Idiots Write About Sports

Back before I became a beloved Internet personality, I labored long and hard as a mild-mannered reporter for a series of not-so-major metropolitan dailies. That included a one-year stint in the southwestern corner of Riverside County, where the only respite from my terrible job, crummy apartment and all-around substandard existence was the proximity of a Single-A baseball team just up the road apace. Many’s the night, I would file my stories for the day, wait around for the off-site copy editors to inject the inevitable errors and inexactitudes into my copy, and then drive off to the Lake Elsinore Diamond and drown my sorrows in a couple of glasses of Blind Pig beer and watch the local nine take on all comers in the California League.
I don’t know how many games I saw during my stint in Riverside County — somewhere between two and eleventy dozen, if I had to estimate — but it was a lot. And, given my keen analytical baseball mind, do you know how many prospects I was able to pick out from the multitude of untested, untried Single-A players and say, “By God, that lad’s got a future in this crazy game?”
I can’t think of a one.
Oh, Darin Erstad hit Lake Elsinore about the same time I did. But he was the number one pick in the draft that year, and he toiled in the Cal League for all of 25 games, so you’d have to be some sort of doofus not to recognize that he was slated for better things. A couple years back, I dug up a scorecard from a 1996 Storm game against the Modesto A’s that I attended and was shocked to discover that both Ben Grieve and Miguel Tejada played in that game. Somehow, the early versions 1998 Rookie of the Year and the 2002 American League MVP failed to make much of an impression on me.
Which is another way of saying that there were probably a bevy of future Major Leaguers playing in the Carolina League game between Kinston Indians and Potomac Cannons that I attended during my recent vacation in the Baltimore-Washington area. But don’t expect me to tell you who they were.
Actually, that’s not true. Since I have the Baseball Propsectus 2004 guide, I can flip through the pages and tell you that Miguel Perez, Mark Schramek, and Joey Votto appear in the chapter on Cincinnati Reds prospects and took the field that night for Potomac. (In fact, Votto by all reports seems to have a bright future ahead of him, demonstrating some power in just 10 games as a Cannon — though not the night I saw him, as he went 1-for-4 with a single, a caught stealing, and a strikeout to end the game.) Alas, no Kinston Indians appeared in the Cleveland Indians chapter, so if any should happen to crash the bigs two to three years from now, you won’t hear an “I told you so from me.”

G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium, Woodbridge, Virginia
But apparently, I looked the part of a scout. Because I was attending the game alone, I took copious notes in my scorebook — I usually use such opportunities to test new score-keeping methods, and on that night, I was trying a new way of tracking pitches and pitch counts. (In case you’re wondering, Kinston starter Brian Slocum threw 79 pitches in three innings while his Potomac counterpart, Eddy Valdez, threw 100 pitches by my count in seven innings of work. You’re not wondering? Oh.) Anyhow, with my two-day stubble, Hawaiian shirt, and dog-eared copy of Baseball America, I apparently looked like some grizzled baseball lifer checking out some would-be prospect. Because about halfway through the game, an usher tapped me on the shoulder.
“Are you a VIP?” she asked. I assurred her that I wasn’t. I probably should have found out if my beers would be comped first before issuing my strenuous denial.
The locals weren’t buying it, however. At one point during the game, I took a snapshot of Kinston manager Torey Lovullo. That set the people behind me a-murmuring.
“He’s taking a picture of Torey!” one of them hissed.
“Maybe he’s going to get Torey in trouble,” another one said sadly.
I suppose I could have reassurred the yokels. “I’m just using my magic picture box to steal his soul,” I could have said. “Now, stop disturbing me or I shall make the sun disappear from the sky.” Or I could have told them the truth — that many moons ago, I played in a dice baseball league the featured Torey Lovullo (as well as Wayne Kirby and Greg Hibbard, the other two-thirds of the Kinston coaching staff) and that I was just grabbing a photo to remind me of my misspent youth.
But I didn’t say a thing. Let ‘em wonder, I says.

Torey Lovullo, not doing anything that would get him into trouble
At this point I should note, for the benefit of any Cleveland Indians minor-league supervisors who happen to have stumbled across the Idiot Sports Weblog that Torey Lovullo seems like a fine manager. Indeed, Baseball America just named him the top managerial prospect in the Carolina League. So don’t nobody get him into trouble on my account.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2004 Kinston Indians!
OK, since I’ve been fingered as a scout, I might as well cite the two players who impressed me the most. For Kinston, it’s reliever Todd Pennington, who nailed down the save in a 25-pitch, two-strikeout outing. If you’re scoring at home, that brings Pennington’s strikeout total to 29 in just 24 1/3 innings, which seems like a good ratio for a reliever.
As for the Cannons, I’ll go with outfielder Junior Ruiz, who entered the game I attended with a robust .398 OBP. That only figures to improve, as Ruiz went 1-for-2 with two walks and a hit-by-pitch. (Both those walks came after the pitcher had worked 0-2 counts on Ruiz, which suggests he has something approaching plate discipline). He scored two of the Cannons’ four runs, and his only out was a stinging drive that just happened to be right at the left fielder.
Remember, if they hit it big, you heard it hear first. I’m a VIP, after all.

This man is not a VIP
A couple other random notes about my return to the land of A-ball.
* The future major leaguers who’ve spent some time in Prince William County include Albert Pujols, Andy Pettitte, Mike Cameron, Bernie Williams, and Magglio Ordonez. Apparently, back when the team was a Pirates affiliates in the ’80s, there was this outfielder named Bonds who made an impression on the locals, but I’m not sure if he ever amounted to anything.
* The Cannons are the first-half champions of the Carolina League’s Northern Division. Then, according to the locals, the Reds promoted many of the players to Double-A. Potomac is now mired in third, and hopes for a long postseason run are minimal. “Let the butt-whipping begin,” one fan said when Kinston scored in the top of the first. Such is life as a fan of a minor-league affiliate.
* Because they are the Cannons, the team’s logo is a smiling cannonball. Perhaps even more chilling, the team’s mascot is a man with a cannon for a head. Most people don’t understand how disturbing this is, until I show them this picture…

Gah!
… and then they know. Oh God, how they know.