I love a good formulaic feel-good baseball movie as much as the next guy. Especially when the premise is inventive, like it was in “Field of Dreams”. But when you get to the more Disney-esque types of films, I tend to lose interest – I feel like I’ve seen it before, as the plucky loser makes good. Sounds like the latest baseball film, “Sugar”, is a more realistic look at how baseball winnows its...
Baseball fever is officially in regular season mode. 2 new venues have debuted for MLB here in NY, minor league reports are starting to mount and promotional schedules continue to mount. Here’s this week’s report on the still prosperous hobby: Chicago Cubs 4/21/09 Carlos Zambrano “No-Hitter” Statue – First 10,000 fans – Z’s feat is especially amazing considering this was to be a “road game” in a neutral site due to a hurricane in...
Now that opening day has come and gone, the smell of baseball is firmly entrenched in our senses and the promotions will start to pile up. As the schedules get busier, so will I in reporting all there is to know about the hobby of bobbleheads week by week. Ok here we go: Detroit Tigers 4/13/09 Miguel Cabrera – First 10,000 fans – The AL HR champ in 2008 will add to his laurels...
The Z-meter tracks the story arcs of 25 top prospects (or players we just like) on their way to the bigs. It is named after current Washington Nationals star Ryan Zimmerman, who made the transition from anchoring the University of Virginia to starring in MLB in one year. Promoted: None Nobody has accumulated stats yet, so this first edition of ’09 will just introduce you to the players and give you some idea of...
I spent a little time the other day cleaning up our team affiliations page. Teams switch organizations every year, so it’s a crucial maintenance task. A few have even changed locations. Here are a few of the notable changes. The Gwinnett Braves – Atlanta pulled their triple-A franchise from Richmond, VA and moved it to the Atlanta suburbs. That makes it a short drive for anyone who gets called up, certainly. I’ve always wondered...
I’ve learned a lot about minor league baseball this season, but the most interesting might be something I just discovered about ten minutes ago: major league teams and their minor league affiliates are like the characters on Friends* – sooner or later, they all end up dating one another. *Yeah, Friends. My pop culture references are so timely. The backup example was Beverly Hills 90210. Almost immediately after the season ended, what I’m assuming...
The eyes of the nation were focused on Davenport, Iowa, on Saturday night, as Iowa’s first unofficial election ahead of the 2008 Presidential Election was held at Modern Woodmen Park prior to the Quad Cities River Bandits’ 6:00 p.m. game against the Burlington Bees. The result of the “Bobble-Election” was an emphatic show of support for the Democratic Party, as Barack Obama defeated John McCain in a landslide, taking 1,000 votes to McCain’s 575....
Usually, OMDQ puts one of these columns up to denote the Major League arrival of one of the Bus League faithful. But Lt. Jonathan Johnston is no ordinary player. A 2006 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Johnston had already spent a year on active duty before the Oakland A’s took a flyer and selected him in the 42nd round of the 2007 first-year player draft. His .317 senior-year batting average for Navy no...
Every once in a while, a search term comes up often enough that I feel compelled to research the subject and “answer” the potential readers who are blindly wandering the back alleys of the internet searching for obscure facts about minor league baseball. This week, I’ve seen “Van Mil, Snappers” come up a few times, and it rang a bell with me immediately. I mentioned Dutch prospect Loek Van Mil in an early link...
A couple days ago, I noticed that Clinton’s Ian Gac was leading the Midwest League in batting average (still is), homeruns and runs batted in, and wondered out loud if any player has ever won that league’s Triple Crown. An article on MiLB.com talked about Moe Hill, who was the first to take all three titles in 1974, and another source mentioned Joey Meyer in 1984, but I wasn’t sure if those were correct, or...
2012 05 14 Scranton Wilks Barre/ Empire State Yankees vs Pawtucket Red Sox
