Then Matt Palmer pitched himself into a starting slot for the Angels. Sean O’Sullivan arrived from Double-A Arkansas to fill out the starting rotation in Salt Lake, until he pitched his way to Los Angeles as well. The next pitcher called up to bolster our Triple-A rotation was Trevor Bell.

When the transaction-go-round starts spinning as fast as it has this season, it seems awfully quick to the trigger to select a ballplayer who’s only been at Triple-A for just one-and-a-half months. On the other hand, Bell has been as steady as they come, even when he hasn’t gotten the run support he deserves. So

Trevor Bell was selected by the Angels in the first round, 37th overall, a supplemental pick to compensate for the loss of free agent Troy Percival. His development from Rookie through Advanced-A was steady, albeit unspectacular, with ERA stats of 3.50, 4.14, 4.22, respectively. Bell made the Double-A roster out of spring training this year, and it seems as though something clicked. In 11 starts for Arkansas, he relinquished only 54 hits and just one homer in 68.2 IP for a 2.55 ERA.

Pitcher injuries among the Angels resulted in a mid-June spot start for O’Sullivan against San Francisco and subsequent promotion for Bell, who got his first Triple-A start against division-leading Colorado. And what a start it was; a two-hit, complete game shut-out. Since then, the 21-year-old has pitched like he’s been with us all season: 2.81 ERA, 52 H, 36 SO, 14 BB, 64.0 IP. Best of all has been his ability to go deep into the game, averaging 7.1 innings per start, with two 9-inning complete games. Bell doesn’t have a blazing fastball, and relies heavily on ground-ball outs. Mentally, he is one tough competitor. One of my favorite moments from this season was a five-pitch duel between Bell and major-league veteran Sal Fasano.

Much has been made of Bell’s off-season acting career, as well as his relation to the original Bozo the Clown. And while these are interesting media bytes, they aren’t nearly as intriguing as a couple of other extracurricular activities engaged in by the youngster from North Hollywood, CA.

At the start of the 2008 season, Bell joined Barry Zito’s “Strikeouts for Troops” campaign, in which he pledged to donate funds to the charity for every strikeout he made. Later that summer Bell was sent down to Single-A Cedar Rapids shortly after horrendous flooding had devastated the Kernels home city, along with several other Midwest cities along the Iowa and Cedar Rivers. During his short stay, Bell took a tour of the area and wrote a personal check for $2,500 towards rebuilding efforts.

What is noteworthy about these contributions is how uncommonly rare it is for low-level minor leaguers to be thinking of something other than their on-field performance. For yours truly, it’s yet another reason to cheer on our latest young gun…Your friend in baseball.

Thinking aloud then. . .Jeremy Hill, of late, is having some trouble holding leads. I love Francisco Rodriguez. Too bad he wasn’t around for half the month. Matt Brown and Bobby Wilson have been struggling at the plate. Reggie Willits spent two weeks nursing a sore hamstring. Freddy Sandoval and Chris Pettit are out with injuries until late July at the earliest. Oh have I mentioned, the weather’s been lousy too? Sigh!

It’s true, Brandon Wood has been his consistently awesome self. And I’ve noticed significant improvement in plate discipline, particularly his 23:47 BB:SO (a ratio of 1:2). In all honesty, though, it’s not like yours truly is going to add anything revelatory to the well-deserved praise for this kid’s ongoing development. And yes, I had noticed Brad Coon is steadily upping his offensive production after a slow start. Not to mention, just like last year, he’s an excellent guardian of our 420-foot-deep center field. Trevor Bell? Tempting. His awesome debut is slowly turning, start-by-start, into a Triple-A stay of real merit.

And then I was reminded of having overlooked the bright ray of sunshine in our uncharacteristically cold and dreary June. . .

So, this month’s pick is Adam Pavkovich. Pavkovich was selected in 2003 from the University of Alabama by the Angels in the 11th round, 330th overall pick. He came straight to Provo for his professional debut, where the Crimson Tide alumnus figured out wood bats rather quickly, well enough to earn a mid-season promotion to Single-A Cedar Rapids.* He continued to move up the farm system without a hitch; a full season with Advanced-A Rancho in 2004, and just the briefest of time with Double-A Arkansas before arriving at Triple-A for good in 2005.

*Apparently he suited up for one game as a Salt Lake Stinger that year, although I don’t remember it personally.

Yours truly readily admits having wanted an excuse to showcase Pavkovich for a couple seasons now. He stands out for me not only as a good ballplayer, but one who makes an extra effort to bond with his fans, particularly the young ones.

A BeesGal memory. . .One afternoon in 2007, after a long wait for players to come out onto the field, one young fan literally wilted in his spot. He put his head down, cradled in his arms atop of the concrete wall, and closed his eyes. And there he rested, oblivious to the now-arrived ballplayers talking with and signing for fans along the wall.

Pavkovich stopped and bent down, lowering his head to peer upward into the downturned face.

“Hey,” he said gently. Getting no response, he asked again, “Hey there. Are you OK?”

The small head popped straight up, a startled look upon the youngster’s face. Pavkovich laughed warmly, and spent a few extra minutes chatting before moving on.

Another from 2007. . .Pavkovich appeared a full 30 minutes prior to gametime. He walked along the wall, scanning the rows as if he was expecting to meet someone. Halfway between the dugout and bullpen he stopped. He called up to a boy who looked eight or nine years old, standing with his father about 10 rows up in the stands. The boy and father looked around, and then behind them. They looked back at Pavkovich, who was now holding up what looked to be a brand-new bat, its gleaming walnut finish unblemished by pine tar or ball marks.

“Hi! Do you want this?” he called out, energetically gesturing for them to come over.

The boy remained frozen until finally his father half-pushed them both down the stairs and to the wall. The precious gift signed and delivered, Pavkovich returned to the clubhouse to get ready for that evening’s work.

In 2008, Pavkovich had a break-through year on the diamond. He flashed some power—25 doubles, 4 triples, 22 HR, 80 RBI and  225 TB—while maintaining a nice .280 AVE. That sort of production earned Pavkovich his first invite to the Dominican Leagues this winter and big-league training camp this spring.

Fast forward to Opening Day 2009, and Pavkovich begins his fourth season with the Bees. There have been, of course, a few changes over the seasons. Harper and Nagy are gone. Mitchell and Bennett are in their second seasons as manager and pitching coach.

On April 15th, Pavkovich played his 425th game in a Salt Lake uniform, passing former Buzz outfielder Chris Latham to become the franchise leader in games played. As noted by longtime Salt Lake broadcaster and “voice of the Bees” Steve Klauke, this is a bittersweet achievement, one that underscores a long tenure in the bush leagues. Pavkovich also has taken over the lead in career two-base hits (98), and tied in sacrifice flies (20) with Buzz/Twins infielder Todd Walker. His 19 sacrifice bunts leaves him just three short of Buzz infielder Mike Moriarty (22) and two short of Stinger/Bees infielder Casey Smith (21). Thanks to last year’s bomber run, he also holds sixth place in career homeruns (45).

On the other hand, some things haven’t changed at all. #25 still arrives early to meet his fans at the wall, every day, win or lose, play or sit. He talks, he smiles, he jokes, he inspires.

He’s still the young man who makes the Knothole Club something special. According to local lore, the 23-year-old infielder voluntarily assumed the role of Knothole Club “camp director” soon after his arrival in 2005. This spring, Camp Director Pavkovich once-again led kids and parents on a guided tour of a day in the life of a professional ballplayer.

During the tour he was asked how many bats players receive from Anaheim.

He replied, “Two dozen, which for a good hitter will last all season.”

There was a pregnant pause, and his next sentence was accompanied by that warm smile, “If you’re a not-so-good hitter, you’ll need more.”

He is a man of many gloves, having played all nine defensive positions including catcher (2006) and pitcher (2009). He’s our bottom-of-the-ninth, clutch hitter—whether ripping a walk-off grand slam or laying down a suicide-squeeze bunt for the only, and winning, run of the game.

What more can I say? Save perhaps, it’s been a delight having this young man in a Salt Lake uniform for all these seasons. I believe Pavkovich is eligible for free agency after the end of this year, his seventh since being drafted by the Angels. In that case, I certainly wish him all the best, with just the tiniest selfish hope of getting to meet again for Knothole Club, 2010…Your friend in baseball.

June 28, 2009 — In my previous post I offered a high-altitude survey of the who, what and where of minor league player blogs.  In this post, I’ll start drilling down into the individual stats, namely, number of posts per author, word count per post and number of comments per post. The analysis here will begin to tease out what sort impact each of our ballplayer-bloggers is making in the MiLB.com blogosphere.

Results

A few notes about these numbers. When looking at the total posts, remember not everyone started blogging at the same time. Nonetheless, most started blogging during spring training, around February/March. Word count is an approximate average calculated for a randomly sampled handful of posts, roughly five or six, when possible. Comments/Post was calculated via a similar method—grab a handful of posts, count the total number of comments, divide by number of sampled posts. Hopefully this makes sense.

Not sure if the charts do much to clarify the stats. They sure look pretty though, don’t you think?

Analysis

Analyzing these numbers is hardly an exact science due the high number of variables contributing to the final results. Suffice to say these results alone probably won’t reveal any useful, magical formulas for success. They will, however, provide an important starting-off point for when we start assessing the content of each blog. Thus I want to at least discuss some of the general principles/assumptions/wild speculations before moving on.

At first blush, the American League (127 posts) seems to be leaving the National League (79 posts) in some serious dust. After removing blogs by Chris Hayes, who’s posted a staggering 41 entries since mid-February, the adjusted totals are a bit of a mixed bag. Post frequency and comments/posts are roughly equal. The big difference, not shown in the charts, is total word output. Even without Hayes’ contributions, American League bloggers produced roughly 4,421 total words, about double the National League’s 2,149. On final analysis this researcher concludes American League minor leaguers are a more cyber-sociable group than those hailing from the National League.

Total Posts

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Total posts is an indicator of post frequency. And why is this important? Although there’s no clearcut consensus or magic formula for blogging success, most blog readers seem prefer the following combination: high post frequency + medium word counts + a photo/video gew-gaw or two.  Of the three, post frequency seems to make or break the spell for most readers. While we’re on the topic, about those, “Sorry, I know it’s been a while”  excuses, use them sparingly. After awhile, it won’t matter why, readers will stop clicking over.

Post Length

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While easy to quantify, this stat is a bit tricky to qualify. On the one hand, longer posts mean more news. On the other, a long, winding story that takes too long to get to the point will quickly lose your reader. 300-400 words is a perfectly acceptable length. The less-is-more writing technique takes some practice to pull off, nonetheless, it’s a worthwhile skill to cultivate, particularly since your audience is used to having information delivered via 2:35 minute YouTube videos and/or 140-word Tweets. One website declared the average page visit lasting only 96 seconds. Woof.

This post, in fact, teeters dangerously close to marathon-like. Nonetheless, there are times when popular appeal must be sacrificed in the name of scientific truth-seeking.

For longer posts, think about including in a photo, widget or video clip to help break up blocks of boring print. (Now do you see why I included the charts? Ssssh! That’ll be our little secret.) One handy trick if you find yourself with a novella of 1,000-plus words is to chop it in half, or even three,  and offer them as a matched set. Best of all, by stringing them out like this, you’ve given yourself a deadline extension of at least another week before having to come up with something new, witty and charming.

SIDEBAR: The Amazin’ Hayes

Speaking of post length, now would be a good time to make special mention Chris Hayes. The side-arming relief pitcher with the yoga-instructor wife has produced roughly 51,660 words as of early June, when I sampled his blogs. In real-world terms, he’s well on his way to putting the finishing touches on a mass-market mystery or romance paperback.

To put this into context with his professional peers, below is a bar graph representing Hayes’ total word count compared to the other 22 ballplayer-bloggers. It is really, really tiny because Hayes’ total word count exceeds that of his peers by orders of magnitude, in other words, multiples of 10!

Click on image to enlarge

OK, goggle-eyed amazement aside and back to the original concern stated in Part 1, does this sort of quantity mean a better blogging experience? And if not, what is the magic formula to a well-written, well-visited, well-spoken of blog? Stay tuned, and these mysteries will be revealed. . .

Comments

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You’ll notice no data was collected on star-ratings. Although quite easy to tally up, these little popularity polls offer no contextual information as to why a certain post is popular, or not. Also, the quick-and-easy, one-click process means you can never be quite sure if the rater even bothered to read the blog before boosting up (or dragging down) someone’s work with a quick click. Kind of like choosing players for the All-Star Team; pick your favorite and start voting away, up to 25 clicks/day. (BTW, if you’re wondering, no, I don’t participate in All-Star Team voting, minor league or otherwise.)

A better litmus test of who is actually reading is provided by comments. Feedback via reader comments are a very important indicator of whether your blog is actually “doing anything” besides just taking up space on the server hard drive. For example, a loyal commenter following usually indicates the blogger is providing useful/entertaining information for his targeted audience. Comments can also give a reading on how friendly/interactive a blogger is with his readers. A couple of our ballplayer-bloggers have taken interactivity a step further, asking for comments and feedback, which is a great way to generate repeat visits. One caveat, blogs showing only a few comments doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not popular. For every comment posted, there’s likely to be a whole mess of lurkers. Also, it’s important to note blogs with the most comments are not necessarily the ones with the most frequent entries or longest posts.

Coming up in the next section, we move on to the blog-by-blog, qualitative analysis. Unlike baseball, this portion of the competition will be a judged event, which means I’m open to bribes, . . .er, oops! I mean suggestions. In this most critical section of the whole shebang, I’ll do my durndest to point out what seems to work, as well as what doesn’t. . .Your friend in baseball.

I should begin this little exercise with a disclaimer. Along with being a writer, I’ve also been paid at one point or another in my career to coach athletics and tutor English. As you know, or should by now, . . .and if not, go look around for heaven’s sake, um, . . .where was I? Oh, right. At any rate, the motto around here at TSJ is “athletes come first.”

Technical

Creative

Overall

It would be far too easy (not to mention self-important) to throw out a bunch of judge’s scorecards and declare mission accomplished. Instead, I’m hoping this review will:

• Provide a little showcase for these labors of love; it’s not like the ballplayers get a performance bonus for putting up good stats in word counts or fan comments.
• Highlight the bloggers who put a little extra into their work; you know, stuff like originality, sweat, information, creativity, intelligence (blogging is a brain game, after all).
• Induce some grins to go along with constructive tips on how these burgeoning bloggers might improve their work; I mean, if it were you, wouldn’t you prefer the same consideration?

OK, on to the show. Because of the size of the database, I’ve organized the review into sections. This first part is a statistical overview, no critiques of content. Just the facts, in other words.

Results

Let’s start by taking a look at who’s in the mix and how they’re distributed. . .by MLB division, position, competition level. You’ll notice each blogger’s name includes a link to their site so you can visit and follow along as we go.  I purposely did not include blog titles, those will be discussed when I start reviewing the individual blogs.

Missing: Houston Astros (Central), New York Mets (East), San Francisco Giants (West), Washington Nationals (East)

Missing: Boston Red Sox (East), Tampa Bay Rays (East), Toronto Blue Jays (East)

Analysis

As you can see from the pie graphs, Western division teams, in both leagues, offer the best blog selection. This was a completely unexpected result, and I haven’t been able to come up with a reasonable hypothesis. Longer bus/plane rides? Higher percentage of English majors drafted? More hitter-friendly, high-altitude ballparks? Who knows? If there is a P.I. out there with grant money to fund further research into this curious phenomenon, please post your comment below. I promise to respond in 48 hours.

It is particularly interesting to note who’s missing from the list. The American League East has the weakest showing, with all three no-shows coming from the Eastern Division, and most notably Boston. Those of you who are Angels and/or Yankees fans, you may be gloating right now. Bear in mind, though, we’re still in the minors.

More pitchers feel the urge to put their thoughts down in print. You have to wonder, aside from PFPs and maybe BP, what else do they have to do between starting or relief appearances? Because of their reputation for being thinking men-athletes, catchers were counted separately from the rest of the position players. They may be the brainiest, however it appears as though they prefer to keep their thoughts to themselves. Only one backstop from each league. It should be pointed out this might have been a constraint mandated by MiLB editorial staff, only one catcher on the playing field =  only one catcher/league on the blogroll.

Most of the bloggers come from the Triple-A levels, nationwide. I cannot think of any reason why MiLB would have a preference for what level a player is blogging about, so I will speculate this to be a self-selected trend. Perhaps it’s a bit much to ask an 18-year-old to write home and to hundreds of strangers every week. Then again, perhaps the Triple-A player is more confident of sticking around for awhile, saving a considerable amount of embarrassment from a blog ending suddenly due to being released mid-season.

Up next, the blog-by-blog stats. How many, how long, how popular. Are we having fun yet? . . .Your friend in baseball.

The tricky part is gleaning out the category of information you want. For example, some websites focus on trades and/or fantasy; others offer stats, trends and forecasts;  still others provide debate and discussion. So, in an effort to guide you through the maze, or perhaps just to sort them out for myself, I offer this short list, with a word of warning. Per usual, my choices might be on the eccentric side. Of course, you knew this already, yes?. . .Your friend in baseball.

The Show

Triple-A

Double-A

Advanced-A

Single-A

Rookie

Independent Leagues

A random assortment of stuff

A handful of blogs by players and their better halves

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube

Still, despite our revolving-door roster in April, one name clearly stands out thus far. . .Chris Pettit. Yours truly must admit being a bit surprised. What I mean is, after following our Bees players during big league spring training, I expected to be writing about Brown, Figueroa, Rodriguez or Wood after the first month of the season.

So where has he been hiding, anyway? Well, part of his low profile was due to a rather painful 2008 season. After an impressive season with Cedar Rapids and Rancho Cucamonga in 2007, Pettit didn’t get much of a chance to play at the Double-A level. On Opening Day with the Travelers, he broke his foot and didn’t rejoin the team until the end of June. This photo, BTW, has to be the worst front-office, PR decision I’ve seen in, well, like forever. . .?

Coming back, Pettit found it harder than he expected to find his swing again. He kept at it, making the most of his playing time in the Arizona Fall League and by the end of the season was named to the 2008 All-Prospect Team. In February 2009, he was invited to the Rookie Career Development Program. Followed by an invite to big league camp this spring.

In fact, his rise in the farm system has been punctuated by awards:
05/08/2009 Angels’ Minor League Player for April
12/04/2008 AFL All-Prospect Team
11/18/2008 AFL Stenson Sportsmanship Award Finalist
11/10/2008 AFL Player of the Week
10/23/2008 AFL Rising Stars
08/08/2007 Angels’ Minor League Player for July
06/19/2007 MID Mid-Season All-Star
06/08/2007 Angels’ Minor League Player for May
08/31/2006 PIO Post-Season All-Star

As of yesterday Pettit was hitting .448 BA (1st in PCL), 96 AB (tied for 18th), 43 H (1st), 20 RBI (tied for 8th), 61 TB (6th), 1.121 OPS (4th). Last night in Portland, he pushed his hitting streak to 17 games with his last at-bat. During the streak, BTW, he’s kept up a .536 BA and multiple-hit games for all but five!

How did I not hear more about this prospect, sooner? Seems as though I’m not the only one, though, who’d been a little slow to take notice. At the beginning of the season, Salt Lake Bees broadcaster Steve Klauke was told Pettit is most highly regarded for his defense. It’s true he’s got wheels in the outfield. Yeah, but, . . .35 hits in 29 games. . .those are some crazy offensive numbers.

I already was looking forward watching our major-league infield this spring—Brown, 1B | Rodriguez, 2B | Wood, SS | Sandoval, 3B. Looks as though we’ve got a pretty hot outfield as well, with Brad Coon, Terry Evans and that new kid, . . .Chris Pettit. . .Your friend in baseball.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about this one all winter. Or at least, ever since I noticed his Winter Ball numbers. Drumroll, please. . . .this month’s pick is Kendry Morales.

If I had only one word to describe the big man when he first appeared in Salt Lake, I’d say, um, . . . “stiff.” I’ll admit that’s a bit unfair, since Morales spoke virtually no English when he arrived in the U.S. And let’s not forget, the kid was only 21 years old.

Furthermore, considering the journey he took to get here, who could blame him for feeling as though he’d been teleported to an uncharted, possibly hostile, planet? Getting out of Cuba is not as simple as grabbing your toilet kit and passport, and hopping onto the next available flight. For reasons a bit vague, perhaps rumors of his discontent, the one-time Cuban All-Star got yanked off the national team. Such a fall from the good graces of El Comandante means going from being a pampered celebrity-athlete to just another 20-something party laborer. Morales tried to escape more than once and spent some time in jail—which is how the Cuban government sets the example for other public-figure-would-be-defectors.

Finally in 2004, Morales made it to the Dominican Republic, via Miami. He spent his first year in organized baseball with a couple-dozen games at Advanced-A Rancho Cucamonga and quickly moved up to Double-A Arkansas. He began his second year, 2006, on the Salt Lake opening day roster. That summer, he turned 23.

Looking over his stats for the first two years at Triple-A, I was surprised to see such a high SO:BB ratio— 70 SO: 29 BB is nearly 2.5-to-1 (ouch). I wasn’t surprised to see the low homerun totals (17 HR). At the time, I wondered what the Angels were planning to do with a slow-footed, switch-hitter who struck out a lot and didn’t hit the long ball. Nor did he have the greatest defensive glove. Let me rephrase that, it seemed as though his feet kept getting tangled up. As if his first step was always an “oopsie.”

Change was in the air last season, although his PCL numbers don’t readily show it. He looked like he was finally learning to relax, like he was actually enjoying his job. He smiled more often, the sort of shy smile you’d expect from a young man playing baseball.

After the Angels’ early exit from post-season play, Morales headed south to play in the Dominican Winter League. And there was nothing shy about the way he hammered the ball. In 29 games for the Gigantes del Cibao he hit .404 BA in 99 AB with 8 HR, 14 SO and 9 BB. ¡Caramba! ¡Quemado la ligua!

Winter Ball wrapped up at the end of January. Next stop? Spring Training in Tempe, AZ. With Texeira gone to the Yankees, the Angels front office made it quite clear who they’d like to take over at 1B. As of March 30, Morales had the most at-bats, 74 AB, and fifth-highest average, .405 BA (among Angels ballplayers with <27 AB), 3 HR, 8 SO and 3 BB. The only teammate with as many round-trippers and a higher average was Erick Aybar. BTW, you’ll also observe the only teammate with more total RBIs is Matt Brown. (Many thanks to Lyle Spencer for making note of this last stat in his blog.)

Thus, with fond hopes for his continued success this BeesGal says, “Vaya con dios,” or in Salt Lake vernacular. . .Bye for now!

Featured Link
At the sidebar to the right, you’ll notice a “Featured Link.” There’s no schedule, rhyme or reason for how a link ends up getting special attention; although I would consider donations in the spirit of the “Amazon.com Recommends” scandal a few years back. Just kidding! (On second thought, I guess it depends on the donation.) At any rate, the number one criteria is whatever happens to catch my fancy. For now, it’s Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight, a fascinating blog that covers a whole bunch of topics you don’t usually hear coming out of ballplayers mouths, or read off their keyboards in this case.  At any rate, highly enjoyable and thought-provoking stuff. But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself. Here are a few of my faves:

Audio “Welcome Message” (top of page)—the who & why of JSH&T

Paul Byrd: Choosing Family Over Baseball

Taking On The Readers: The End Of A Career & Gabrielle Schoeneweis

End of the Story: A Conversation With Brian Boehringer’s Former Agent

System Of A Downward Spiral – Dealing With The End

Many of these posts got the wheels spinning (go hamsters, go!) and I hope to create some point/counterpoint off these topics. For now, though visit, browse, and I promise you’ll enjoy it.

Win a Few, Lose a Few. . .
Most of this is old news, covered thoroughly at places like FutureAngels.com, MiLB.com and MLB.com.  Nonetheless, just in case any of you were holding your breath to read it here (hello-o-o-o-o! ?), here’s a recap of some of the organizational roster/staff changes from the last few months. I think the biggest news is the loss of Bruce Hines, Minor League Field Coordinator. Hines’ responsibility was to take the “grow your own” philosophy developed by Stoneman and Scioscia, and make it happen on the field. Or rather, all of the fields from SoCal to Cedar Rapids. (OK, it really should include Orem. Notice though, what a nice alliteration you get this way.)

Rodriguez, Teixeira, O’Day, Mosebach, Gonzalez and Bootcheck are off to other teams. Andersen and Garland are in free-agency, considering their options. Santana, Izturis, Quinlan and Napoli are awaiting arbirtration hearings. We have a new halo in the bullpen, Brian Fuentes, who pitched for Colorado the last four seasons. Guerreo, Lackey, Oliver, Figgins and Riviera are back for one season, or in Rivera’s case three. It appears as though Arte really, really likes LA manager Mike Scioscia, putting him in the dugout through 2018. Sad news—GM special assistant, Preston Gomez, passed away just recently.

The minor league staff acquired a one new face, and one very familiar one. Former MLB outfielder, Eric Owens is the newcomer to the Angels’ organization. Owens will manage Rancho Cucamonga, replacing Ever Magallanes who went to the White Sox organization. Former Salt Lake Bees infielder, Mike Eylward will be Hitting Coach for the Orem Owlz in 2009. (Woohoo! Yours truly will definitely be making some visits to Brent Brown Park this summer.)

We’re famous! Well, sorta.
One of the truly enjoyable experiences to come along this winter was being a guest blogger at Ben’s Biz Blog, where I wax cynically (you were expecting a different adverb?) about the bestselling, homerun book, “Moneyball.” The most noteworthy point about the book review is I am probably one of only eight readers in the entire baseball-reading world who didn’t rave wildly about it. Blasphemy, you shout?! Well, what can I say? Wait a sec, I did say. Read for yourself why I felt like Michael Lewis cheated.

It also gets reposted with an even more inflammatory intro by the 330-win flamethrower and ballplayer pundit, Jimmy Scott. What guys? Are you trying to get me lynched?

Klauke’s Spring Preview
Another fun evening was spent listening to a recent (14JAN09) interview with Steve Klauke on MiLBradio.com. Bonus! Listen closely for the rare opportunity to hear the dulcit tones of my sweetness. At any rate, Steve offers his thoughts on who’s a prospect, who’s in the pen and most importantly, who’s on first.

OK, I think that about clears out the cranial attic. Check back soon. And remember, pitchers and catchers report on February 14, 2009! Bye for now!

A bit of not-so-good news from the same LA Times article, Darren O’Day has been diagnosed with a labrum tear and will try rehab rather than surgery. Take care…

Lastly, the Angels announced their minor league organizational awards for 2008. Freddy Sandoval won Player of the Year and Anthony Ortega was named Pitcher of the Year. Efren Navarro (Cedar Rapids Kernels/Rancho Cucamonga Quakes) was named Defensive Player of the Year. Nice!

Bye for now!

September 15, 2008 — Now that the congratulations have been taken care of, it’s time to offer some thanks as well.

First and foremost, I’d like to thank all of you out there who took the time to stop by for what I hope has been some entertaining reading. I am particularly grateful to those readers who went to the extra trouble of posting a comment. Your input often leads to an inspiration for later posts, or new perspectives on the ones already up. Thank you again!

Rich Barker broke his own rule about ignoring these d*mn bloggers to post some insightful comments about our PCL Pitcher of the Year.

Lisa Winston threw caution to the wind by publically endorsing TSJ in her blog and adding it to her blogroll. Girlfriend, we HAVE to meet up during Arizona Fall League.

Jonathan Mayo, for putting his heart and soul into raising public awareness, as well as $$$, for victims of the Iowa Floods of 2008, including the Cedar Rapids Kernels staff, boosters and host families. You da’ man JonB3!

Chris Rosenbaum put in a really nice plug for TSJ at his blog on September 04. In fact, his post reminded me I needed to do the same. Hey Rosey, can’t wait to see you in a Bees uniform!

Dirk Hayhurst resisted deleting my snarky comments at his very popular blog, and even went so far as to plug TSJ, whereupon site visits immediately quintupled from like 5 to 25.

Rich Burk, Portland Beavers broadcaster, was incredibly supportive of my blogging efforts. Guess I’ll have to make plans for a trip to PGE Park someday, just so I can see for myself what Burkie “is really like.”

John Wolff, former minor-league infielder and owner of eFieldHouse. On a lark I sent him an email inquiring about his site, and WTF?. . .he emailed back! No doubt it’s been downhill for his inbox ever since.

Aaron Wells, Matt Gittins, Jason Taylor of the Orem Owlz always welcomed me to their home yard, always with a smile.

Extra-special thanks to Brenton Del Chiaro for letting me pester him long enough to get an interview for eFieldHouse. [Plus my eternal gratitude to the baseball gods, who allowed me to catch up with the Owlz Hitting-Coach-Come-Manager before the news media started their en masse assault on his Caller ID!]

Another warm thanks to Owlz Pitching Coach Zeke Zimmerman (who will never read this online, so someone go tell him for me) for introducing Tako-sensei and for, . . .well, just being Zeke.

Stephen C. Smith, an invaluable source for Angels’ information and photos. Inspiring, honest and a cherished friend (despite his efforts get me to leave the Triple-A team).

Rick Dykhuizen and Linda Giger, Franklin Covey Irregulars and amateur photogs who helped boost the glam factor of this site by graciously allowing me to post their work for all of you to enjoy.

Dave “Netman” Pratt. Thanks for reminding me that every day spent at the ballpark is a GOOD DAY. More importantly, for teaching us that game balls are far too precious to be kept as mere souvenirs; they were meant to be given away, like love. Dude, when I get to that place, we are going to get in some BP!

Marc Amicone, Brad Tammen, Linda Luchetti, Hannah Lee, Tony Parks, Brian Prutch, Larry, LaRue, Paul, Erin, Joe, Mort, Kevin, Jose, Vern, Katie & the Honeybees and EVERYONE in the Salt Lake Bees front office. You all know how I feel about you already; this is just a shout-out to ensure the rest of the whole d*mn world knows too.

Ryan & Company. Without you guys, there’d be no ballgames at all; the playing field never looked better!

Bumble, for running/jumping/climbing/clapping/riding around in that hot, stuffy suit until his knees (literally) wore out! You’ll always be da’ Bee for me!

Salt Lake Bees team photographer Brent Asay is in a class by himself. I’ve said it already, but it deserves an encore. No one shoots action like Brent!

Steve Klauke, Mr. 2000, what can I say? We’ve been through a lot of seasons together. How about, I’m just not completely present at the ballpark without my radio on and tuned to KJQS 1230 AM?

Bobby Mitchell and this season’s coaching, conditioning and training staff. Welcome to the ballclub fellas! Nice job taking care of this bunch of hard-driving, high-octane, boys-learning-to-be-men. A special thanks to Mitch for a splendid job of media relations, best I’ve seen in years.

Jim Eppard, my favorite coach, for helping #8 get his swing straightened out and #25 produce new career stats in almost every category. Oh, and for making me look like a rock star by lobbing a few soft tosses my way.

To all the ballplayers who spent time this summer in a Salt Lake Bees uniform. Early in the season, our PCL PioY (time marker 07:40) described noticing something special about this group of guys. That thought kept coming back over and over again during the course of the season. I’ve watched a lot of ballplayers come and go over these many summers. And there was definitely something about this team that went beyond BA, RBI, ERA and SO. Best of luck to you in baseball, and everything else.

Saving the best for last. . .my ballpark-bud Jackson was always on top of the game—reminding me who was in the box/on deck/in the hole, what happened their last at-bat, how to turn a triple-play, which ballplayers we liked (Bees) or disliked (other guys), and most importantly of all, why I love this game. Thanks so much for the present! (Dad tells me you spent a ton of time on it.) Hopefully you’ll get to watch your two favorite Bees-now-Halos ballplayers on TV, all the way into Halloween!

SPACER TEXT
Well, . . .only 199 days until the Opening Day 2009. Bye for now!