Tigers Minor League Baseball Blog

Hold the phone, stop the presses. Just as you may have thought you weren’t going to hear from me until next spring, well life just keeps throwing me curveballs (no pun intended). Just as life throws them at me, I get to go throw some of my own, as I have been selected to play in the Hawaiian winter baseball league. Yes folks, Hawaii. I am going to explain what this is because I have had to explain to everyone I know outside of baseball what exactly this means. This is a league which is played after the season for guys the organization wants to see more of. It consists of players from all over minor league baseball (mostly A and AA) and also from the Japanese and Korean professional leagues. Now that I am done giving the details, I want to rundown how it was I came to find out this information. I was in Ann Arbor relaxing, taking it easy thinking to myself, “Ahh it feels good to do nothing for awhile” when I got a phone call from Glenn Ezell, out minor league player development coordinator. My first thought was that I was going to have to go spend an extra month in Florida doing development work in the instructional league. And then to my shock and almost dropping the phone, he asked me if I felt like playing in Hawaii for a couple months. Now did he really need to ask, who in their right mind is going to say, “You know what, I find getting paid to play baseball in Hawaii, gets a little tedious in the fall.” There is a little bit of bittersweet though, because I thought I was going to be able to spend some quality time with my girlfriend, Amanda, after a long summer apart, and now have to turn right around and go. But, if you look behind any great baseball player, there is a great woman always there supporting them in his journey. I am extremely excited to have this opportunity and hope to make the best of it. So this means for you, the reader, will get to hear a few more months of tales from the Pacific rim about me and baseball. Please try keep the comments light-hearted, I realize the jealousy may get overwhelming at times.