Indy Baseball Chatter: ANGELS' NATHAN HAYNES FIRST INDY GRAD TO DEBUT IN MAJORS THIS SEASON

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

ANGELS' NATHAN HAYNES FIRST INDY GRAD TO DEBUT IN MAJORS THIS SEASON

Add Nathan Haynes to the lengthy list of players--we now show 105--who have spent time in an Independent league then played in the major leagues. And, he is batting 1.000.

Haynes is the first Indy grad to make his major league debut this season.

The 5-foot-9, left-handed Haynes was called up by the division-leading Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Monday, and promptly collected a single to center in his major league debut that night. It was a broken-bat hit in the bottom of the ninth inning of a loss to Seattle, but it did not deter the 27-year-old from the excitement of the experience.

"My heart was racing," Haynes told MLB.com. "I was just excited and glad that my dad was here to see it and my mom was watching on TV. Today has been everything I dreamed of."

Haynes had been toiling in the minor leagues ever since his hometown Oakland Athletics drafted him as a 17-year-old out of Pinole Valley High School in Pinole, CA in 1997, but he needed 31 games in the Northern League (Gary, IN) last May and June to get a renewed opportunity in affiliated baseball. He had been released by San Francisco, and no major league organization had signed him.

The interesting thing is Haynes only hit .263 with five home runs and 17 RBI for the SouthShore Railcats, and this season he was leading the Pacific Coast League with a .391 average (four homers, 32 RBI) for Salt Lake City at the time the Angels purchased his contract.

Just one more happy story courtesy of Independent Baseball.

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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