Notes From The Nat

It’s always nice to get a little credit for a good season in the bag, and Baseball America has given four 2006 C’s players exactly that by naming them in the NWL Top 20 Prospects list.

The list, topped by Boise outfielder Tyler Colvin (no argument from me) at #1 and Tri-City starting pitcher Shane Lindsay (utter filth) at #2, also features Vancouver outfielders Matt ‘Authentic’ Sulentic (#3 - seen left) and Jermaine ‘J-Train’ Mitchell (#10), as well as pitchers Andrew ‘Bam-Bam’ Bailey (#17) and Scott ‘Real’ Deal (#18). 

I’d love to tell you what the BA scouting reports say about the Van City foursome, but as I don’t have $60 to spend on a subscription, I’ll just have to rely on one of you well connected readers to send in the details.

The list in question can be found at Baseball America’s website. 

Interestingly, in the Midwest League Top 20 Prospects list, only two Kane County Cougars players make the grade, despite their playoff run. Young infielder Justin Sellers comes in at #16, despite a fairly average season with the bat, and big-hitting Jeff Baisley comes in at #20, despite being named the MVP of the division. And in a stunning turnaround from their usual form, none of the Arizona A’s rookies made the AZL Top 20 Prospects list.

I have to say, if you’re thinking about setting up a blog, I heartily recommend you try Wordpress as a means to do so. After toiling away with Post-Nuke software (and it’s never-ending lineup of spam comments) for a year, and dealing with Blogger.com’s many downsides for a year before that, I’m astounded at just how well the new set-up is handling things.

 Of course, much of what’s great about it is behind the scenes - I’m loving how easy it is to wipe out spammers before they even get started (back to the Ukraine for you, Henry 2332!), and the simple categorization of posts will make it much easier for folks to browse the archives than it was previously, and the image handling is just aces.

But hey, you guys don’t care about that stuff - you want content, and plenty of it, so I’m going to be blogging the heck out of the Oakland playoffs run, in the way that only Notes From The Nat can.

Last night’s dead rubber for Oakland against the Seattle Mariners was an interesting occasion for vancouver Canadians fans, being as the Athletics sent out what amounted to a second-string team - and STILL beat the M’s in extra innings. Jason Windsor started, and though he went clean through two innings to open proceedings, he did look shaky at times (he ended his night with 5 earned runs over 5 innings). For a control pitcher, he does tend to second-guess himself when facing big names. Fair enough though - the kid was throwing at Nat Bailey Stadium in 2004, and now he has to face down against Ichiro - but for a guy that went 17-2 in the minors this season, any chance to throw in the bigs should be a fire and brimstone affair. And it will. In time.

Fronting up with the bat was new recruit D’Angelo Jimenez, the underused Antonio Perez, the criminally underused Adam Melhuse, the perennial bridesmaid Jeremy Brown, and the unlucky oft-injured but capable of big things Hiram Bocachica (whose name I simply can’t say without adding a ‘wow-wow’ to the end of it, in the best porno soundtrack fashion).

Of those guys, only Jeremy Brown played in Vancouver, and even then, only he only took 28 at bats in the red and blue, but Oakland regulars Rich Harden, Joe Blanton, Nick Swisher, Dan Johnson, and Ron Flores all got their first licks of pro baseball in V-Town, so Vancouverites should be paying plenty of attention - and we were finally able to, as Sportsnet actually showed the entire Seattle-Oakland series on TV.

Just a shame that, instead of showing the next Oakland series at 2nd place Anaheim, they’ll be showing the 3rd vs 4th match-up of Seattle and Texas.

A’s fans get no respect.

PS: One unexpected side effect of the software upgrade has been the loss of formatting of some posts. Sorry about that - we certainly don’t anticipate that being a permanent part of the site and will be working to fix it, but it might take a while. 

Yesterday, when asked if he missed Frank Thomas, who has proved a model citizen for Oakland after the Chi-Sox front office drove their 16-year hero out of town on a rail, Sox manager Ozzie ‘Dirtball’ Guillen had this to say:

‘’I don’t care about Frank right now,'’ Guillen said. ‘’If Frank gets a base hit, it takes five hits to score him.

As snarky as that was, it’s just about the least offensive thing Guillen has said this year, and he ate those words when Thomas proved him wrong tonight, hitting an RBI-single, a 2-RBI homerun, and walking in the winning run against the White Sox - that’d be four runs in two hits, wouldn’t it Ozzie? (more…)

Thanks to those folks who have contacted me to let me know their thoughts on the new digs.

I’m pretty happy with how it’s looking, personally, and am glad the regulars are feeling the same way. There will be a short period where the old content is manually ported across (if any computer boffin out there has a way of automatically migrating a Postnuke database to a WordPress dbase, by all means let me know, because it would save a ton of work), but the benefits of the new site software are already becoming apparent, as two different spam-bots (and dozens of individual spam messages) have been foiled by our new security features just this morning alone.

If you’d like to leave a comment, you’ll have to register a user account with the site - sorry about that, we held off as long as we could before stopping anonymous comments, but the way the spammers abuse the internet these days, there’s simply no choice.Still, it only takes a few seconds to register, and once you do, you can comment to your heart’s desire.

Even if it’s just to say nasty things about me…

We’ve been running this blog for two seasons now, and during that time we’ve had several periods where we have had to move the blog, upgrade the blog, change the blog and, just lately, secure it.These past few weeks have seen a massive increase in ‘comment spam’ to our site, and being as PostNuke sites across the web are being hit in a similar way, and the Post-Nuke creators are ridiculously slow in fixing the situation, we figured it was time to migrate the site to a more secure environment, even if it might be a little lighter on features. It was either that or manually delete 150 comments a day - no thanks!

And being as WordPress allows us to import the 130-odd NFTN posts from our original 2005 site automatically, we figured it was a good time to make the leap from the old Post-Nuke system to something new. You’ll notice that the original blog posts from back in our Blogger.com days are seen below, and over the days ahead, we’ll be slowly bringing across the old features and recent posts from the last site.

Sorry about all the bother - it’ll likely mean we won’t be adding much new for a few weeks, but hey, it’s the off-season, and this gives us plenty of time to get set up for the things we want to bring you next year…. like game video!In addition, the new software allows us to use a better comment system, easier image uploading, remote blog posting by email, better newsfeeds, and a much faster loading, cleaner look.

So keep an eye on things, and if you had a user account with the last site - sorry about that, but you’ll have to re-register. Oh, and if you need something from the old site, you’ll find it at http://www.notesfromthenat.com/index2.php

Let’s be honest - we got pounded by the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes all year long. They brutalized us. When we led the NWL and they started their big run at us (or we started our collapse, however you want to put it), it seemed that every time we won, they did too, and every time we lost… they won anyway.

It didn’t take long for them to run away with the NWL West, which continues to be the stronger of the two Northwest League divisions by a handy margin, and the proof of that claim is that the Volcanoes utterly dominated the Boise Hawks in the playoffs, taking the NWL Championship in four games.

After dropping the first game to Boise by a score of 5-1, S-K pitcher Adam Cowart (10-1, 1.08 ERA) threw a three-hitter in game two to level the series at 1-1, before Nestor Rojas scored on an 11th inning wild pitch to put the Volcs in front for the series in game three. Kevin Pucetas pitched six shutout innings to help the Volcanoes to their playoff victory in game four, by a score of 6-4, and Salem-Keizer tastes championship pride once again, for the third time in seven years.NWL West pride, eh? …or something. (more…)

News on the wire has it that the ex-Vancouver-based minor league baseball franchise, the Sacramento Rivercats, have signed a four year AAA-extension deal with the Oakland Athletics.

This is big news in that the A’s traditionally only sign two-year deals with minor league teams, and begs the question, will the short-season Vancouver Canadians be offered a similar deal in the off-season?

That the Rivercats would be offered an extension was never in doubt, being as they’re one of the best run minor league teams in the game (as opposed to when they were in Vancouver, and had a rep for being one of the worst run). They get big crowds, they win titles and division pennants left and right (two PCL Championships and five division titles since they left town in 1999), they have the winningest record in the PCL over the past seven years (560-448), and they’re pretty darn close, at least in geographical terms, to Oakland.

So will the new owners of the Vancouver Canadians get a similar deal? I’d put that at 50-50.There’s little doubt that Oakland likes the idea of new ownership in Vancouver, and they certainly love the prospect of millions of dollars being spent on facility upgrades. And they’ll no doubt be happy to hear of the plans to move the Nat Bailey outfield walls in, and secure a 25-year lease on the facility.

But, even with all that promised, new minor league baseball team owners have a tendency to announce grand plans before getting hung up with delays, budget cutbacks, and the tedium of day-to-day operations. Many a massive renovation has turned to a small addition, or a lick of paint, once the realities of the financial world set in.

Admittedly, everything I’ve seen and heard from Jake Kerr, the new man at the helm of the C’s, indicates he has the cash and the drive to make good on his word, but will that be enough for Oakland to make a long term commitment?Should be an interesting off-season, to say the least…

Every now and then, an item hits eBay’s online auction listings that captures the imagination of people across the world. Sometimes it’ll have religious connotations, like the piece of toast that featured the likeness of God. Other times, it’ll be a biological issue, like the people regularly removed for trying to sell body parts, or sperm.

Today’s eBay buzz?That brown dress.

The wearer is Melissa Lima, wife of Jose Lima, New York Mets pitcher. He sang the national anthem not long ago, and his wife stood next to him for the duration.Nobody remembers Jose. Everybody remembers Melissa. Couldn’t say why.Bidding as of the time of writing was 2, though some 75,000 people have viewed the page. I wonder why…

In other news, if you’ve ever wondered what pitchers were talking about when they discuss their mechanics, and release points, and that kind of thing, this website is something you should totally go look at. This blogger has taken video footage of Mark Mulder over the last three seasons - from his last season in Oakland in 2004, to the beginning of his problems in 2004, to his most recent turn before hitting the DL (again) - and the footage tells a thousand stories.It takes a while to load, but load it you should. Load and learn. (more…)

We gave Andre Piper-Jordan no end of crap this time last year. He’d been called up late in the season to play in the NWL play-off series, along with Frank Martinez, and between them they must have managed one single base hit, and a few errors, for the entire (woeful) series.

At the time, it was infuriating; "Who are these knuckleheads, and why isn’t Chalon Tietje getting his chance to shine?" came the utterances from yours truly, as Piper-Jordan struck out swinging and Martinez swung out striking. Such is the passion of the fan with too much invested.

Anyhow, when this season began, I’ll admit I was still a little dark on DJ PJ. "He can run, sure, but then what?"

Yesterday, he showed ‘then what’ in no uncertain terms. (more…)

People, this is it - the final game of season 2006 for the Vancouver Canadians. To celebrate, it’s going to be an all Notes From The Nat day in the broadcast booth as HawkerRob will be calling the game with an assist from yours truly.Be sure to get to the game (starts at 1pm), but if you can’t, tune in at http://www.canadiansbaseball.com.

Editor’s note: A week ago, I received an email from a woman who said she’d gone to her first C’s game the night before, found the experience extremely enjoyable, and would like to write something about it. I said I’d be happy for here to do so… fully expecting that, like so many before her, she wouldn’t follow up.

Well she did, and I’m glad. In fact, I’d like to encourage anyone connected with the C’s, from fans to staff to owners-to-be to players, and their parents, to feel free to submit anything they’d like to see posted on the site by simply registering a free account, and dropping me a note saying they’d like to write.

The more voices that can be found on Notes From The Nat, the better a resource it will be going forward, and with so many people having expressed how appreciative they are of the site over the past week, I think we’re already way further along than I ever hoped/dreamed we would be.

Anyhoo, I don’t want to hijack Smrtpants’ article, but I do want to encourage more like it - bring the text, people!

…With No Intention Of Oscillating.

The events leading up to my attendance at the game on Thursday, August 31, are not as important [but equally as coincidental] as what ensued. And what ensued has, in a matter of days, created a fan who intends to be diligently die hard and reasonably relentless.

It went something like this: (more…)

So there’s good news and bad news.The good news is, the C’s managed to win comfortably against Everett last night, without Jermaine Mitchell in the lineup.The bad news is, the C’s managed to win comfortably against Everett last night, without Jermaine Mitchell in the lineup.Yes, good people of the north, Jermaine Mitchell is outta here. The J-Train caught the A-Plane to C-Town and will turn out for the Kane County Cougars tonight as they press forth in the Midwest League playoffs.It was bound to happen, I guess, and truth be told, it’s amazing we’ve kept him around for as long as we have. Only injury and bad timing have stopped Mitchell from rocketing up the system like Toddric Johnson, Branden Dewing, Chad Boyd, Larry Cobb, Wilber Perez, Matt Sulentic, Scott Moore, etc etc etc have before him, but with two games left in the season, the Oakland Athletics sent down a plan ticket and made Monday’s game the J-Train’s last in red and blue - the same week he was awarded the NWL Player of the Week honour.Still, we won the GD game, and that’s evidence that the kids left behind have steel in their veins.More after the flip: (more…)