Indy Baseball Chatter: WHAT IS BARRY BONDS REALLY LIKE?

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

WHAT IS BARRY BONDS REALLY LIKE?

Tony Torcato had better be ready to talk about baseball's No. 2-ranked home run hitter. Fans will be asking. So will the media. Even teammates.

Torcato, who spent part of each of the last four seasons with Barry Bonds during his stints with the San Francisco Giants, helps the Golden League inaugurate its second season this week as a member of the Chico Outlaws. It is pretty easy to guess Bonds will be a topic any time the 26-year-old infielder-outfielder with a .298 major league batting average pops his head out of his clubhouse cubicle.

While Chico is delighted to have the former first round draft choice, defending champion San Diego probably is seeking a bat to replace Graham Koonce, who just became another Golden Leaguer to sign with a major league organization. Milwaukee picked up Koonce, who has 178 career minor league home runs.

The six-team league starts the campaign with San Diego at Yuma, AZ Thursday. The others open Friday night.

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Bob Wirz

Former chief spokesman for Major League Baseball Commissioners Bowie Kuhn and Peter Ueberroth. Six years as publicity director for the Kansas City Royals, and a background in newspaper, radio and television. Started Wirz & Associates, a sports PR and consulting firm, in 1985. Has written extensively on Independent Baseball since 2003.

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About 'My Nebraska'

It seems almost universally accepted that Nebraskans are friendly, hard-working people.

A native son, who eventually transitioned to the East Coast because it was the best avenue to follow his passion of continuing to work in major league baseball, has published a book to share a lifetime of memories of growing up in the Cornhusker state.

You may have guessed it when you saw the title: My Nebraska. Yes, Bob Wirz, now a youthful 85, is sharing his "rich memories of growing up in rural Nebraska" in the 1940s and 1950s in a delightful 136 pages in the book produced by Dorrance Publishing in Pittsburgh, PA.

Wirz, who got to live his passion of working at the highest levels of baseball and later developing his own sports public relations and marketing company, lovingly empties out his memories of everything from counting millions of tiny trees to playing grass-roots baseball where the age of teammates might run from the early teens to the 50s.

The colorful cover of My Nebraska, which features two paintings from Dunning, NE rancher/artist Laron McGinn that depict the beautiful landscape of rural Nebraska and the ranching lifestyle, sets the tone for the 5 x 8 book also filled with meaningful pictures.

It is "a wistful and endearing love letter to Nebraska filled with memories shared by generations raised in small towns throughout the Midwest", praises Shari Veil, who heads up the journalism and mass communications department at the University of Nebraska.

My Nebraska, a 5x8 paperback, is priced at $19.95 plus $4.00 for handling and shipping. Autographed copies may be ordered at www.WirzandAssociates.com