Posts filed under 'Baseball'
Mike Stodolka, who was a first–round pitcher in the year 2000, has been molded into the first baseman of the Kansas City Royals in 2008. He was selected as the best defensive opening baseman in the Texas League in 2007. He has evolved exceptionally well through these years and is in love with the game. At present, Mike Stodolka is in the Major League camp of Royals in Arizona. He is enjoying the position in Royals, as he is accorded with the privileges the seasoned stars in the team are receiving. He has been taken as a substitute in four matches and was able to make two hits, with a double.
He has been selected as the first baseman only three years ago. This left handed player had a good play for six seasons but was later faced with shoulder injury. In 2003, he underwent Tommy John surgery on his elbow. But things didn’t improve for him and he was in severe pain. The Royals signed him for a sum of $2.5 million based on his pitching record of 10-0 and 111 strikeouts in 52 innings. The director of player development, J.J Picollo of Royals is pleased with the good swing Mike is able to produce while hitting and that is the reason he is in the camp now.
March 7th, 2008
Jake Peavy, the San Diego Padres player who is the reigning CY young award winner of National League, is happy about his performance in the spring debut even though, his team lost 6-2 to the Mariners. Peavy was really fortunate on that day to emerge without injury as he was hit by a ball in his groin area. The ball was hit hard by Mike Morse and it deflected from Peavey’s gloves and smacked on his body. He was not wearing any protection as he felt that the cups are very uncomfortable.
Peavy was fine enough after the incident and said that he was able to do some best pitches of the game just after he was hit by the ball. Peavey allowed two runs of the four hits in a two-inning spell and he is very satisfied with this performance. He said he was unable to control some fastballs and failed to throw it in the position he wanted. Peavey said he will try and improve on his fastball command. Peavy didn’t go for any sliders, but made Raul Ibanez out by a fast back –door cut. He said he is going to use mix-ups in throw all through his spring session.
March 5th, 2008
Masahide Kobayashi debuted for the Cleveland Indians in a spring training match on Friday and did impress his fans as well as the people responsible for bringing him into the side with his throwing skills. Many feel that he will be a big asset to the Indians this season and his throws which are a bit harder will surely give some goose bumps to the hitting rivals. The Japanese pitcher who has a history of making more than 200 saves got into the Indian team by signing a free agent contract after serving for nine long years for the Japanese Pacific League side, Chiba Lotte Marines. Kobayashi was a member of the Japanese team for the 2004 Olympic Games and led the Japanese League with 34 saves in the 2005 season.
The Indian manager, Eric Wedge, feels that the Japanese pitcher is very much a focused player and knows what his task is. He made an impression in the mind of the manger when he pitched out of a jam against the Astros in the Friday’s match. Kobayashi said that he needed to be nervous to stay focused throughout the game and said that his main aim was to get outs one by one. After his amazing display, the think tank of the Cleveland Indians must feel proud for signing Kobayashi.
March 3rd, 2008
Roger Clemens visited the spring training complex of Astros early this week and has decided to spend some time in Kissimmee during the spring season. He announced that within two Days he will start giving batting practice to the young campers. Clemens said that he enjoys working with the mini-campers and the draftees has become more familiar with him in the past 2 or 3 years and are feeling free to ask more relevant questions about the play. Roger Clemens, who is 45 years of age, has signed a contract of extending his personal services to the Astros, when he retires from the game. But, for the past several years he has been helping the Minor Leaguers of Astro during their spring training sessions.
Clemens willingly had a talk with the reporters whom, he was avoiding after the controversy about the performance - enhancing drugs was started. Clemens was careful enough to avoid the references about the controversy. He expressed his wish to focus his time and mind on his duties at the Minor –league camp. His eldest son Koby is also a member of the training camp. Drayton McLane, Astro club owner welcomed Clemens to Astros’ facilities two weeks ago and wanted Clemens to come back to the game in this sprin
February 29th, 2008
Brian Cashman, the General Manager of the Yankees is expecting to get a new contract by the end of this season. The talks will go on between the senior vice president of Yankees, Hank Steinbrenner and Cashman during this season. Cashman is in the last year of his present contract and he wants to keep any talk about the new deal as a matter only between him and Steinbrenner. At present both are busy concentrating on the spring training session and are expected to have a discussion later, in between the games of the season.
Cashman was only19 years old, when he joined Yankees, as an intern in the year 1986. He took over the post of General Manager in the year 1997 as a successor of Bob Watson. Steinbrenner said that, he has known Cashman personally for along time but, is unable to predict whether Cashman would like to stay on as the General Manager again. Steinbrenner values Cashman for his organizational abilities and to put everything in place. Steinbrenner is happy with the way things are going now. He is very impressed with the work of the new manager Joe Giardi. Both Cashman and Steinbrenner are positive about the outcome of the discussion of the contract.
February 27th, 2008
Don Mattingly, the LA Dodger’s Assistant Coach, had the surprise of his life when he found out that his wife, Kim Mattingly had been arrested. She was arrested last weekend and charged by the police with disorderly conduct and intoxication in public. The couple has been divorced since last November as Don was making his move from being a hitting coach to a major league coach. Kim was arrested after she refused to leave his home. Apparently, he had taken her cell phone away from her and she was trying to get it back. Don told police he did not have the phone and that in the future, Kim would have to go through their lawyers to have anything to do with him.
The police were called back in a matter of hours as Kim was getting ready to leave. She was sitting in the passenger seat of a car and the police pulled her out. She was very unsteady on her feet. Alcohol could be smelled very heavily on her breath. She was then arrested and then released after posting a fifty dollar bond. Don Mattingly said he had no idea what caused her to become so upset. He didn’t even know that she had a phone with her. He says she needs to get some help for her drinking among other things.
February 22nd, 2008
The world has completely changed for Johan Santana, the 29 year old pitcher, when he signed the richest contract of $137.5 million with Mets for a period of six years. Now he will have to play up to the expectations of the hype created by the richest contract, as the premier pitcher of the baseball. Santana is least bothered about all these and says he knows what he is supposed to do and pressure is a part of any game. Mets fans hope that Santana is capable of imparting the lost spirit into the team, which is suffering from the shocks created by last season’s collapse and poor performance.
Santana is viewed as a savior by the Mets fans because they believe only Santana can lead the team to victory with the exceptional playing skills and oodles of confidence he has. Randolph Willie the manager of the Mets thinks that Santana can adjust to any type of environment and players with some attitude have always performed well in
New York. The baseball world is closely watching each and every move of Santana to find out how he is going to perform in the new team. The acquisition of Santana itself has boosted the confidence of the Mets.
February 20th, 2008
The Major League Baseball with its Ambassador Program is on a policy to build the interest of baseball in various countries all over the world by holding clinics and nurturing the young talents in these countries. During the off season, Curtis Granderson, the Tigers center fielder had the chance to visit the South Africa through the Ambassador Program organized by the MLB. Curtis was amazed by the number of young players interested in taking baseball as a career sport. There is only one major baseball tournament in a year in South Africa and nobody knows where the game is heading in 10 to 20 years time.
There are no African players currently playing in the Major Leagues but Curtis’s says that there is no dearth of talented players in Africa. Granderson asked the youth in Africa not to quit playing rugby, soccer or cricket, but asked them to add baseball also in their sporting activities. Granderson said that the knowledge and the eagerness to learn the game is very clearly visible among the youth in Africa and the facilities at the Athlon academy in Cape Town were pretty impressive. It is up to the coaches and the instructors to instill confidence in the young players to take up the sport seriously and to help them develop their playing skills.
February 18th, 2008
Newly clean and sober center fielder Josh Hamilton arrived at the batting cages Friday morning with a smile on his face. He is 6-4, 240 pounds and is wearing a royal blue Rangers shirt which he claims brings out the blue in his eyes. Hamilton spends the following 45 minutes in the cage swinging one-handed with an smooth but powerful grace. He hits a few line drives off tees and soft-tosses before spending 25-30 more minutes in full-scale batting practice. This training is nothing compared to last year when he spent hours hitting hundreds of balls a day while trying to catch up on the over 3 seasons that he missed to drug addiction. Later on in the day Hamilton spends 2 ½ hours with a relentless personal trainer before heading off to his similarly rigorous pilates instructor. After all this, when he arrives home Hamilton’s future is tested when he urinates into a cup and waits for confirmation that says that Hamilton is clean, sober and drug-free.
January 28th, 2008
The Detroit Tigers are talking with Curtis Granderson about a long-term contract extension. Curtis Granderson is not set to became a free agent until the end of the 2011 season, however. Last year Granderson made $410,000 and was thinking that maybe the team could sign him a likeminded contract for the 2008 season. The club now has more of a reason to sign Curtis to a long-term contract over the next few months after he was almost selected for his first All-Star game. The Detroit Tigers would prefer the contract to stretch a minimum of one season. At this point contract length or salary have not been discussed.
January 28th, 2008
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