 REIGNING
'DOGS
By Slidell Montgomery
Barry
Bower is proud of every detail of the Muckdogs. As he was
showing the BEAST around Dwyer Stadium in Batavia during a
rain delay prior to the scheduled start of last Thursday's
game. Bower, who is Chairman of Batavia Regional Recreation
Corporation, spoke of them being a community-owned and operated
team. He spoke of the Muckdogs being featured in a Hollywood
motion picture last summer, and he also spoke with equal pride
of Batavia being--as far as he knew--the third smallest market
in professional sports.
Who are
the two smaller markets?
Cocking
his head over his shoulder towards the visitor's dugout, Bower
said, "Oneonta's one of them. I don't know who the other one
is."
The Onenonta
single-A Tigers stalked into Batavia last week on a season-opening
tear. They were 8-1, had shutout the 'Dogs the previous night
2-0 and were now waiting for a field-flooding, thunder storm
to pass so they could resume their dominance of The Pinckney
Division of the New York-Penn League.
After
the abrupt but brief deluge--one that was accompanied by violent
and very nearby electrical activity--moved east, the fans
came out from under 
Players and fans stuck in 'Dogs
dugout during rain delaythe shelter of the aluminum
grandstand and milled around the puddled-over concession area
waiting for an announcement that play would begin as soon
as the tarp was cleared from the infield.
Over
at the visitors bullpen Tiger pitchers skipped stones across
the pools of rainwater in right field that would land in the
gaps, alleys, and various batting lanes of everywhere from
right-center over to straight-away left field. They left their
jetsam there to likely be found later by unwitting outfielders.
'Dogs
first baseman Rob Calfiero from Long Island watched from the
home team's bullpen as the grounds crew (which includes the
'Dogs ubiquitous media/radio guy Jonathan Meyer) tried to
unclog drains and find places to push the flood waters.
"The
main difference between college ball and playing up here is
getting used to wood bats," said Calfiero, who graduated with
a degree in management from Villanova this year. He is being
platooned with left-handed hitting first baseman Ryan Barthelemy.
Calfiero bats right but says he sees a lot of right-handed
pitching. "They don't platoon us because of pitching. It's
pretty much two games on, two games off."
At this
level, coaches certainly cannot be hiding hitters from challenging
situations. Calfiero also said that, more difficult than facing
right-handed pitching or the adjustment of switching from
the lethally explosive aluminum bats, so pervasive in amateur
baseball, to the more pitcher-friendly ash and maple bats
of the pros, is the fact that in A-ball "You never get a pitch
to hit. You see nothing out over the plate. It's all in tight
(he gestures with both fists as though they are hand-cuffed
to his sternum) or way outside. Nothing's over the plate."
In this
early stage of the season it must seem that way for a few
of the 'Dogs. As a team they are hitting .251. The two first
basemen are hitting a combined .200, with 1 HR, 7 RBI, and
17 strikeouts between them in the first 15 games.
On the
upside, catcher and Californian Mark McRoberts, back after
hitting .350 in 6 games for the 'Dogs last season, is hitting
at a .419 clip so far, with a pair of doubles and a team-leading
3 homers. Shortstop Carlos Rodriguez of Dominican Republic
is hitting .339 and leads the squad in both hits (20) and
stolen bases (7).
On the
mound, Venezuelan Erick Arteaga has given up only 4 runs in
21.2 innings but has yet to gain a decision. Carlos Cabrera,
also of Dominican Republic, is 2-0 with an ERA of 0.95.
Playing
the rest of their 76-game schedule with only three days off
between now and September 4 won't leave a lot of time for
individual instruction. And the road can be tough. Six times
over the course of the season the Dogs play a home-and-home
series with the Jamestown Jammers where they alternate successive
nights at each other's stadiums, for up to three games. When
the 'Dogs play in Jamestown though they drive back to Batavia
after the game.
"We get
in about 1 or 2 in the morning," says Cafiero.
All the
players on the Muckdogs are housed with someone from the community
to whom the player pays a modest fee from his modest salary.
The 'Dogs
have been on both sides of a three-game streak this year but
went into Wednesday night's game, the last of a five game
road trip, against the Mahoning Valley Scrappers of Niles,
OH (a city near Youngstown), having won four of their last
five. They were 8-7 overall and one game back of the Pinckney
Division-leading Jammers.
"They've
got a real nice park down there," Calfiero said of the Scrappers,
"Some guy with a shoe store or factory or something gave them
a bunch of money to build a park. It's right by the mall."
He grinned and said, "At least they've got a mall. Here, you
have to drive a half-an-hour for," he paused, searching the
infield with his gaze, "for anything."
About
an hour and forty minutes after the scheduled start of the
game, the PA announcer declared that the game would be postponed
until the next day and played as part of a doubleheader. When
asked what the young 'Dogs would do with their night off,
pitching coach Warren Brusstar said, "I don't know. It's their
first one." Then he looked out into the storm-traced twilight
sky, over the right-center field wall, perhaps remembering
a night off from his playing days, and said, "There's not
much to do around here."
Next
night, the 'Dogs dropped the first game of the doubleheader
to Oneonta 6-2 but came back to win the late game 4-3, setting
them off on their recent winning campaign.
Upcoming
Muckdogs Home Games:
July:
16-18 TUE-THU vs. Mahoning Valley
MON-SAT
games begin at 7:05 PM/ SUN games start at 4:05PM. For directions
and info visit www.muckdogs.com.
|
