November 4: I’m a Yankee Hater. But I Just Can’t Hate These Guys

I have no trouble admitting it. I’ve always been a Yankee hater. Grew up with it. Was raised to be a Yankee hater. Married a girl from Cleveland who loves baseball, but can’t even watch the World Series this year because the Yankees are in it. I do a radio show every morning with a guy who’s a Red Sox fan and almost can’t say the word Yankees.

Granted, I work all day with Goldeyes general manager Andrew Collier, who happens to be a Yankees fan. And while that’s had some influence on me, I have to admit, I can’t hate these Yankees. That’s right, I’m an alleged Yankee hater, who just can’t hate this team.

Try as I might, I just can’t find a way to hate Derek Jeter or Andy Pettitte or Jorge Posada or Melky Cabrera or Joba Chamberlain or Robinson Cano. They were all scouted and signed by the Yankees organization and they have been Yankees for their entire careers (Pettitte excluded).

In the meantime, I’m a huge fan of Alex Rodriguez, and I became an even bigger fan after his brush with the media’s anti-steroid witch-hunt. In fact, as soon as Selena Roberts’ salacious and apparently fictional book of Rodriguez’s life was published, I bought an A-Rod jersey. Rodriguez is just a great player, period, and quite frankly deserves to wear a World Series championship ring.

So what if the Steinbrenner family bought Mark Teixeira, C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Hideki Matsui? Big deal. Nobody broke any rules. That’s baseball’s fault, not the Yankees.

When I was young, eight or nine, growing up in Sarnia, Ontario, about 50 minutes from the main ticket window at Tiger Stadium, I was brain-washed. Both my mom and dad adored baseball and my dad took me to Detroit often. We’d buy cheap seats, sit down the third base line or in the upper deck behind the plate and my dad would regale me with stories about Mickey Cochrane, Hank Greenberg, Charlie Gehringer and Hal Newhouser, Tiger greats all.

My mom’s favourite player was a right-handed pitcher named Frank Lary, a guy Tiger fans called “The Yankee Killer” for his penchant for pitching his best against the Bronx Bombers. Lary, who led the American League in wins in 1956 and won three Gold Gloves in his career, was 28-13 lifetime (7-0 in 1958) against the Yanks.

My parents absolutely despised the Yankees and that was long before George Steinbrenner showed up. However, we almost never missed going to at least one game of a Tigers-Yankees series. In fact, at least once a year, my folks would take me to Detroit, we’d stay at the downtown Statler-Hilton Hotel for the weekend, and I’d ride the elevators with the likes of Bill Skowron, Yogi Berra, Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. Still have all the autographs in a leather-bound book that I’ve saved since 1960.

My personal experiences with the Yankees have never been short of terrific. Childhood memories aside, one of the best interviews I’ve ever had was with Hideki Matsui and his translator. All Matsui ever wanted as a kid growing up in Japan was to wear the pinstripes. The interview was conducted down in Dunedin, Florida before Matsui’s rookie season began and he nearly broke down, he was so proud to wear the uniform.

At the 1997 all-star game in Cleveland, I got on an elevator with Derek Jeter. It was an amazing moment. My 13-year-old daughter was “in love” with Jeter and this was her big chance. This was her opportunity to say something to her hero – virtually alone in an elevator.

Naturally, as Jeter smiled at her, almost daring her to say something, she completely froze. She just stood there with her mouth open gazing up at the best shortstop in the game. When Jeter got off, he smiled and said “Have fun” and Betsy nearly died. It was a wonderful moment and Jeter was a great sport.

I always enjoyed Joe Torre when he managed the Yanks, Bernie Williams was nothing short of a gentleman – under any circumstance – and this summer in Minnesota, I had a terrific time around the batting cage with Nick Swisher, joking and carrying on.

So tonight, when the Yanks face the Phillies in Game 6 of the Series, do I want to see the Phillies win? Sure I do. Does that make me a Yankee hater. Nope, just a baseball fan who wants to see a Game 7.

I will make this confession, publicly, even to my downtrodden wife and her downtrodden Cleveland Indians and she will be very upset. No, I’m not a Yankee hater.

Now, the Boston Red Sox? That’s a whole ’nother discussion.

November 2: Forney Likes The Goldeyes New Schedule; Even With Four Fewer Days Off

Rick Forney will be the first to admit he hasn’t spent hours pouring over the 2010 Goldeyes schedule to see when and where his team plays each day.
However, he will say that the schedule he was sent by GM Andrew Collier last week is one of the best Northern League schedules he’s seen in the five years he’s been the team’s manager.

“The best part about it is we’ll make fewer trips and travel about 5,000 fewer miles,” Forney said, via telephone from his off-season home in Maryland. “You figure 5,000 fewer miles, wow, that’s a lot of extra time we won’t be spending on the bus.”

Next season the eight-team Northern League will play a 100-game schedule in 114 days. That means four fewer off-days than NL teams had last year. However, the schedule is set up to avoid the one-series trips from Winnipeg to the Chicagoland area and vice-versa.
In fact, the shortest trip the Goldeyes have all season is a three-day trip to Fargo right after the all-star break in July. The rest of the season, the Goldeyes travel for at least six days and sometimes nine days.

“I like the nine-day trip to Schaumburg, Lake County and Joliet in June,” Forney said. “That cuts down on the travel and the players won’t be as tired. I think with this schedule, the quality of play throughout the league will improve because players won’t be worn out from all the time they spend in the bus.”

Last year, no team spent more time on the road than the Goldeyes. In fact, in a survey conducted by the Nibble, we estimate that Winnipeg traveled 16,367 miles. Gary was next at 13,210 miles, Kansas City was third at 12,109 miles, followed by Fargo at 12,001, Joliet at 10,676 and then Schaumburg at 10,213.

“The only thing the league needs to try and do now is find a travel partner for Kansas City,” Forney said. “If we could have a second team to play down there, it would make things even easier. As it is, we only go to Kansas City twice this year.”

Last season, the Goldeyes played in Kansas City three times, once as part of a single, three-game series. This year the Goldeyes go to K.C. twice -- once as the final series in a June/July trip through Lake County and Joliet and the second time as the start of a K.C.-Fargo six-game excursion.

“I like this year’s schedule,” Forney said. “From what I’ve seen, this is a good schedule for every team in the league.”

October 26: Forney Ready To Get Back To Recruiting After Losing Six Players In Various Off-Season Moves

If Rick Forney believes a player is going to contribute to the upcoming season, the manager of the Winnipeg Goldeyes hates to see that player leave the fold.

However, Forney will be the first to tell you that this is, after all, independent minor pro baseball, and the roster of every team is a lot more mercurial than one might expect.

“We lose players every year for all kinds of reasons,” Forney said from his off-season home in Maryland. “This year, we’ve lost Brent Metheny, Bear Bay and Matt Davis (completing the trade with Joliet for Vince Harrison), Adam Frost (to the Kansas City Royals organization) and (Cody) Ehlers and (Chris) Homer to the expansion draft.

“But we still have a pretty solid core of players who have indicated to me they’re coming back. Kevin West is playing winter ball in Colombia so that suggests to me he’ll be coming back next year. Vince Harrison, Cory Patton, Josh Asanovich and Wes Long have all told me they’d like to come back and Dee Brown said that if he didn’t get on with the County Sheriff’s Department in Orlando (he graduated with a degree in Criminal Justice from Rollins College in August), then he’d be back next season.

“We’ve lost Bear, Davis and now Homer, and I’m not sure what Ace (Walker) has going on right now, but the other pitchers have told me they want to come back, so we have a nice core of players ready to return next year.”

That’s true, but Forney will still admit that players can (a) change their minds, (b) get “real jobs” or (c) be offered a contract from a big league organization during the off season. In other words, plenty can change between now and the first of May.

“You know, I talk to a hundred different potential players in the off-season,” Forney said. “There is never any guarantee that guys will come back. Things happen during the off-season and you have to be prepared for anything that comes along. But that’s the fun part of this job. Putting your team together every year is really the best part of

The Goldeyes will begin the 2010 season on Thursday, May 20. With eight teams this year – the addition of Lake County and Rockford – the Northern League will feature a 100-game schedule that runs until September 6.