The Baseball Zealot | The Baseball Zealot

Tale of Two (Baseball) Twitterers

Lately, I’ve switched to Twitter as one of my main feed of baseball news. Most sports news sources have a Twitter feed and Twitter while chaotic, is more convenient than Google Reader.

Anyway, here are two people of interest I’ve found on Twitter that readers here might also find useful, relevant or fun. I wouldn’t put these two under the category of hard news but they do make the day more interesting.

@michael_schlact

How many of you have heard of minor leaguer Michael Schlact? Yeah, me either till today.

But apparently, 1,089 other people have heard of him. That’s how many people are following Schlact on Twitter. Schlact has utilized the medium of Twitter to connect with his fans and quite frankly, to make new ones.

Schlact is a pitcher in the Texas organization (he ended up at the AA level last year). He’s a devout Christian and obviously familiar with new technology. Some athletes create online personas on Twitter or Facebook only to see them die on the vine or have others ghost-write for them. Schlact, however, is a pro at not just using social networking tools like Twitter but knowing how to interact with fans.

Schlact has been answering all kinds of questions from fans (he prefers creamy peanut butter and his baseball pitch-back was his favorite childhood toy). But he also asks questions of his Twitter fans too.

No doubt, it takes more than popularity and fan recognition to make it to the bigs. He’ll have to learn to pitch a mean curve ball too (if you’re interested here a decent scouting report from a year and half ago). But I have to like the way this kid is getting to know his fans because if and when he makes it to the majors, he’ll have a hell of a following.

@si_vault

I’m a sucker for old sports photos, especially baseball photos. And Andy Gray seems to be the go-to guy for some really good ones. According to Gray, he runs the Sports Illustrated Vault. Andy’s mission on Twitter is to provide us with links to “old photos of athletes”.

I’m enjoying them as he posts them. There are some wonderful ones like this one of Mike Schmidt wearing some weird kind of wig.

So follow Andy if you want more of that.

And yeah, if you want, you can follow me @BaseballZealot.

MLB preview of rookie draft, already?

Seems early to talk about the MLB First Year Player Draft already but it’s never early to talk about prospects. mlb.com has a good preview of some of players to watch this spring that will play a big part in the draft. They list the top five high school prospects and the top five college prospects.

No surprise, pitchers dominate the list.

A comment to article caught my eye and made me smile. Seems a young
(ok, not so young… he’s 28) man wants a part of the draft action too.

He says:

How do you get drafted ? I am currently in the Army and am playing winter ball. I also plyed a regular season here in the CA high desert area by where I am stationed. I am 6’3 230 LHP, 2 seam fb, 4 seam fb, change up, slider, spike/knuckle curveball. I have never played on the college level due to the NCAA not allowing players past 30 ( i am 28 currently ).

Uh, good luck with the draft thing. Hope the Army doesn’t mind.

Tim Lincecum models a Snuggie

A rather humorous, behind-the-scenes video of Tim Lincecum modeling a SF Giants Snuggie.

Yo Tim, you’re supposed to keep your pants on when you put a Snuggie on!

Has Theriot broken string of failed Cub shortstop experiments?

With the news that Cubs shortstop Ryan Theriot will sign with the team for $2.6 million that might mean something. Assuming he doesn’t get hurt or he doesn’t get moved to second base, this will be the first time the Cubs will have the same player starting at the shortstop position for three years in a row since 1997 when the Cubs started Shawon Dunston there.

‘Thunderpup’ was a mainstay at short for over ten years for the Cubs. Since he left for the Pirates in 1997, there hasn’t been a solid starter for the Cubs for more than two years straight. If Theriot continues playing short in 2010, his third straight year. Maybe the Cubs can break that streak.

Here are the string of shortstops the Chicago Cubs have used since Shawon Dunston and up until Ryan Theriot.

Let’s start with the most current and move backwards.

2006: Ronny Cedeno
	I know a few Cub fans who were really hot on this guy when he came up. Ronny started out hot in 2005 by hitting .300 in 89 at-bats. Reality set in during 2006 when he started playing full time. He batted .245 with 109 strikeouts. The Cubs unloaded Cedeno after 2008 and he proceeded to hit .209 with Seattle and Pittsburgh.

2006: Ronny Cedeno

I know a few Cub fans who were really hot on this guy when he came up. Ronny started out hot in 2005 by hitting .300 in 89 at-bats. Reality set in during 2006 when he started playing full time. He batted .245 with 109 strikeouts.

The Cubs unloaded Cedeno after 2008 and he proceeded to hit .209 with Seattle and Pittsburgh.

2005: Neifi Perez
	Neifi played a full year in 2005 (609 ab) and got some big numbers but he really represented the Dusty Baker era of the Cubs by not being able to take walk (.298 OBP)

2004: Ramon Martinez
	Who? Martinez is now probably best known for being Geovany Soto’s cousin. Admittedly, Ramon didn’t put in a whole lot of time at short (he played 73 games there), splitting time with Nomar Garciaparra and Neifi Perez. Hey look! There’s Theriot in the photo.

2004: Ramon Martinez

Who? Martinez is now probably best known for being Geovany Soto’s cousin. Admittedly, Ramon didn’t put in a whole lot of time at short (he played 73 games there), splitting time with Nomar Garciaparra and Neifi Perez.

Hey look! There’s Theriot in the photo.

2002-2003: Alex Gonzalez
	This particular Alex Gonzalez, actually managed to start at shortstop for two full years for the Cubs. His numbers were a bit sub-par (.312 and .295 OBP respectively). After his error in the fateful playoff game against the Marlins, his days were numbered though.

2000-2001: Ricky Gutierrez
	A 1998 first round pick, Gutierrez gave the Cubs two full years at short and didn’t do half bad (.276 and .290 with 11 and 10 homers). He probably had his best years with the Cubs.

1999: Jose Hernandez
	I like this photo of Jose. He looks like he’s hitting one out. Or most likely, doing what he does best, striking out (he later led the league twice in Ks),

1998: Jeff Blauser
	One of the players that you forget played for the Cubs. He ended his career for Chicago in 1998-1999. We somehow put up with his .219 batting average in 119 games in 1998.

Honorable mention goes to Rey Sanchez who gave Dunston a break at short in 1996. Others worth mentioning during the period of 1997-2006 are Jose Nieves and Nomar Garciaparra,

Is positional consistency a thing of the past in an MLB team now? I guess we’ll see when/if the Cubs decide to move Theriot to second base. It does make for an interesting trivia question, though.

Team logo aside, would YOU buy this cap???

Well, MLB thinks someone will.

Reyes subpoenaed in case against HGH doctor

Apparently, Mets shortstop Jose Reyes was subpoenaed in the case of Canadian Dr Anthony Galea. Galea, who is not licensed to practice in the U.S. is under investigation for smuggling HGH into the country.

Reyes isn’t the only one to be subpoenaed. The list is long and the athletes on it are quite high-profile. At this point though, Reyes is the only baseball player whose name has come to light:

The doctor’s client list is elite; it includes Tiger Woods, U.S. Olympic swimmer Dara Torres, Broncos quarterback Chris Simms, former Browns running back Jamal Lewis, Mets shortstop Jose Reyes and Donovan Bailey of Canada, who won the 100 meters at the 1996 Olympics.

All the athletes, of course, deny using HGH or any performance enhancing substances provided by Galea.

What does this mean for Reyes? Assuming he’s innocent (a prudent assumption until other evidence comes to light), it will be a distraction and depending how long this lasts, at a critical time in the pre-season. It can only delay his season development with the Mets.

Reyes has already met with the FBI who came to the Port St Lucie spring training grounds. And when federal officials start visiting ballparks, the media is right behind them. Not just the normal sports media but news media, too.

If you’re wondering, Reyes went on record denying any involvement with HGH:

"They asked me if he injected me with that. I say ‘No,’" Reyes said. "What we do there, basically, he took my blood out, put it in some machines, spin it out and put it back in my leg. So I explained to them that."

Now Tiger Woods, this is the kind of distraction he probably needs.

European ball parks

This is a rather unusual and interesting project by Mister Baseball, a blog that bills itself as “All about Baseball and Softball in Europe”. He’s collecting photographs of baseball parks and fields in Europe.

Not surprisingly, I’m not finding too many huge stadiums save for the Neptunus Familiestadion in Rotterdam, Netherlands which hosted the 2005 World Cup. That one is comparable to a decent sized college field.

A nice collection of photos. Take a look.

Twitter’s not for ‘Prime Rib’ Lou

On the heels of the news that Ozzie Guillen is giving Twitter a try, Cubs skipper Lou Piniella is weighing in on his take on the micro-blogging tool.

Seems like Lou probably won’t be using it anytime soon. When it comes down to it, Lou’s a pretty old-school, meat and potatoes kind of guy.

”No, no, no, no, no,” he said. ”First of all, I don’t know how to Twitter, and second of all I’m not going to learn how to Twitter.

”I’m really not a Facebook or Twitter guy. I’m a prime rib and baked potato.”

Errr. Lou must have been pretty hungry at the time.

Ozzie Guillen gone all Tweetin’ on us

Ozzie Guillen is tweeting.

At least that’s the rumor. You never know with celeb-types if these things are real but it’s been picked up by the mainstream media so it HAS to be legit, RIGHT? <—— <sarcasm>

But seriously, this one appears to be the real thing. As to the content of Guillen’s tweets, nothing too majorly earth-shattering. Things like:

Yessss nice day let’s go to work

and

I feel nice and relax today I don’t know why yeeessssssss carlos quentin and rios in camp b ready people

Guillen on twitter is appropriately, all the buzz on twitter right now. If you think of it, Twitter is just the thing for the outspoken Guillen. How MLB will moderate him will be the big internal issue, I’m sure.

Apparently, Kenny Williams is already unhappy with Guillen’s idea of tweetin’.

If you twitter, you can find Guillen tweeting @ozzieguillen.

Astros fan goes to a better place

This story is a bit of a tear-jerker. Sister Damian Kuhn, a Catholic nun as well as a devout Astros fans, passed away at the age of 89.

She certainly did have a sense of humor:

“She was our No. 1 fan, and she always took it personal,” recalled (Astros owner Drayton) McLane. He told her it was time to start praying.

After a long sigh, she replied, “Drayton, my knees are bloodied. It’s going to take more than that!”