Never Change, Josh

Never change, Josh; that would be my best advice for the young man with the chance to be a star. For more than 20 minutes the night I visited the minor league park, Josh Vitters stood calmly and signed autographs for kids and posed for pictures with kids and had kind words to say to each of the young fans.

More interested in photographs, I had no interest in an autograph. But after watching him act as a wonderful ambassador for the game of baseball for that much time, with no other player on either team acting in the same way, I walked up and shook his hand. "Good luck to you," I said, since we baseball lovers need great guys to be the stars of the game.

Never change, Josh.

More Chiefs' Baseball

As mentioned in the previous post, the size of the minor league ballpark puts fans a lot closer to the action than you would be in a major league park. So close you can see the concentration on the faces, or see the tongue between the teeth almost like Michael Jordan.

Here we see two view of future Cub Josh Vitters at the Kane County Cougars stadium. On a different trip to the same ballpark, it was even close enough to hear the angry curse word a first baseman let fly after a throw went flying by him. As the saying goes, "you can't beat fun at the old ball park!"

Minor League Baseball

Forty minutes away from my house in the suburbs of Chicago, the Kane County Cougars are a highly-successful Midwest League franchise, a Class A farm team of the Oakland Athletics. Elfstrom Stadium in Geneva is a wonderful place to watch baseball and have a ton of fun. Since I am not an Oakland fan, I tend not to get out there very often.

But my spring training road trip in late March, logged here shortly thereafter, I enjoyed watching the four Cubs minor league teams work out, including the Peoria Chiefs. The Chiefs, the Cubs Midwest League entry, feature several young future Cubs, including former first-round draft choice Josh Vitters, a third baseman. In early April, this blog showed Vitters in Arizona in a standard photo as well as a polar coordinate semi-abstract shot. Liking the idea of seeing more of this young prospect, I went out to a Chiefs-Cougars game earlier this month.

The young future big-leaguer did not disappoint. For one thing, the size and scale of the stadium make it so much easier to see ballplayers than the bigger major league parks. For another, the atmosphere is more down-home, and several players spend more time on getting to talk to fans and signing autographs for kids. These photos, along with several others, will be favorites of mine, especially if Josh winds up manning third base for the Cubs in two or three years. Time will tell!

More Chiefs/Vitters images in the next post.

The Prospect in the Whirlwind

Some earlier posts have been strange experiments when a photo, often a panoramic, is distorted by what is called Polar Coordinates. Looking at the more logical picture here, Cub prospect Josh Vitters is tossing a ball underhanded from his third base position. The photo has a top, a bottom, and left & right sides. Imagine that the photo is printed on an easily manipulated balloon; the right edge is pulled into the circle and meets the left edge, upside down, from the middle to the top. The top edge has disappeared altogether into that single center point. The bottom edge has been curved and distorted into three sides of the second view.

Polar Coordinate experiments often produce interesting images (or uninteresting ones which should be rejected). Other times the experiment might do more. Considering the pressure on a young prospect, considering all the things that might indeed go wrong, considering injuries or lack of learning in the future, considering competition and bad luck: isn't every minor leaguer stretched out and wrapped into a whirlwind on his road to the majors? The more I look at this image, the better I like its poetic impression. I think it is a keeper.

A poem about how the whirlwind is manifested in Fitch Park through sight and sound:

CRUNCH OF CLEATS

Crunch of cleats, metal biting into concrete, is a traditional sound of
Baseball, one I recall as spectator, as umpire, as player, as coach.
Minor league spring training camp includes a hundred forty or more
Players, learning and working and trying to become the two stars
Who will dominate the baseball news in five to seven years.
As they move quickly from one drill location to another, they scrape
Out a furrow, digging through the smooth cement finish to the
Gravel underlayment, one after another, every spring, concentrating
On beating the path all the way to the major leagues.

Earlier posts also showed my personal magazine -- the one with just a cover, no other pages. The next issue is scheduled to appear in the next post.

Future Cubs Up Close?

One of the highlights of my spring training experience was Fitch Park, known for years to me as the "minor league camp" but with no idea of how much could be learned and seen at the camp. Four teams -- Iowa (AAA), Tennessee (AA), Daytona (A) and Peoria (A) -- work out at 9:00 AM on four diamonds,with all the backstops together. Well over 120 players are there, sometimes staying on an assigned diamond and sometimes moving in groups from place to place as the practice runs through its schedule. Each diamond eventually moves into batting practice and then breaks for lunch after 11:30.

Most days the two fields to the north will then feature minor league games at 1:00. Basically, the AAA & AA stay home while the two A teams travel or vice-versa. On Thursday, the Cubs sent the older teams to the Angels complex and the two A teams hosted the Angels. For a fan used to major league games in major league parks, the ability to get up close is unprecedented. It is easy to see the great plays and the errors, the tough pitches and the candy pitches, the great swings and the awkward swings. From right up close.

I already have plans to go to see the Kane County Cougars when they host the Peoria Chiefs this summer. Two prospects I was quite impressed with should be playing here on their way to the major leagues. Trades happen and prospects sometimes don't work out, but I think these two will look great in Cub uniforms in two years. Everyone knows the name Josh Vitters, first round pick third baseman who was rumored to be headed to San Diego in a proposed Peavy trade. He looks to be the real thing and has a major league swing. Catcher Mike Brenly, son of color announcer Bob Brenly, is about 6'3" and looks solid behind the plate, strong throwing, and a major league potential batter. It was great to see these stars up close and playing hard. Best of luck to them and to their teammates.

Next post on a neat museum in Mesa, longtime spring home of the Cubs.