December 15: Brown Kicking Back And Enjoying The Florida Weather

Dee Brown is thrilled to be back with the Goldeyes. He’s also thrilled that he’s spending the winter, not in Winnipeg, but home in Florida not far from downtown Orlando.

“My off-season is going great,” Brown said. “I’m just relaxing, enjoying the Florida weather. It’s just great down here. I can’t think of a better place to be.”

Brown, 27, hit .322 with 12 home runs and 53 runs batted in last season. He was also one of nine Goldeyes to represent the club at the 2009 Northern League All-Star Game. On top of that, he’s a solid fielder and one of the best all-around players in the league.

But while he’s signed a contract to play here in Winnipeg next season, he decided against playing winter ball this year.

“I thought about playing Winter ball someplace, but I just didn’t want to play last summer and next summer in Winnipeg and then all winter in the Caribbean or Latin America,” said the criminal justice graduate from the University of Central Florida. “I didn’t want to be away from my son. Javier is just two and I didn’t want to miss this off-season with him down here.

“So I’m just working out, hanging with my son and fiancée and enjoying the weather. I’ll get up to Winnipeg in late April but right now, I’m just having a great off-season.”

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.