Soccer Dad

Will he come up short?

In 1999 the Orioles traded Juan Guzman to the Cincinatti Reds for Jacobo Sequea and BJ Ryan. BJ has become the O's closer and a very good one at that. Sequea, last year, set AA Bowie's single season record for saves. A few months ago the O's released him.
The problem with single season records in the minor leagues is that it often means that the player is just good enough for the level he's at, showing some weakness that indicates that he's not ready to move up. These records are nice but a player achieving them may not consider it the best possible sign.
Yesterday the Washington Post featured a nice article about Rick Short, a career minor leaguer, who is playing for the New Orleans Zephyrs the AAA team of the Washington Nationals.
Short - who was originally drafted by the Orioles, I had seen him play at Bowie - is flirting with becoming the first player to bat .400 in a minor league season since 1961.
In Short's case, even this attention is a bit late, it's very sweet. He's been toiling in the minor leagues for 12 years. This year has brought him his first two cups of coffee in the bigs - for a team that didn't exist until this year. But now he's getting attention for his above average average.
The Post notes an irony about the bats Short acquired while he was up in the big leagues:

He found a box of bats that shortstop Cristian Guzman didn't want, pulled one out and immediately loved the way it felt. This is what he took with him to home plate when they called him to pinch hit a few innings later.

He hit the ball twice off Seattle pitcher Joel Piñeiro. One was a foul ball, the other a single to left. The contact left two black scuff marks on the bat. When the game was over, he pulled a long sock over the bat to protect it and took it, along with the rest of Guzman's discarded bats, and went back to New Orleans. Which of course brings delicious irony to this story -- while Guzman is having the worst offensive year of any big league regular in nearly two decades, Short is using his bats to chase something that hasn't been done in the minors since 1961.

Rick Short will never be a star. But this year, at age 32, he's succeeding on his own terms, finally achieving some recognition - and making the big leagues. The title of this post was a play on Rick Short's name, but let me answer that I hope not.

Posted by SoccerDad at August 26, 2005 6:03 AM | TrackBack