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June 12th, 2008

Well-worn path to the majors starts in Alaska League

Alaska league has decades-long tradition of helping amateurs become All-Stars

By DOYLE WOODY
dwoody@adn.com

Published: June 8th, 2008 02:37 AM
Last Modified: June 8th, 2008 05:22 AM

A rugged, no-frills league in the Last Frontier State has funneled almost 400 college players to the majors and kept fans in Fairbanks up late each June with its quirky Midnight Sun Game

By Luke Winn

“Remember to never take the game home with you.”
– Former major league closer Lee Smith, on how a reliever can maintain his sanity

What, however, is a pitcher to do when his team’s bullpen is closer to his bed than it is to the dugout? That was the conundrum facing Kevin Camacho last summer on college baseball’s last frontier. At 2 a.m. on June 22, not long after the conclusion of the 102nd Midnight Sun Game, many of Camacho’s Alaska Goldpanners teammates mounted bicycles and rode off, still in full uniform. They receded like a gang of supersized Little Leaguers into Fairbanks’s Arctic glow, which had made the game — a 6-1 loss to the visiting Oceanside Waves that had begun at 10:36 p.m. under a cloudy tapestry of blues and pinks — possible without the aid of artificial lights. On the summer solstice the natural light never dies out in Fairbanks, 160 miles south of the Arctic Circle, and on this night Camacho, a California-raised righty, would never leave the confines of Growden Memorial Park, where the centerfield backdrop is the eight-starred Alaskan flag and Take Me Out to the Ballgame is forsaken during the seventh-inning stretch in favor of the Beat Farmers’ 1985 country-punk song Happy Boy. Out with the peanuts and Cracker Jack, in with lyrics about a dead dog in a drawer, as well as the most guttural refrain ever to blare from a stadium speaker: “Hubba hubba hubba hubba hubba!”

While his teammates biked a mile or two to their host families’ houses, Camacho had a shorter trip home. He made a left at the batting cage down the leftfield line, then a hard right at the Port-o-Lets. He passed through a chain-link gate, climbed four wooden steps and unlocked a door, marked D4, on a 50-foot white trailer. Camacho tossed his equipment bag on the floor of the 9-by-12 room with a view… of the back of Growden’s third base bleachers. “Welcome to the O.V.,” he said. “This is how we live.”

O.V. is short for Olympic Village, 13 weather-beaten trailers in which visiting teams in the Alaska Baseball League often bunk when in Fairbanks. The vehicles are so named because Goldpanners general manager Don Dennis, a thickly bespectacled 68-year-old who lives in his office at the park, has leased them in the past to actual Olympic teams — U.S. skiers and lugers, and the Taiwanese and Korean baseball teams — which have occasionally trained in Fairbanks. During the 2007 season, however, the trailers housed four Goldpanners players, all of them from NAIA national champ Lewis-Clark State in Lewiston, Idaho, who had chosen not to live with host families. In its previous life the four-decade-old O.V. fleet harbored some of the men who built the Trans-Alaska Pipeline near Atigun Pass, 300 miles to the north. Dennis bought the trailers for $125,000 in 1986 and relocated them to an asphalt lot adjacent to leftfield. The amenities are few and dated — wood-grain paneling, vintage ’80s TVs and no AC, which means players often wake up drenched in sweat — but there is a Last Frontier State authenticity to the spartan quarters that the players appreciate.

“It’s kind of like camping,” explained one of Camacho’s D-block neighbors, pitcher Brad Schwarzenbach. “But I’ll tell you this: I’ve never been late to the field.”

The only latecomer to last year’s Midnight Sun Game was the sun itself, which in the end never showed at all. A sellout crowd of about 4,000 had filled the park, but the sun stayed tucked away behind a horseshoe of clouds beyond the leftfield foul pole. Camacho threw 6 1/3 innings of one-run relief in the dusk before making the trek to his trailer. When a visitor described his digs as “pretty rugged,” Camacho corrected him: “It’s pretty Alaska.”

The term Alaskans use for the Lower 48 is Outside, and the six-team, four-city ABL is stocked with college standouts who are primarily Outsiders. The league — founded in 1969 but with roots going back more than a century — bills itself as an unvarnished version of the more prestigious Cape Cod League, another wood-bat summer league that serves as a showcase for top U.S. college players; last spring Dennis took a jab at the Cape circuit, calling it a “show league” for scouts and tourists compared with the “down and dirty competition among the cities” in Alaska. The ABL is best known for its alumni; it has produced almost 400 major leaguers, including Hall of Famers Tom Seaver and Dave Winfield and stars such as Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Randy Johnson and J.D. Drew. The league’s character, however, is shaped more by things uniquely Alaskan: pipeline trailers, perpetual summer light and that signature tradition, the Midnight Sun Game, which grew out of a 1906 bet between two Fairbanks bars, California’s Saloon and the Eagles Club. Their patrons formed teams called the Drinks and the Smokes.

The ABL has no Hall of Fame, but much of its history resides in the head of an 87-year-old who lives six hours south of Fairbanks, in Anchorage. On the day after last year’s solstice Henry Aristide (Red) Boucher, the de facto Godfather of Alaskan Baseball, was convalescing from a stroke in his three-bedroom town house. His wife, Vicky, who’s 22 years his junior, apologized to a visitor that her husband’s trove of memorabilia was in storage because of a recent flood in the basement.

Red Boucher, in his peculiarly raspy voice, is a charming storyteller, and he explained that he had come to Alaska in 1958 at the urging of U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy. JFK wanted the former naval officer and fellow Massachusetts Democrat — who’d assisted with Kennedy’s ‘56 campaign — to get involved in politics in the vast territory that in 1959 would become the 49th U.S. state. Boucher met his first wife, an Icelandic Air flight attendant, in the early ’50s at a wrap party for Name That Tune, on which the two had been contestants, and persuaded her to move to Fairbanks, where in 1966 he was elected mayor. Five years later he became the state’s lieutenant governor.

Boucher founded the Goldpanners in 1960. He ran the franchise — which mostly played exhibitions against competition from Outside until the ABL’s founding — out of his sporting-goods store. Boucher was manager, fan entertainer and Alaskan baseball evangelist; he happily recalls how, during the ‘Panners’ 1963 trip to the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, Kans., he had a black bear tranquilized and flown in from Fairbanks as a promotional stunt. (Boucher proceeded to parade the animal, which was named Midnight, around the field on a chain, “until he started chasing me and nipping at my rear end. I ran toward the dugout, and it cleared out fast.”)

He is most proud that the ace of the ‘64 and ‘65 teams used his stint with the Goldpanners as a stepping-stone from Fresno City College to USC and later a major league career in which he won 311 games. Twenty-eight years after combining on a no-hitter in the NBC World Series in Wichita, Tom Seaver invited Boucher to his induction ceremony in Cooperstown.

“Red was a character cut from a different cloth,” says Seaver, who now runs his own vineyard in Calistoga, Calif. “I remember my first flight into Alaska. I went from San Francisco to Seattle to Fairbanks, and when I landed, they had a uniform waiting for me. I changed in the car and met Red — in mid-game — in the dugout. He said, ‘Go to the bullpen. Somebody get him ready.’ I got called in and met my catcher for the first time on the mound. The discussion went, ‘What’s your name?’ ‘O.K., Marty.’ ‘O.K., Tom. What do you throw?’ “

The drive from Boucher’s home to Anchorage’s Mulcahy Stadium is 10 minutes, spitting distance by Alaskan standards. The facility is home to two ABL teams, the Bucs and the Glacier Pilots, and has become familiar to millions of Outsiders thanks to a surreal YouTube clip. Through May 31, footage of a Cessna Skywagon crashing behind Mulcahy’s leftfield fence in mid-inning of an ‘03 ABL game had been viewed 2,402,436 times. (Although the plane flipped as it skidded, none of its four passengers were killed, and two escaped unscathed.)

Seventy-five-year-old Pilots general manager George (Lefty) Van Brunt, another of the ABL’s elder statesmen, is living proof that dive-bombing an outfield in a single-engine Cessna can be less dangerous than warming up Randy Johnson. Van Brunt keeps a desk in the windowless equipment room of the Pilots’ first-base-line shed (which also serves as a clubhouse), and from there, a few hours before the start of a game against the Bucs last June 20, he waxed nostalgic about the Big Unit’s Alaskan summer of ‘84. Van Brunt liked to goad the then USC pitcher about mechanics. “I’d say, ‘One of these days, Randy, you’ll learn how to bend your back,’ ” he recalls. “That must have ticked him off.” Soon after, in a bullpen session at Mulcahy, Johnson broke Van Brunt’s right big toe with an errant fastball. The Pilots’ G.M. insists, however, that the incident belied the Unit’s true temperament. “Randy was just a beach bum who loved his guitar,” Van Brunt says. “He played country western, but we always told him, ‘Don’t sing. You ain’t worth a darn as a singer.’ “

It is a 3 1/4-hour drive south from Anchorage to Kenai, where the Peninsula Oilers occupy the ABL’s southernmost outpost. En route, innumerable signs warn of moose crossings, and drivers are likely to spot Dall sheep on fjordside cliffs as well as anglers battle-fishing for salmon in the Russian River. There is an abundance of wildlife, but a dearth of wild life — there’s a desperate shortage of college-age women in Alaska, which forces ABL players to find other forms of entertainment; one Oiler said that by summer’s end, he might “be willing to have sex with a moose.” Former Goldpanners southpaw Bill (Spaceman) Lee, who won 119 games in 14 big league seasons, met his first wife, airline greeter Mary Lou Helfrich, as he got off a plane in Fairbanks in ‘66. The Spaceman recalls that he wooed her in a typically Alaskan way. “I had a pickup truck from my host family, and after games I’d court Mary Lou by taking her out to the city dump,” he says. “We’d watch the wolves and bears in the twilight.”

Kenai is also home to a bayside Hilton, albeit an unofficial one attached to a bingo hall, with a sign inside that reads, ABSOLUTELY NO CLEATS ARE ALLOWED TO BE WORN IN THE HILTON AREA. In addition to supplying bunks to visiting players and raising money for the Oilers through weeknight bingo games, the so-called Bingo Hilton (which the team owns and runs) features a storefront that displays Oilers trophies and sells “pull tabs” — gambling tickets with perforated flaps that reveal whether the purchaser has won a cash prize. On a Sunday at 12:30 p.m., 90 minutes before an Oilers-Bucs game, two diehards sat at the Hilton’s U-shaped counter, surrounded by clear-plastic boxes of tabs.

Jim Petterson, a 58-year-old retired Unocal loader, explained almost apologetically, “Alaska doesn’t have casinos, so this is the only way we can gamble.” He and his 46-year-old wife, Betsy, don’t attend Oilers games. But given that they buy $200 to $300 worth of pull tabs a week, Jim estimated that “we’ve probably paid for a few jerseys by now.” To which Betsy interjected, “More like, we could have bought the stadium a couple of times.”

The vistas beyond the outfield fences at most ABL stadiums are relatively subdued — there are no calving glaciers or salmon jumping out of rivers — but the field in Kenai is ringed by 80-foot-high spruce trees, Anchorage’s Mulcahy Stadium looks out on a lovely cluster of additional athletic fields, and a curling club flanks Fairbanks’s Growden Memorial Park. The state’s famed peaks almost always loom in the distance, though at Hermon Brothers Field in Palmer, the home of the Mat-Su Miners, the mountains of the Chugach Range appear close enough to touch. Four hours northeast of Kenai and a half hour northeast of Anchorage, Palmer’s ballpark is situated off a road leading to the Alaska State Fairgrounds, marked only by a couple of small wooden signs. The field is dwarfed by the presence of a 6,400-foot crag — Pioneer Peak — that seems to rise just beyond the leftfield corner. It is a mere taste of what William H. Seward, who as Lincoln’s secretary of state negotiated the purchase of the Alaskan territory from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million, once described as “scenery which surpassed in sublimity that of either the Alps, the Apennines, the Alleghenies, or the Rocky Mountains.”

It is said that Alaska has but two seasons: winter and day. Taking advantage of the latter, Miners assistant coaches Conor Bird (now the head coach) and Nate Thompson headed out for a fishing marathon at sunrise — 4:11 a.m. — after a win last June. Bird, 27, who coaches at the College of Marin, in California, and Thompson, 26, now at Nebraska, were perched on a muddy bank of the Eklutna Tailrace, near a power station outside Palmer that is a hot spot for king salmon.

Bird, a dry-witted, soul-patched San Franciscan who was serving as the Miners’ pitching coach, rigged up rods with proper weights and baited egg-loops with globs of reddish roe. “The person who does the least preparation is the one most likely to catch something,” he lamented, and when the reporter accompanying the two coaches hooked the lone king (and failed to reel it in), Bird’s axiom was proved correct. The party went on to earn the angler’s equivalent of a Golden Sombrero — four hours of only nibbles and whiffs — while tantalizing noises, some melodious, others primal, emanated from up- and down-river. Splashes from leaping salmon. Whoops from more fortunate fishermen. Strangest of all, thuds from the impact of wood against the heads of fresh catch. The salmon must be killed this way and resubmerged in the river; if left out in the open, they are essentially homing beacons for hungry grizzly bears.

The coaches were in little danger, seeing that the only thing submerged nearby was a bottle of Jagermeister, which provided periodic solace. The white flag finally got waved at around six that morning. They had to have some sleep before batting practice began that afternoon. They had come here nearly straight from the field following last night’s game and should have been exhausted. But the Alaskan sun over the river was already so bright that it buoyed the spirits of sportsmen who, today, took nothing home with them.

The view from the Spaceman - Catching up with Bill Lee (66-67-08R) 

By Jon Goode, Special To Boston.com  |  October 17, 2004

CRAFTSBURY, Vermont — He was one of the most interesting and unique people to play for the Boston Red Sox.

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Nicknamed the “Spaceman”, Bill Lee pitched 10 seasons for the Red Sox (1969-78) and was an integral part of the starting rotation during that time span. Despite his success on the mound, however, Lee received more attention for his eccentric personality.

”I don’t ask questions, I answer questions,” said Lee. “I do things spontaneously and not premeditated. I take things as they come and live my life in the present. What I do everyday is what I want to do. If I want to hunt turkeys I have fun doing that.”

These days Lee, 57, resides on a farm in Craftsbury, Vermont ( which is about 22 miles from the Canadian border) with his wife Diana. They have been married four years.

”I met her in Canada and we settled down and brought her back to the states,” said Lee. “She doesn’t really care for the U.S. too much, but we are close to Canada so it makes it worthwhile. I picked that spot when I came back from Canada because it was close to Montreal and close to Boston.”

Lee has two sons and two daughters - Michael, 34, Andy, 30, Caitlin, 27, and Anna, 10.

His son Andy was signed as a non-drafted free agent by Boston and played in the Red Sox Minor League system. Andy now coaches at Hinds Community College in Jackson, Mississippi.

”I thought he should have been picked up earlier,” said Lee. “With the old regime we didn’t really get along that much. He was a very good pitcher and ended up 2-1 in professional ball. He still plays and coaches in Mississippi.”

Lee has stayed extremely busy. He owns his own bat company in New Brunswick called The Old Bat Company.

“We use slow growing ash, maple, and yellow birch,” said Lee. “We make bats just as good as Barry Bond’s bats.”

In addition to his company, Lee just finished his third book “Have Glove, Will Travel”, which will be out in February. He also works as a broadcaster for Rogers Communications Canada for the playoffs and did radio for the Montreal Expos.

”I’m basically busy everyday of my life,” said Lee. “I answer the phone and people ask me to do things. I just pick my spots and try not to work too hard and get burnt out. I’m busy all the time and continue to stay around baseball. Really, what I want to do everyday is what I want to do.”

As an Expos broadcaster, Lee was not happy with the team’s move to Washington D.C.

“I hated it and I thought it was very poor to take a team out of a foreign country and say it was because of the fans,” said Lee. “They never gave them any support and didn’t get a new ballpark. People will realize no one goes to games in Washington D.C. either.”

When he’s not working, Lee still likes to play baseball for fun.

”I like to play baseball. I like to go play in tournaments and just compete,” said Lee. “I like to stay in shape.”

He played a total of 14 seasons in the Major Leagues including 10 seasons with Boston, and four with the Montreal Expos (1979-82).

Lee was 119-90 with a 3.62 ERA over his career. He posted several outstanding seasons, most notably in 1975 where he went 17-9 with a 3.95 ERA and helped lead the Red Sox to the World Series.

Lee was involved in many moments in Red Sox history, but arguably the most famous one came in 1976 when he was forced to leave a game after hurting his shoulder in a bench clearing brawl with the New York Yankees.

”I have never cared for them [the Yankees] that much,” said Lee. “They are a great come-from-behind ball club and they have a lot of great players, but I have always been a Red Sox fan and will continue.”

One of Lee’s most memorable off-the-field moments came when he protested the sale of former Red Sox player Bernie Carbo to the Cleveland Indians. Lee stormed into the clubhouse, cleaned out his locker, and told the team he was retiring.

Upon returning, the Red Sox fined him $533. In response Lee asked if they could make it $1,500 so he could take the weekend off.

That wasn’t the only example of Lee’s wacky off-field behavior. He jogged from Fenway Park to Belmont on the days he pitched. He rehabilitated a shoulder by hanging from MBTA straps, and he once showed up to a game in Milwaukee in an astronauts suit to protest air pollution.

While Lee was a productive pitcher for the Red Sox, these off-filed antics define his place in Red Sox history.

Tom Seaver, Dave Winfield, Michael Young Interview for TTG

http://www.touchingthegame.com/alaska/

 

In today’s high pressure, big dollar world of professional baseball and its accompanying media cyclone, the most poignant and refreshing perspectives are those that portray the unique and committed institutions which keep the essence and purity of our national pastime alive. The Alaska Baseball League is such an institution and offers such a perspective. With roots in the days before the playing of the first Midnight Sun game in 1906, this amateur league has been adding to Alaska’s (and indeed America’s) cultural and historical legacy, defined as much by its Alaskan existence as by its exceptionally high quality baseball.

Many baseball greats like Tom Seaver, Dave Winfield, Mark McGwire, and Randy Johnson have spent summers in places like Fairbanks, Anchorage and Kenai on their road to the Major Leagues, often thriving, sometimes just enduring, MLB Hall of Famers and journeymen alike have played in the annual Midnight Sun Game, which is played on the summer solstice each year in the middle of the night, with no artificial lights. Numerous National Baseball Congress World Series titles have been won and the league is full of incredible stories of accomplishment and travail. Careers and lives have been shaped in our farthest north state.

Compelling human-interest threads abound in the Alaska league, as do unique traditions such as the annual Midnight Sun Game. And of course, this is Alaska, with its myriad visual opportunities and its own influence on the evolution of the league. This film will integrate all these elements into a compelling, visually powerful, seamless narrative told by the participants themselves, including those famous MLB alums.

To learn more about the film, please use the links below:

• For Investors
• Blog
• View Trailer and Clips

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Bud ShawPlain Dealer Columnist

Winter Haven, Fla. — The long odds of two high school teammates making the major leagues and playing for the same team got stretched even more in Toronto last summer.

That’s when Blue Jays reliever Brian Wolfe retired Ryan Garko and Ben Francisco in a game against the Indians.

All three were seniors at Servite High School in Anaheim, Calif., in 1999. But that’s nothing compared to the odds a team with three future major-leaguers would lead a high school title game, 10-0 and somehow find a way to lose.

“Ask Ben about it,” Garko said in a conspiratorial tone. “He’s still bitter.”

Francisco and Garko dress four lockers apart in the Indians’ spring-training clubhouse. So it’s not too far a stroll to find the embittered Francisco.

“We were two outs from winning by the mercy rule,” Francisco said Monday. “Two outs. The fans had left. Our pitcher [Wolfe] got hit for some home runs. A grand slam. We lost, 18-17.”

A lot of guys relive their high school days because nothing of athletic note happens after graduation. Bruce Springsteen wrote “Glory Days” for that reason.

Garko and Francisco are exceptions. They’ve made Servite’s list of notable alumni, along with former NFL quarterbacks Steve Beuerlein and Turk Schonert, former NFL lineman Blaine Nye and Carolina Panther lineman Ryan Kalil, and pitcher Mike Witt, who threw a perfect game for the Angels against Texas in 1984.

Garko and Francisco grew up a distance apart that Garko calculates as “Beachwood to Westlake.” They didn’t know each other before their freshman year.

“I saw this big guy hitting the ball 500 feet,” Francisco said.

“Ben weighed like 80 pounds,” Garko said.

Garko would hit third in the lineup and catch. Francisco filled out as a senior, hit fourth and played center field. Wolfe, a sixth-round pick of Minnesota, was considered the sure thing.

“Nobody would be surprised he made the big leagues,” Francisco said of Wolfe. “A lot of people wouldn’t be surprised Ryan made it either. Me? I was a shrimp.”

Francisco made his major league and Indians debut last season, batting .274 in 25 games with three home runs and 12 RBI. He was selected the International League’s “most exciting player.”

His chances of making the Indians’ 25-man roster out of spring training are diminished in a crowded outfield (Jason Michaels, David Dellucci, Grady Sizemore and Franklin Gutierrez) and by the fact that he still has options. The Indians will keep four outfielders.

“Ben was impressive last year,” manager Eric Wedge said. “He obviously impacted us at home plate and on the field. He still needs to continue to improve in the outfield.”

“No way you should win a Triple-A batting title and not be in the big leagues,” Garko said. “But the majors are a tough level to break into.”

Garko knows. This time last year, he was a catcher trying to make the transition to first base for a team whose infield defense the year before was your basic butcher shop.

Every day, every ground ball brought scrutiny. Garko handled it well. He finished in the middle of the league defensively among first basemen while hitting .290 with 21 home runs and 61 RBI.

The corners are where teams traditionally find their power numbers. Wedge makes the case a double is as good as a home run if it comes at the right time. Garko had 29 of those.

Garko’s theory is that where home runs are concerned, 30 is the new 40.

“It’s one of the great things about steroid testing,” Garko said. “Every first baseman isn’t hitting 40 home runs every year now. The premium is on being able to handle the bat and driving in runs.

“I’d love to get that 61 RBI up close to 100. Increasing home runs wouldn’t make me as happy as that would.”

Garko’s spot in the lineup is assured. He wishes the same could be said for Francisco.

The outfield is even more crowded when you consider Shin-Soo Choo, who is recovering from injury but also is out of options.

“I saw Ryan go through something like this last spring,” Francisco said. “So he’s a good person to talk to about it.”

To reach Bud Shaw:

bshaw@plaind.com, 216-999-5639

 

 

By BRIAN WOODSON
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

PRINCETON — If first impressions are any indication, Joe Szekely is going to enjoy spending the summer in Mercer County.

What could be better than baseball season, and an infinite variety of food?

“You hear about Princeton and it being a town of 6.000 people and in your head you form what it’s going to look like and what the baseball field is going to look like, along with the facilities and the town,” said Szekely, who lives in Marion, Texas. “Then you come here and the first thing I said to Jim (Holland) is, ‘This town is bigger than 6,000 people.’

“The town I live in has got 1,100 people and this looks like it’s like 10 times as big as that. It’s amazing, you people eat very, very well. You’ve got enough restaurants here for a 100,000 people.”

Szekely was introduced Saturday as the new manager of the Princeton Rays, taking the place of Jamie Nelson, who served in the same capacity for five years, setting a mark for most wins by a Princeton manager in what will be the 21st year of the franchise since it was established in 1988.

During Nelson’s tenure, Princeton won the annual Mercer Cup competition with the Bluefield Orioles in four of those seasons, including the last three in a row. Szekely knows the task ahead won’t be easy.

“Jamie was a popular guy, he had been here a long time and he had taken care of the rivalry very well,” said Szekely, entering his 24th year in professional baseball. “Those are big shoes to follow, but hopefully we can continue the tradition on.”

Szekely arrived in Princeton for the first time on Friday, and attended Saturday’s 6th Annual Media Appreciation Luncheon sponsored by the P-Rays. Szekely, Rays’ General Manager Jim Holland and Appalachian League President Lee Landers met with the media and fans.

Holland can only hope that the 2008 season, which begins on June 17 with a visit from the league’s newest team — the Pulaski Mariners — is as successful as last year.

“I’m entering my 17th year here and 2007, as much as any year since I’ve been here, I’ve never seen a year where so much fell into place and went right,” Holland. “Those of you who came to the ball park know the attendance was up, the atmosphere at the park was up, and promotionally, everything that we tried to do went really well.

“It was a great feeling and it was a great year.”

Szekely hopes it can be even better on the field. Princeton last had a winning season in 2000 and won its lone league title in 1994. Szekely knows his primary role is to produce future Tampa Bay Rays, but he also wants to win games.

“You’re never going to let winning get in the way of development, but I think they go hand in hand,” Szekely said. “I think the kids need to have success and need to understand and know what it takes to win.

“Obviously it depends a lot on the players. There’s never been a nag that won the Kentucky Derby, but I think they need to understand what the commitment is and what it’s like and what you have to do to win.”

While Szekely won’t know who his players will be for a while, he does like what he see at Hunnicutt Field, which has undergone a much-needed facelift, from an invigorated playing surface and draining system to the creation of an indoor batting facility that can be used the Rays and the Princeton Tigers baseball team.

“It’s been very, very good trip so far, we toured the baseball field and I was surprised,” Szekely said. “I didn’t know what to think, small town, half-season team and I saw the field and it’s a lot better than some of the fields that I have had at the higher levels and much, much bigger cities.

“I was very surprised with not only the field, but the workout facilities and I’ve already mentioned the eating places. That’s unbelievable. Everything has been far more than I expected from the town of Princeton.”

A second round draft choice by the Kansas City Royals in 1982, Szekely spent 11 seasons playing in the minor leagues with the Royals, Dodgers and Blue Jays and Braves, batting .263 in 815 games.

Once his time on the field came to an end, he didn’t want to leave the game behind.

“I kind of grew up in it, my dad was a professional baseball player, and I was always around it and I just kind of gravitated towards it,” Szekely said. “I played it while I was growing up and I guess the fact that I was around it so much that it just kind of rubbed off on me.

“There’s nothing like it, it’s the one game I think that I would say everybody can relate to because it just seems like everybody you have talked to has played some kind of baseball somewhere.”

The 46-year-old Szekely is entering his fourth season in the Tampa Bay organization, managing Vero Beach to a 59-79 record last season.

His previous two clubs, the Visalia Oaks of the California League and the Southwest Michigan Devil Rays of the Midwest League each made the playoffs.

In seven minor league seasons with the Rays and Royals, he’s posted a 351-401 mark. He’s also been a hitting and catching instructor for both of those clubs, along with serving for four years in the Atlanta Braves system.

“It’s good people you meet at the ball park and I know it’s in my blood,” said Szekely, whose wife, Kim, and their two teenage daughters will stay in Princeton this summer. “I played for all those years, and I got through playing and I knew I wanted to stay in the game.

“I didn’t know anything else and it’s just been that my life has afforded me the opportunity to stay in the game and we’ve just had a lot of fun.”

One of the quickest lessons a prospect learns when they enter professional baseball is that it’s not just a game anymore. It’s also a job. The task ahead isn’t easy, but Szekely said the rewards are definitely worth the effort.

“A lot of these kids are not used to this, some of these kids are coming from high school and college programs where you don’t play every single day as well as work four or five hours a day so it’s quite a change,” Szekely said. “If you don’t absolutely love what you’re doing, it can be the worst job you’ve ever had.

“If you love what you’re doing, it’s hard work, but it’s very rewarding and very fun.”

The latter statement would describe Szekely. He leaves for spring training in Florida on Feb. 29. He’ll return to West Virginia in June accompanied by the 2008 edition of the Princeton Rays. Is he excited?

“Absolutely,” Szekely said. “I’ve got my juices flowing right now.”

—Contact Brian Woodson

Byline: HEATHER GRIPP Staff Writer

Brian Felten gets early bragging rights in the family and in the Mission League.

Loyola of Los Angeles defeated visiting Crespi of Encino 4-3 on Tuesday to not only give the Cubs’ baseball coach a victory over the team for which his younger brother plays, but also lift Loyola into sole possession of first place in the Mission League.

Brian Clark singled in Trey Rallis  for the deciding run in the sixth inning.

The teams, which entered the game tied for first place, meet again Thursday at Valley College.

“With my brother being on the team, I follow Crespi real closely,” said Felten, also a former Celt

`I probably know more about Crespi than any other team we play.”

Paul Felten is a senior outfielder for the Celts (13-6, 6-1). He walked in the first inning, but finished 0 for 2.

Another set of brothers was instrumental in giving Loyola (15-5, 7-0) an early 3-2 lead. Cubs junior Danny Muno hit his team-high seventh home run in the first inning, then doubled in older brother Kevin Muno in the second inning.

A two-out double by Crespi’s Carlos Lopez tied the score in the fifth inning. The Celts had four doubles in the game, including the ones by Sean Camacho and Jeremy Rodriguez that drove in runs in the first inning.

Crespi’s Sean Gilmartin and Travis Forbes finished with two hits each. John Paillet and Danny Muno led Loyola with two hits apiece, and teammate Justin Shepherd was 1 for 1 with three walks and an RBI.

Cubs junior right-hander Patrick Drolet (6-1) got the win with 1 2/3 innings of hitless relief.

Reliever Jeff Warren (0-3) took the loss. Celts starter Matt Wabby had eight strikeouts in five innings, but frequently had to work out of jams because of the six hits and six walks he issued.

Loyola is in a familiar situation, having won a share of last year’s league title, but Crespi is loaded with underclassmen who saw last year’s Celts fail to reach the playoffs.

“It’s fun to play them,” Brian Felten said. “It’s fun to complete against the coach I played for. I learned a lot from him, so maybe I can use some of his tricks against him.

“We lost a lot a lot of guys from last year, but guys have been stepping up and we’ve been winning a lot of games late. We did that again today.”

heather.gripp@dailynews.com

(818) 713-3607

11/08/2007 4:12 PM
River Cats Introduce Todd Steverson as New Manager; Announce ’08 Coaching Staff

West Sacramento, Calif. – The Sacramento River Cats and Oakland Athletics named Todd Steverson as the third manager in River Cats’ history, Oakland Athletics officials announced today. Steverson replaces Tony DeFrancesco, who was named the Athletics’ third base coach in October. Pitching Coach Rick Rodriguez and Hitting Coach Brian McArn will return for their 8th and 4th seasons respectively with the team to round out the coaching staff.  Steverson, Rodriguez and McArn will be joined by Athletic Trainer Brad LaRosa in his first season both with the A’s organization and at the Triple-A level.
Steverson, who spent 2007 as manager of the Athletics’ Double-A affiliate Midland RockHounds and the previous two seasons (2005-06) at the helm of the Single-A affiliate Stockton Ports, has a lifetime managerial record of 214-203. The 36-year-old Los Angeles, Calif. native joined the A’s organization in 2004 as the hitting coach for the short-season Single-A Vancouver Canadians. He spent the previous five seasons in the St. Louis Cardinals farm system at Single-A Palm Beach (2003), Single-A Potomac (1999; 2001-02) and Single-A Peoria (2000).

Steverson had a seven-year playing career that included major-league appearances with Detroit (1995) and San Diego (1996).  He finished his minor league career in 1998 with Triple-A Memphis of the Pacific Coast League. Steverson was originally drafted out of Culver City (Calif.) High School by the Cardinals in the sixth round of the June 1989 amateur draft but elected to attend Arizona State University. Three years later, in 1992, he was a first-round draft pick (25th overall) by the Toronto Blue Jays.

The first two managers in River Cats history, DeFrancesco and current A’s manager Bob Geren, are now on the Oakland coaching staff.  DeFrancesco led the Sacramento River Cats to three PCL Championships in his five-year tenure with the team, capping his run by winning the 2007 PCL and Triple-A Championships in September.

Rick Rodriguez
Rodriguez, 47, will serve his eighth season as Sacramento’s pitching coach in 2008. After three years with the River Cats from 2000-02, he managed the Modesto A’s in 2003 before returning to the Cats in 2004. Prior to his first stint with the River Cats, he was pitching coach for Modesto in 1999. Last year, Rodriguez’s pitching staff had an ERA of 4.19, 3rd best in the PCL and 3rd lowest in team history. 

Rodriguez played parts of four seasons in the major leagues as a right-handed pitcher. In his major league career, he compiled a 3-4 record and a 5.72 ERA in 31 games. He played in the majors with Oakland (1986-87), Cleveland (1988) and San Francisco (1990).

Brian McArn
McArn, 38, is the third hitting coach in the club’s history. Last season, his third with the Cats, Sacramento hitters batted .277 and led the PCL in walks (613).  He replaced Joe Sparks in 2005, who serves the Oakland A’s as their major league advance scout.  Roy White was the River Cats’ hitting coach for their first four seasons, from 2000-03.

This season will mark McArn’s eleventh as a hitting coach in the A’s organization, his twelfth as a coach in professional baseball. Prior to joining the Cats, he served as Hitting Coach for Midland, after six seasons with Modesto (Single-A). McArn began his professional coaching career with the Vermont Expos (Single-A) of the New York-Penn League in 1996.

McArn was selected by the A’s in the 26th round of the 1991 Amateur Draft out of the University of Nebraska and spent two years as a player in the Oakland organization before injuries ended his career. After retiring, McArn coached at American River Junior College in Sacramento for five seasons.

Brad LaRosa
LaRosa, 31, joins the River Cats in his first season in the A’s organization.  For the past 3 seasons, he served as a Minor League Athletic Trainer in the St Louis Cardinals organization.  LaRosa replaces Walt Horn who was named Assistant Athletic Trainer for the A’s in October after spending 30 years as a trainer in the A’s minor league system.

In addition to his athletic training duties, LaRosa, a 2000 graduate of Southern Illinois University who earned a graduate degree in 2003, assists with the team’s travel and equipment responsibilities.