Can’t Wait To Get My Groove On In Tucson

February 13, 2009

Props go out to Sue over at Rants, Raves, and Random Thoughts for winning the first ever…

        “Which Rockie Am I?”

Here is Sue pictured with announcer Harry Kalas.

Sue asked that I give props to Jen from Phillies Phollowers for taking this picture of Sue at last year’s Baseball 101 for women event.  

Here are the facts I gave you from yesterday.

This Rockie is well over six feet tall.

 He played basketball in High School.

<—-This dude has something to do with the name of this player’s High School.

 He’s a switch hitter.

 

 

Sue guessed Dexter Fowler. He attended Milton High School where he played basketball. He’s 6’5″ tall, and is a switch hitter.

Nice job and congratulations. I did make that one kind of easy :).

I’m going to continue on with the “Decide the Ride” suggestions and questions.

 Next question is from Julia of Julia’s Rants . She’s the writer of the Number one fan blog here on MLBlogs.com:

“D — how about earliest memory about baseball. That “ah -ha!” moment when you knew you were hooked!.

Julia, I played team baseball when I was really young (7-11) and then only in gym class in Canada through my teens.

I always played first base because it sees a lot of action and I’m a bit of a show off when I’m good at something. 

I love the feeling of making that really good play at first or scoring the game winning run.

Everyone loves being a hero, even if it’s only for a brief moment.

Zack Hample and the Rockies got me hooked on batting practice. If I can’t make BP I usually don’t make the game. Spend an hour at BP chasing baseballs hit by your favorite players and see if that doesn’t get you excited about seeing a baseball game.

I’ve said this before, batting practice is Zen for me. When I’m there I’m “In my Zone” and NOTHING else matters for that short period of time. Had I not read Hample’s words and lived vicariously through his blog, I may never have taken a chance and attended a Rockies BP.

Next suggestion is from my Pops in Arizona:

“How about writing about the insane salaries they pay. No wonder these guys get in so much trouble. Too much too fast. You and I are paying for all this when we buy the product of the sponsors”.

Your totally right Pops I can’t argue with that statement. What I can tell you is not every player makes the “Big Bucks”. For every player that signs a multi-million dollar contract, there are twenty other MLB players who make much less than a million.

Teams have farm systems that are full of young ball players trying to make it to the big leagues. Most players spend several years in the farm system honing their skills, hoping for that break, and working part-time jobs to supplement their income and support their families.

Other than that, I got nothing. Thanks for your comment dad 🙂 

Next suggestion is from long-time reader, commenter and HUGE Rockies fan, Marianne in Colorado (aka here as R-Luv).

“Hey D,
Which do you think is more detrimental to a team, paying certain players enormous salaries or trading players around like playing cards.
On a more fun note, what was your first car and what is your dream car?

Marianne, this one is short and sweet for me. In my opinion paying the enormous salaries is more detrimental to a team because when you lock in a player for more than a couple of years and it’s for big money, it limits your moves financially. In some instances it can cripple a team if say,..the player is injured or had surgery and can’t play? (That in no way was a slam on Todd Helton). 

Helton can do no wrong here in the Rockpile Rant. 

Trading players often isn’t a great move either. But here’s my take on that. Most players (key word being “most”) wouldn’t be where they are if they weren’t professionals. By professional I mean they should be used to seeing players come and go. 

Change is a part of baseball as it is with all sports. Sorry I didn’t go into prolific detail with that explanation, but for me the
answer really doesn’t go much deeper than that. 

My first car: A 1986 Nissan Pulsar NX. Red, sunroof, 5 speed. Brand spanking new. 

 
My dream car: 2009 Jeep Rubicon with a 6 inch lift and a heavy duty winch. Then I could hang with my Pop’s jeep.   

King of Cali had a good question:

“If you were the GM of the Rockies what would you have done this off season?”

This is a touchy subject for me. On one hand I have a lot of ideas of what “should” have been done as I’m sure a lot of us do. But I don’t want to mention any names at this point because I’ll be standing in front of these guys in mere days asking them for an autograph.

K of C..You feel me on this one?

So lets just say, I was hoping for a big name pitcher and was willing to lose one as partial payment for another. Infielders, outfielders and coaching I’m ok with. A big name hitter would have been nice, but I’m anxious to get rolling with the players we have and see what we’ve got.

Thanks for your comment brotha..Matter of fact, thank all of you. The last time I told you that the Rant has been getting crazy page hits I moved one spot closer to first.

                Well, the Rant’s been getting crazy hits again…I’m just saying…D 

Written by RANTER Posted in Ranter's Blog Entries Tagged with Colorado Rockies, Dexter Fowler, Hi Corbet Field, Jeep Rubicon, MBU, Mobile Blog Unit, Nissan Pulsar, Rockies, Spring Training, Zack Hample