The Legend of Harry Billie
Pittsburgh Pirates scout George Zuraw had seen the arm. He knew what was coming. As 20-year-old Harry Billie prepared to unleash a throw from right field at the Pirates’ spring training site in Fort Myers, Florida, Zuraw tried to warn the catcher, Sam Narron. “Be careful,” Zuraw yelled to Narron. Narron took the warning as an insult…
Good Prospect, Bad X-ray
Veteran scouts describe the scouting profession as both collegial and competitive. It’s an exclusive club. Scouts often run into each other at ballparks across the country. Friendships develop. There are times when scouts from competing teams will help out a friend on a rival team. Former White Sox scout John Tumminia gives an example based on his experiences as a pro scout…
Baseball Stories
The New York Mets drafted first baseman Marshall Brant in the fourth round of the 1975 amateur draft. Standing 6’5″ and weighing 185 pounds, Brant was an excellent athlete capable of crushing monstrous home runs. He enjoyed success in the minor leagues, collecting 185 homers and batting .270 in nine seasons. However, he was never able to find a home on a major league roster. His major league experience was limited to eight games, three with the New York Yankees in 1980 and five with the Oakland Athletics in 1983. In those eight games, Brant went to bat 20 times and produced two hits, both singles…
One Strikeout Away from the Majors
Harry Minor’s name does not appear in the Baseball Encyclopedia but, on paper at least, he made it to the major leagues. In 1953, the Philadelphia Athletics recalled Minor toward the end of the season. He was to join the Athletics as soon as his minor league team, the Savannah Indians, completed its games.
In the last game of Savannah’s regular season, Minor and his teammates took on the Jacksonville Braves, a team that featured future major leaguers Henry Aaron, Felix Mantilla, and Ray Crone. A loss to the Braves would wrap up Savannah’s schedule and put Minor on a bus to the big leagues. Late in the game, Savannah trailed Jacksonville by one run…
How Did Roberto Do It?
Roberto Clemente played his last game in the major leagues on October 3, 1972. Nearly 50 years after Clemente’s final at-bat, Miami Marlins scout Joe Caro continues to marvel at how Clemente did it.
“How did Clemente make contact with the ball?” Caro asks. Elaborating further, Caro notes that hitting coaches emphasize the need for batters to have a good foundation and to swing under control. In contrast, he says…
Joe Caro’s Greatest Story
As a high school pitcher, Miami Marlins scout Joe Caro thought he was on track to be the next Tom Seaver. A resident of Tampa , Florida, Caro transferred to Tampa Catholic High School for his senior year. The lure was not the school’s religious education program; at the time, Caro wasn’t even a practicing Catholic. He transferred because he wanted to play for the best baseball school he could find.
By the time Caro turned 21, his dream of playing professional baseball had ended. Caro turned to coaching. From 1980 to 1993, he was a head baseball coach at three different high schools, including his alma mater. During his time as coach at Tampa Catholic, Caro had the opportunity to work with a young pitcher named Carlos Reyes. Caro calls Reyes his “greatest story in baseball…”
What Scouting Is All About
Sam Hughes, an area scout for the Chicago Cubs, liked outfielder Buck Coats from the start. Coats played for Valdosta High School in Valdosta, Georgia. He was not a known commodity; only Hughes had shown any interest. But, at six-foot-three and almost 200 pounds, Coats was athletic and well-built. In the days leading up to the 2000 draft, Hughes visited Coats and his mother in their home. Coats told Hughes that he was planning to attend Valdosta State College. Hughes could see that Coats and his mother did not have an easy life…
A Rookie in Awe
C.J. Nitkowski knew his place. As a 22-year-old rookie with the Cincinnati Reds in 1995, Nitkowski didn’t talk much in the clubhouse. He tended not to speak unless someone spoke to him first. Cincinnati’s second baseman, Bret Boone, passed by Nitkowski’s locker one day and jokingly told him, “C.J., you need to shut up…”
A Tale of Two Quarterbacks
The San Diego Padres had a notably poor draft in 1992. Of the first 22 players that the Padres selected, only three—first baseman Todd Helton and pitchers Brett Laxton and Todd Erdos—would make it to the major leagues. Of the three, only Erdos signed with San Diego. Both Helton and Laxton passed up offers from the Padres and, instead, enrolled in college. For Padres general manager, Joe McIlvaine, the selection of Helton in the second round was particularly unsettling…
Girardi’s Promise
Gary Nickels has had a role in drafting several notable big league ballplayers. His signees include pitchers Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsley, and catcher A.J. Ellis, among others. However, it was the signing of catcher Joe Girardi that will always hold a special place among Nickels’ baseball memories.
When Girardi was 13 years old, his mother, Angela, was diagnosed with cancer. Her doctors told her that she had three to six months to live…
Batting Woes
The gentleman on the telephone was J.P. Ricciardi, former minor league infielder, former general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. He had played college ball at St. Leo College in Florida and then spent two years in the New York Mets organization.
A gritty player and smooth fielder during his playing days, Ricciardi found it difficult to convert effort into production at the plate. The talk turned to Augie Schmidt, a contemporary of Ricciardi, who had endured similar struggles as a minor leaguer with the Blue Jays. There was a comment that Schmidt would sometimes wake up in his hotel room at 2 a.m…
Darrell Miller’s “Major Crush”
There was a time when Darrell Miller had his sights set on going to medical school. Toward that end, in addition to the standard core of high school science classes, Miller took three years of Latin during his time at Ramona High School in Riverside, California. In Miller’s junior year, he developed a “major crush” on Cindy Cohenour, the social chairwoman for the Class of 1975.
As luck would have it, Cindy occupied the seat immediately in front of Miller in Latin class. One day during the class, perhaps in a bid to make an impression on Cindy, Miller began quietly singing Elton John’s hit song, Bennie and the Jets…
A Different View of Chad Mottola
Ron Rizzi, special assistant to Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo, has been involved in scouting, in one capacity or another, for more than 40 years. He grew up in the Bronx, where he attended Columbus High School. A pitcher and third baseman, Rizzi was the Public Schools Athletic League batting champion in 1964 and was named All-City in 1963 and 1964. He captained the baseball team at the City College of New York in the 1960s and once struck out 20 batters in a game against Manhattan College. After a rotator cuff injury in college ended Rizzi’s aspirations of playing pro ball, he turned to scouting…