It’s the end of August and there are still four months
remaining in 2013 but already I’m feeling nostalgic and thinking that it would
be nice if tomorrow was New Year’s Day.
This feeling of malaise or melancholy comes about because now is the end
of the minor league baseball season and other than pining for the first week of
April 2014 to get here so minor league baseball can begin again, I have very
little to keep my interest until then.
My home team, the Bradenton Marauders, had a less than
auspicious season but it was not for lack of trying on their part. There are some excellent players on the 2013
Marauders team and several of them will likely make it to the major leagues in
the next couple of years (Greg Polanco, Gift Ngope, Willy Garcia immediately
come to mind). However as a team my team
had trouble firing on all nine cylinders. The 2013 Marauders reminded me very much of
the 2009 Sarasota Reds – some excellent players but they could not bring it all
together. The Marauders had a scrappy new
manager this year who unlike his timid predecessor wasn’t afraid to take
chances with players running the bases or trying squeeze bunts or almost
anything else. In fact our manager this
year was such a change from his predecessor that he got in a fist fight with
the manager of the Fort Myers Miracle. That’s the kind of manager I like to see
There were some high points for the Marauders this year
including their league leading position in the most triples by a team (Taylor
Lewis led the league in triples) and the most stolen bases. Unfortunately they also led the Florida State
League in the number of runners caught attempting to steal a base and in the
number of strike outs. However as any
Chicago Cubs fan will tell you, “There’s always next year.”
For me and the rest of the Marauders heckling section it
was a memorable year on many accounts.
Personal highlights include:
- The Tampa Yankees pitcher who yelled “fuck you” at me as he walked back to the dugout
- The St. Lucie Mets outfielder who gave me the finger as he walked back to the dugout after I assisted him with his third strike out of the evening,
- Having the entire Tampa Yankees team heckle me from the bench
- Having the entire St. Lucie Mets team heckle me from the bench,
- Having the Lakeland Flying Tigers manager (himself) heckling me from the bench,
- Telling an outfielder for the Palm Beach Cardinals that he had “the penis of a small boy” (in Spanish) and then assisting him with his second strike out of the evening.
- Watching that same Palm Beach player come to bat in the 9th inning in a close game with the Marauders and with runners in scoring position calling him (in Spanish) “my bitch” and then Dave Hilsheimer and I assisting him in a 3-pitch strike out. His strike out ended the game and the Marauders won.
- Annoying enough opposing batters that 16 of them slammed their bats against the dugout wall after assisting them in making an out.
- Getting four opposing players to slam their batting helmet against the dugout wall (probably because they had already broken their bat) after assisting each of them in making a crucial out.
- Heckling Casey Kotchman from the Miami Marlins who was on a rehab assignment with the Jupiter Hammerheads and doing so while his mother was sitting next to me. I didn’t know it was his mom until she snapped at me “Why don’t you get your ass out there if you think it’s so easy.”
- And in the best heckle of the year category – watching Palm Beach Cardinals manager Johnny Rodriquez giving hand signals to his team and me yelling “Johnny – is that the sign for them to masturbate?” Johnny quit using that sign after being called out.
The nice thing about all the heckling is that in every
case mentioned above the Marauders won their games and several times by large
margins. Time and experience have taught
me that if you can get under the skin of a team they focus on those of us
heckling and not what is happening on the field and we invariably win the
games in those situations. We will just
have to do more of that in 2014.
On a broader scale than the Marauders I visited minor
league stadiums and watched games in Akron, Columbus and Dayton Ohio; Salem,
Lynchburg and Norfolk Virginia; Fayetteville and Little Rock Arkansas;
Springfield, Missouri; San Antonio Texas; Omaha, Nebraska; Des Moines, Cedar
Rapids, Quad Cities and Burlington, Iowa; Augusta and Savannah, Georgia; and
Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
In these travels I got to see
former Bradenton Marauder Catcher Eric Fryer playing for the Rochester Red Wings
at a game in Norfolk Virginia, and former third baseman Jeremy Ferrell playing
for the Winston-Salem Dash in both Salem and Lynchburg, Virginia.
A new passion this year was driving all over the state
trying to see as many Rookie League teams (there are 16 of them) in the Gulf
Coast League play games. I ended the
year having seen all 16 teams play in 12 of their 14 venues (the GCL Marlins
and GCL Cardinals each play at the same field in Jupiter, and both of the GCL
Yankees teams play on the same field in Tampa).
The only Rookie League fields I didn’t see games on this year were the
GCL Mets in St. Lucie and the GCL Twins in Fort Myers. They will be the goal for next year.
Which brings up the topic of next year. For 2014 I will again have my season ticket
for Box 3, Row 1, Seat 1 at McKechnie Field in Bradenton. They will need to use dynamite to extract me
from that seat. However in my quest to
see every minor league team playing in person I’m already planning some trips
to see some teams next year. One place
high on my list is to spend time back in California (where I lived 20 years
ago) watching the 10 High A level teams of the California League plus the two
AAA level teams (Fresno Grizzlies and Sacramento River Cats) playing. I’d also like to spend about 2 weeks
traveling around Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia watching
Rookie League up to AAA level teams playing.
One of the teams I saw in 2013 was the West Virginia
Power when they played the Charleston River Dogs in Charleston. The Power are the Low A affiliate of the
Pittsburgh Pirates and the natural progression for the Power is to play in
Bradenton the following year. The Power
I saw this year was a scrappy bunch who I hope provide lots of great baseball
watching when they get to town next year and I look forward to getting to know
them.
However what am I going to do with the
next seven months of no minor league baseball?
One thing that will ease the pain is knowing that throughout the off
season each Thursday night the tiki bar in center field at McKechnie Field will
be open for fans to come have a few adult beverages and talk about baseball. I think every so often while I’m there on a
Thursday night, and while nobody is looking, I’m going to sneak off on my own
and walk back to Box 3, Row 1, Seat 1 where I spend my summers behind home
plate, and sit there and fantasize that I’m heckling umpires and annoying the
St. Lucie Mets and trying out new heckles that I dreamed up over the
winter. Yup. That might ease the pain a
little.
