name now that he's playing professional baseball, but everyone down at the park still calls him Mike, not Tom. Meanwhile "Esterlin" De Los Santos has suddenly become "Starling" De Los Santos. I mean, I don't know, maybe the Twins media guide is wrong but...

Then there is "Jon" Staatz, who is in fact named "Justin" Staatz. It took me a while to track him down, but when I went up to him and said "Hi, who are you?", he was definate about being a Justin.

Finally there is my new little buddy Dan Leatherman who, up until just today, was listed as being 5'11", 175 pounds and 30 years old. (He's 6'2", 195 and he says he's 22, by which I think he's 21 going on 22.)

You know, I spell one kid's name wrong and I get a nasty gram from a parent or girlfriend about it. I'd like to see a few of them send nasty grams to BAM.

Then there are the boxscores. On Saturday they missed a positional change. On Monday they missed a pitching change. I mean, okay, maybe I'm wrong and it wasn't Garcia on the mound, maybe it was Carreras, but it sure as heck wasn't Schoenbachler. (Jeff's just NOT THAT TAN, if you take my meaning).

Loek gets off the mound and is disappointed because we have the score at 4-2 when in fact it was 4-3, but I had Chris Parmelee's parents, some people from Joliet come to see Joe Benson and one of the players brother in the bleachers with me and we were all talking back and forth. So I lost a runner. It's easy to do. But to miss an obvious pitching change?

Then there is the questionable entry on June 28th where they have Brad Tippett pitching .01 innings and taking the loss. The next day they have him down for a save after pitching another inning.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm just saying it's unlikely the Twins allowed him to throw on two consecutive days.

And I know for a fact that he pitched the 29th as I was there, but I don't think that loss on the 28th belongs to him.

Meanwhile, if I'm right it was Garcia and not Carreras that relieved Schoey on Monday, and I'm pretty sure I checked the roster just to be sure, then he certainly didn't pitch the following day in Sarasota so that was someone else.

Ah...you say, you're nitpicking.

You're right, I am. But these kids play down here in relative obscurity with almost no coverage. Is it too much to ask that the coverage they do get be correct?

And I know whoever is doing the stat work, is not calling back into BAM to correct things when they go wrong. So then this stays on their professional record?

I dunno. I think we had problems last year too, so maybe I should see if I can figure out if a erronious stat from last year (and I think I marked the errata on the boxes) is listed in the media guide that way.

And maybe by next year Michael, Esterlin and Justin will all be Thomas, Starling and Jon in the media guide as well.

::sigh::

But you know, if I did pick up my toys and pack it up, who would provide the right information to the general public? And granted, I'm not perfect, not even close, but when I do see something wrong on the site, I fix it.

Not so with with BAM it seems, as there is no one to complain to.

Maybe Saturday I'll ask Milt or Jake about it and see what they say.

Meanwhile and speaking of Parmelee's folks...

We got on the subject of Angel stadium. They live close enough to see both the Dodgers and the Angels, but prefer the Angels. I don't blame them. That's a beautiful stadium.

They also said he prefers wood bats to aluminum and that he'd played in the summer wooden bat leagues for a couple of years.

"That's good," I said. "Because if he can hit the high school with a wooden bat, I'd hate to see what he can do with an aluminum one."
I think that's going to be our new little bit when he comes up to bat. "Common Chris, hit the high school again!"

"Let's go Parmeleeeeeeeee!!!!! Out of the park and into the football stadium!"

I'm sure we can come up with a few more as we go along.

The current concessious -- and we don't have a tape measure on that -- but we think that first home run went like 420 or 425 feet. He wasn't just over the fence. He was WAY over the fence.

When we were talking out of the park on Saturday I said to Knappy "I love Joe Benson. He's a great little player."

"Yeah, he says, "and that Chris Parmelee isn't too bad either."

Naw....he's an overachiever, is what he is.

The Goodbye Kid

So...I have this head cold, you see, and decided I needed to go see Dr. Bromberg (2005 RHP D&F) pitch today in an effort to cure it as I don't want to be sick for the four-day weekend.



Number 1 comes up to the plate, first professional game, first professional at bat and nails it -- not just over the little fence, but over the big fence and out into the street. That thing would have been gone out of any ballpark, major league or otherwise. Everyone's just standing there, not saying anything watching this kid trot around the bases.

Finally the old guy in front of me, turns around and says "Who was that?"

"Chris Parmelee, " I said, with a bit of awe in voice. "The Goodbye Kid."

And then I did my best impression of a Blur song.

He walked on his next two at bats, and then struck out for his fourth at bat.

So -- if a visit to the good Doctor Bromberg didn't cure me, the single shot over the left field fence by Nurse Parmelee certainly did.

Man...that was one of the prettiest things I ever have seen. I think at 1.5 mil, he may be a bargain.



2nd Rounder Joe Benson. I love Joe!!!!



3rd Rounder Tyler Robertson.

Hanging with the Boys

Monday night, which was the first game back from All-star break I was sitting in the Resop's seats and Miracle GM Steve Gliner had come over to talk to me about the All-Star game.

Kevin Slowey was holding court over behind the plate and we watched for several innings as people came by and paid their resepcts. I had the All-star shots, so I figured I should go and pay my respects as well.

Several of the GCL boys had showed up as well, including Loek Van Mil, who showed up alone and left alone. I don't get that -- they usually travel in packs and he doesn't strike me as the lone wolf type.

Anyway, Kyle Aselton was sitting in the row in front of Slowey and Brian Duensing was on Slow's left. So I came in from the right, nod at the GCLers as I go past and go sit down next to Aselton.

"They take that arm off yet?" I ask him. I haven't seen him since he went on the DL, so I've no idea what they've been doing to him.

"That's not nice!" Slow says. "You need to be nice to him!"

"Who every told you I was nice?" I shoot back. This backs Slowey up for a minute.

I fish out Slow's All-star shots and hand them back to him.

"Besides, I love Kyle. He's Ace. I don't call too many players around here Ace. Do I Ace?"

Aselton laughs.

Being my favorite is a tough job, but you know, someone has to do it.

"Are these from the All-Star game?"

"Yeah, your father broke my hand."

"Yeah, well...he has this Rambo thing going on..."

"After he left they people behind me wanted to know who that young man was. I told them it was your dad. 'That young man Kevin Slowey's Dad?' they said."

"Yeah, he's well preserved. Like I said he has this Rambo thing going on.

"Here we go, this is my All-star delivery," he says, showing a shot to Duensing. "This is my favorite."

"Let me see." He shows me the worst one in the lot.

I say "Tell Duensing not to worry about dropping his first two starts. Tell him how many games it took you to pick up a win."

"Too many," he says. Like six or ten."

"How many wins do you have?" Aselton asks.

"Four," Slowey says.

"That's it?" Aselton doesn't believe that.

"Well I keep blowing them late."

"You get no decisions," I point out. "You don't blow anything." I look at Aselton. "Three guys, nine pitches on Saturday and he says he blows things."

"Are these all nine pitches?" Slow asks.

"Your teammates hate you," I said. "I can't figure out why, you're such a nice guy."

He doesn't argue this one with me. "Let me see the rest of the pictures." I had them back and admonish him not to get the out of order.

"Of course, they don't hate you as much as Garza. They hired an assassin to take him out of the game."

"THAT was painful," Slow says, as he gives the rest of the pictures back.

So then I said goodbye to Slowey. "I'm not going anywhere," he says.

"You're going to New Britain."

"No, only Casilla went up."

"Well, you need to go too."

"No I don't. Besides you only have four starters, they put Powers back in the bullpen."

"What about Colby?"

"He's still in the bullpen."

I look at Aselton. "Well, Ace here is coming of the DL."

"Not for two more weeks," Aselton says.

"I'm staying here for the rest of the season," Slowey says.

"No, you're not."

"He got Twins minor league pitcher of the month," Aselton says.

"I did not," Slow returns.

"He got FSL Pitcher of the Week," I say, "twice".

"I'm going to win Twins Minor League Pitcher of the Month and give it to him," Aselton says.

Riiiightttt. He offers to go up to New Britain and sit on the DL.

"You should go up to New Britain and take pictures," Slow tells me.

"They have a photographer. He's not as nice as I am."

"Figures," Slow says. I have no idea what Duensing is making of this whole conversation and I'm not sure I care.

I decided I had to leave at this point as I'd been down there a LOT longer than the break between innings. I'm surprised none of us got yelled at.

"Don't worry," Slow tells me, "You'll have lots and lots of time yet to waste your film on him," he says in regards to Aselton. I don't consider it a waste, actually.

Anyway, I saw Aselton later in the concession line and we had a serious conversation on his arm, but he stills says two to three weeks.

That's the last time I've seen him, because we got the card sets on Tuesday and I've been trying to find Aselton because he needs to sign his card.

I don't see where having a sore elbow should prevent him from operating the camera or charting or something similar.

So, I went back up the stairs, gave Van Mil shots -- I had a lot, since I'd snapped that one week, forgot to pace myself and had nearly shot a whole role of him before I realized what I was doing.

Spoke briefly to Joe Benson, who's a total sweatheart of a kid -- and he can swing a bat too! What is it with the second rounders, that they are always so nice?

God, if Chris Parmelee comes in and is an ass I'm going to be so unhappy. Moses was such a prick when he was here. Garza was alright, but I heard he'd become a much bigger prick when he got to AA.

I hope that doesn't happen to Slow either, and that he stays as nice as he is now.

Span is real nice, but he's a Florida boy, so of course he's gonna be nice. He's almost a local Florida boy too. Plouffe is real nice.

Anyway...Aselton was an 11th rounder (2004). (I guess I should scan the card in for Eden, as I'm sure she'll want to see it.

So Eden says the nickname post was the funniest one I've done in along while and that she will definately be calling the guys by those nicknames. I'm sure that will go over really well, especially if you tell Pleasing Pie Miss Dianna made them up. LOL!

She also says "Sexy Poohbear is, well, just that (definitely my fave by the physical factor)."

You keep your grungy little mitts off Sexy Poohbear.

Of course, she's not the only one who noticed because ETwins also said "So tell me...is Brandon McConnell any good?" which I thought was a loaded question.

Okay, okay, okay....Brandon was drafted in 2003 and missed the whole 2004 season with a torn labrum. But when I walked into spring training in 2005, I noticed him right off the bat. How could I not? He was to die for. Besides, he was standing there in his rookie whites grinning at me.

Which made me very, very nervous. We finally determined it was a case of mistaken identity, but that didn't stop him much. Anyway, they finally made him cut his hair, and in retaliation grew the mustache. I hate those things. If you want to do nice full goatee, fine, I like goatees. Mustaches don't do a damn thing for me.

I don't like David Gassner much, but the goatee is great. Really.

It's okay, Brandon is still my buddy, and I miss Sexy Poohbear very much and he won't set up a myspace account so I can't stay in contact with him. ::cry::

(Just think...he could www.myspace.com/sexypoohbear!)

Um...anyway, in answer to ETown's question, if you can get him to shave off the caterpiller under his nose and grow his hair back to surfer length again...yeah...

He's not just good or even "any good".

He's to friggin' die for.