Friday, September 12, 2008

LANCASTER'S WOODS LEADS OFF WITH HOMER EIGHTH TIME

My, how quickly things change.

No more had I written in my subscriber-only Independent Baseball Insider Thursday that Atlantic League Player-of-the-Month (August) Michael Woods had led off games with a home run for Lancaster seven times since July 25 when, wouldn't you know, he did it again that night to help keep the Barnstormers within four games of Freedom Division-leading York.

It was Woods's 28th birthday, too.

The two Pennsylvania rivals separated by less than an hour have a really neat day coming up Saturday, September 20. They will play a doubleheader with the day game (12:07) in York and the night contest (7:05) at Lancaster.

Every fan with ticket stubs from both games will receive free a limited-edition t-shirt commemorating the event although the supply is not unlimited. One of those fans also will win $1,000.

The games could decide the second-half title, too, with the regular season ending the next day in Lancaster.

TWO MORE INDY ORIGINALS BACK IN MAJORS

We also wrote yesterday at some length about 25 former Independent players being in the major leagues for the September stretch drive, with many of them on contending teams.

Add two more just 24 hours later, and both of these right-handed pitchers started their career in Indy leagues. San Diego picked up reliever Scott Patterson off waivers from the Yankees, for whom he had gotten into his first--and only--major league game June 1. Patterson was expected to be in uniform Friday night when the Padres host San Francisco.

Boston brought knuckleball hurler Charlie Zink, the International League Pitcher-of-the-Year, back up from Triple-A Pawtucket, RI. Zink had made his major league debut with a start on August 12.

Patterson spent considerable time with both the Gateway Grizzlies (Sauget, IL) in the Frontier League and Lancaster and Zink started out at Yuma, AZ when the current Golden League city had a Western League franchise. Patterson gives the Atlantic League 11 players in the majors for the stretch drive.

PENSACOLA SKIPPER NOW WITH METS

We send somewhat belated congratulations to Mac Seibert, who managed Pensacola, FL in the American Association the last two seasons, for his new job as a scouting supervisor with the New York Mets. Seibert is going back to familiar territory since he has about 12 years of scouting duties with three major league organizations already.


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