I am not certain I can keep up.
I wrote in last week's Independent Baseball Insider column about seven former Indy players getting fresh opportunities in major league baseball.
Had my deadline been a few hours later it would have been even more impressive in that two more players pulled on big-league uniforms. Catcher-first baseman Robinson Cancel returned to the New York Mets. The other one was a personal favorite--if writers are allowed such admissions--because Mike Cervenak is another 30-plus player (32 next month) who started in Independent Baseball (Chillicothe, OH of the Frontier League in 1999-2000) and was getting his first regular-season promotion to the bigs.
Cervenak's story is nearly as good as that of Chris Coste, who debuted at 33 two seasons ago, and now, ironically, is a Philadelphia teammate.
Part of one paragraph from my January 17 IBI column when Cervenak was featured can catch the uninitiated up on the third baseman-first baseman: "It is vital you know about some of Cervenak's accomplishments so you do not get the impression this is some chump ballplayer we are discussing. The all-time hits leader at the University of Michigan (293), a former member of Team USA, the runnerup in MVP voting behind Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard (another new teammate) and ahead of third place Curtis Granderson (Detroit) in the Eastern League in 2004 and last summer's International League leader in hits (157, with Baltimore's Norfolk, VA farm club)."
Cervenak is now one of a very impressive list of 10 players with Indy playing resumes who have made their major league debut this season. Four of the 10 got their start in an Independent league, including outfielder Justin Christian (River City, Frontier League) and pitcher Scott Patterson (Gateway, Frontier League), both with the New York Yankees, Max Scherzer (Fort Worth, American Association) with Arizona and Cervenak. Patterson and Scherzer are back in the minors, although we suspect not for long.
And, with another 70 or so games to go for each major league team we can visualize the list of 10 making their debut and 29 overall with some time in The Show this season continuing to grow. It seems noteworthy only 24 Indy players were in the majors at any time in 2007.
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