The two halves of the baseball season highlight different benefits and disadvantages for pitchers and hitters. In the first half of the season, pitchers by far have the advantage. Starting off the year, hitters haven’t had much of a chance to see live pitching. Minor league spring training lasts less than a month, and we only face pitchers during the last three weeks.  Therefore, it takes a little while before hitters get comfortable at the plate.

A few updates from the Grand Prairie Air Hogs:

1. We won the other day on a "walk off."  However, this was not the typical walk off.  After a two hour rain delay and five innings of 8-3 ball our lead off hitter hit a ball over the right field fence and into the pool.  The next hitter was brushed back and barely hit.  The umpire immediately threw the pitcher out of the game (kind of quick if you ask me...) There was quite a confrontation between the pitcher and the umpire as well as between a few visitor fans as well.  

Sunday July 13th 2008 Grand Prairie will play against Fort Worth. Jonas Fester will be playing for Fort Worth at shortstop and Matt Righter will be pitching for the Air Hogs.

I cant remember the last time two Hopkins guys got the opportunity to face off in a pro atmosphere. It will be hot and crowded with Airhog and Cats fans when the teams take the field. The confrontation will be intense as the two prepare to battle. hahah dramatic huh?

Independent ball:

Over the last few years, I’ve experienced many small towns along the east coast.  I’ve played as far north as Burlington, VT (Vermont Lake Monsters), as far south as Augusta, GA (Augusta GreenJackets), and as far west as Niles, OH (Mahoning Valley Scrappers).  From April

With only eight teams in the Carolina League, it is one of the smallest leagues in Minor League Baseball.  Thus, to fulfill a 140 game schedule we play each team in the league an astounding 20 times (10 games in each half).  Needless to say, you get a really good chance to study the opposing team.  Not only do we get to know the names of every player in the league, we know how hard they pitch, what pitches they have, their arm angle, what they like to throw in certain counts, what

With the arrival of new Manager, Richie Hebner, I was inspired to center my latest blog entry on off-season jobs.  Few people know that minor leaguers make 1/100^th of the Major League minimum salary.  Making just enough to support yourself during the season, most players have to find a job in the off season.  This task can be difficult as there aren’t too many employers who want to hire someone for only 6 months.  Consequently, you’ll find minor

First of all, congratulations to Johns Hopkins University for making it to the World Series.  All the hard work they put into the game certainly paid off.

April showers bring May flowers, or so they say.  May has been on of the wettest months I’ve seen in a long time, and for baseball it’s been a nuisance.  The grounds crews’ across the league have been doing a great job at getting the fields in playing condition by game time, but the key words there are, “by game time.”  As a player, this means that since the field in unavailable prior to the game, our pre-game routine is completely altered.  Typically, players arrive at the park around

2008 has been full of first time experiences. One of the more pleasurable experiences was breaking spring training with a full season team, the Frederick Keys. There is little that I miss from my prior stays in extended spring training, but there is one feature of extended that I miss terribly, and that is the Sarasota weather. Over the past 2 years, I don’t think I played in a single game where the temperature wasn’t at least in the