Indy Baseball Chatter: FORMER INDY HURLERS TO SQUARE OFF TUESDAY NIGHT IN PAN AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

FORMER INDY HURLERS TO SQUARE OFF TUESDAY NIGHT IN PAN AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

Stop the presses!

Team USA and Canada were scheduled to square off for the championship of the Pan American Games in Mexico Tuesday night, and the game likely will pit two former Independent Baseball pitchers against each other.

Andrew Albers, the relief ace for Can-Am League champion Quebec in 2010, was set to work for Canada, and unbeaten ace Andy Van Hekken was the logical choice for the USA. Both are left-handed. Van Hekken, who has been in the Houston farm system although he will soon be a free agent, hurled in three different seasons for the Somerset (NJ) Patriots of the Atlantic League. Albers is in the Minnesota farm system.

The gold medal game will be streamed live at 8 o'clock Eastern Daylight Time on the official Pan American Games website as well as on USABaseball.com. We will have a recap here and on www.AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com Wednesday.

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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