Indy Baseball Chatter: WHO ELSE WILL SHOW UP IN SPRING TRAINING GAMES?

Friday, February 18, 2011

WHO ELSE WILL SHOW UP IN SPRING TRAINING GAMES?

We featured the former Independent players--all 48 of them--who will be in major league spring training camps in yesterday's Independent Baseball Insider column, but with teams frequently making players available for a specific exhibition game and wanting to take a look at them we can imagine numerous other familiar names showing up in box scores.

These would seem to be some of the likely candidates, listed by major league team with their former Independent affiliations in parenthesis:

Arizona--RHP Brian Sweeney (Lafayette, IN, Heartland League, and Somerset, NJ, Atlantic League, although he did not appear in regular season games for the latter).
Baltimore--RHP Chris Jakubauskas (Lincoln, NE, American Association; Orange County, Golden League; Florence, KY and Ohio Valley, Frontier League); LHP Alberto Castillo (Newark and Camden, NJ, and Road Warriors, Atlantic League; Schaumburg, IL, Northern League).
Oakland--RHP Mike Benacka (River City, Frontier League).
San Francisco--OF Justin Christian (Southern Maryland, Atlantic League; River City, Frontier League); LHP Justin Dowdy (Wichita, KS, and Shreveport, LA, American Association; Alexandria, LA, United League; Calgary, CA, Northern League; Rockford, IL, Frontier League).
Seattle--RHP Scott Patterson (Lancaster, PA, Atlantic League; Gateway, Frontier League).

We invite readers to help us watch for others who show up in major league games with this information sent to RWirz@aol.com.

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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