Tigers Minor League Baseball Blog

Yes folks, I am familiar with some of our fellow Americans competing in the Beijing games. One of whom is a baseball player, Clayton Richard, who was supposed to be one of the aces for pitching staff had he not been called up to the major leagues. Clayton and I were teammates at Michigan, and now he had to pass on the Olympics to play in the bigs for the White Sox, and I am here writing about him. Go Figure. I am proud to say I played with guys like that because it gives me motivation to try and re-join them one day. Is it a little bit of a name drop and ego boost? Of course, but admit, if you trained with this next person you probably would to. My other acquaintance, (I cannot yet call him my friend but maybe we can change that in the off season) is probably one that you won’t expect. Perhaps one of the Korean ping pong players, or another obscure baseball player no one else has heard of, one might assume. Wrong again. How about Mr. Phelps? That’s right, yours truly has trained side by side (in the weight room, not the pool) with the most decorated Olympian ever. As you may or may not know, Michael trains and attends school at the University of Michigan. Not only have I trained with him, but I have had a few classes as well with our amphibious friend. I can’t speak of how he was as a student, we were in a public speaking class and all he had to do was say, “Hi, I’m Michael Phelps. Check out this gold medal.” I’m guessing this was good enough for an A because that’s pretty much the way I remember it. I usually liked introducing myself to classes along with the interesting fact about myself and people turn around and think, ooooh an athlete. However on this occasion I almost decided to change my name that day for fear of getting laughed at. How is anyone supposed to follow that? I guess when you are in the presence of that kind of greatness you simply have to back away and stay humble. Oh, and try to get an autograph.