November 26: Forney’s First Move Gives Him Options At The Top Of The Order

Goldeyes manager Rick Forney isn’t quite sure what he’ll do with Aharon Eggleston. He’s just happy Eggleston will be somewhere in his line-up in 2010.

Earlier this week, Forney sent pitcher Andrew Cruse to the Kansas City T-Bones in exchange for Eggleston, a gifted outfielder who can play centre, left or right field.

He can also lead off, steal bases and drive in runs and with so many ways to go, Forney still isn’t sure how Eggleston’s talents will fit into what should be a powerful Goldeyes line-up.

“He’s a good player in our league,” Forney said of Eggleston, who hit .318 in 2009, led the league in hits for the second-straight year and was named to the Northern League All-Star Team. “He brings a lot to a team. He hits for average and has a high on-base percentage and he drove in a lot of runs hitting out of the lead-off spot in Kansas City last year. It’s his ability to hit with men on base that I like, but he can also run the bases really well and steal when he has to.

“But I’m not sure if he’ll be a lead-off man with us. Assuming Wes (shortstop Long) comes back, I would think he’ll lead off, and then I’d likely use Aharon in the No. 2 spot. I like having a left-handed hitter bat No. 2 because it makes it more difficult for the catcher to get a good look at Wes when he’s on first.”

Forney says he doesn’t want to get “too far ahead of himself,” but will admit that if all goes well in the off-season, he would be excited to see a batting order that goes Long, Eggleston, Diaz, Harrison, Patton, Brown, Asanovich...

“It’s a tough spot to be in but I’d like a lot of these tough spots,” Forney said. “Remember, Cory (Patton) did a great job leading off after Wes was hurt last year, so we have three guys who would be comfortable in that spot. Now, at this stage, I wouldn’t think Cory would be a lead-off man next year, but that’s why I don’t like to get too far ahead of myself. You never know what’s going to happen between now and the day the season starts.”

Eggleston, who is splaying in Colombia this winter, has put up outstanding numbers in five seasons of independent baseball. He’s a .317 career hitter who had a 1.000 fielding percentage in 2009. He’s a tremendous hitter at the top of the order because he strikes out only once in every 12.9 plate appearances.

“He’s a good player and he’ll really help us, but I have to admit he isn’t a guy I’ve been chasing after for a long time,” Forney said. “As part of my off-season phone calls, I talked to Tim Doherty (the new manager in K.C.), and he said he would talk about moving Aharon. I had to give up a lot to get him. When he throws strikes, like he did in that playoff game with Fargo in September, Andrew Cruse has a lot of talent and he really has a chance to get back to organized baseball.

“But Aharon’s a good player. He’s a guy who hits with men on base and I like that.”

November 18: Forney Excited To Be Back

It’s November. That means, for Goldeyes manager Rick Forney at least, it’s officially Telephone Season.

“I’m excited to be back to work,” said Forney, who signed a new deal with the Goldeyes earlier this week. “I’m ready to get back to working the phones.”

Goldeyes president and CEO Sam Katz announced on Wednesday that Forney will be back at the helm of the Fish for the 2010 season. Forney said his deal was “two-years-plus-an-option” and it means he’ll start talking to his players as well as the managers of other independent pro teams this week.

“Yeah, I’ll be calling guys and wishing them Happy Holidays and asking ‘Hey, what you gonna do with that guy?’” Forney said with a laugh. “This is the time of year when you call all your players and really get a good gauge of their interest in coming back and you also call the other managers to see what they might be doing with the guys on their lists.

“It’s just the usual November stuff. This is phone call season.”

The 38-year-old Forney, who was once one of the Goldeyes finest starting pitchers, will return to the team with a career record of 210-173 in four years as manager. He has led his team to the playoffs in each of his four years on the job. In total, 15 of his players have been signed by big league organizations.

The former pitching coach said this week that he’s extremely happy about returning to an organization he’s been with since 1997.

“I love it in Winnipeg and I’m excited about coming back,” he said. “I really thought we had the team last year that should have won the championship, but for whatever reason, it just didn’t work out. This year, I think we’ll have another really competitive team that will take another run at a championship. There is still a lot of work to be done but we’re starting with a good nucleus and we’ll just spend the rest of the off-season building on it.”

Season tickets for the 2010 Goldeyes campaign are available now. Just call the box office at 982-2273. Rick Forney would love to see you at the ballpark next summer.

November 18: The Top 10 Greatest Goldeyes Of All-Time

In a recent issue of Sports Illustrated, Yankees lover Bob Costas picked his list of the Greatest Yankees of All-Time.

It wasn’t a tough list to compile.

1. Babe Ruth
2. Lou Gehrig
3. Joe DiMaggio
4. Mickey Mantle
5. Mariano Rivera
6. Derek Jeter or Yogi Berra

I’d flip-flop Jeter and Rivera, but Bob’s the greatest Yankee lover ever and who’s to argue.

Which brings us to this week’s List – the first of a series of lists we’ll run during the off-season.
Here’s my list of the greatest Goldeyes of the modern era. That’s 1994-2009.

1) Terry Lee
2) Brian Duva
3) Carmine Cappuccio (tie)
3) Juan Diaz (tie)
4) Bobby Madritsch
5) George Sherrill
6) Brent Metheny
7) Donnie Smith
8) Rick Forney
9) Hank Manning
10) Chris Kokinda

Whether you like this list, or even if you don’t, let us know. If you have a list, we’ll print it next time.

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.”