George Sherrill Feels Honored to Represent The Independent Game in Postseason

The question caught George Sherrill by surprise. And why not since the Los Angeles Dodgers’ talented eighth inning southpaw has nearly five years in the major leagues. He would not have normally been thinking about his Independent Baseball days, as significant as they were, only hours before another important National League pennant race game at San Diego.

I was interested in knowing how the 32-year-old, who spent the first four and a half of his 11-year professional career in Independent leagues, would feel to be the only true grad of these non-affiliated leagues likely to be in the major league postseason starting next week.

“I didn’t know,” Sherrill started. “It is an honor. I hope I can represent (the Independent game) well.”

The Memphis native certainly is a worthy representative since he had to work his way up all the way from 1999 to mid-2003 before a major league organization (Seattle) would give this Austin Peay State product an opportunity. Sherrill spent 1999 and 2000 with Evansville, IN of the Frontier League, then moved on to Sioux Falls, SD (Northern League at that time, American Association today) in ’01 and to Winnipeg (Northern) for the next year and a half.

The only other player with Independent experience likely to taste the ultimate October major league thrills this season would appear to be Boston outfielder J.D. Drew, but when he started out at St. Paul, MN in 1997-98 he was a highly-touted prospect waiting to negotiate a handsome contract. Reliever Edwar Ramirez (Pensacola, FL, now in the American Association, and Edinburg, TX, United League) would seem to be a long shot to be on the New York Yankees’ 25-man roster and Josh Kinney (River City, Frontier League) is in a similar position with St. Louis, where he was a major surprise three years ago. Brendan Donnelly’s hopes of getting back to the postseason were extinguished earlier this week when the Ohio Valley (Frontier League) and Nashua, NH (Atlantic League) hurler’s Florida Marlins were eliminated.

“It has been a long trip (to the majors),” said Sherrill. “I would not change a thing. It (baseball) has made me what I am today. It is a tremendous honor and very humbling.”

Sherrill, who had 31 saves for Baltimore and played for the American League in the All-Star Game last season and another 20 saves in ’09 before being sent to the Dodgers just ahead of the July 31 trading deadline, has been brilliant for Joe Torre’s club. He has allowed only two earned runs in 25.2 innings for a 0.70 earned run average with one save.

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Well Traveled Halama Dominates Playoff Series

Veteran major leaguer John Halama (56-48, 4.65) has had one of those “if it is Tuesday it must be Newark” type of years, but the 37-year-old left little doubt he still can pitch when he somewhat single-handedly lifted Southern Maryland (Waldorf) into the championship series of the Atlantic League. Another noted lefty, Sparky Lyle, gets to see what the 2009 version of John Halama is all about now as this onetime Yankees closer sends his Somerset (NJ) Patriots in quest of their fifth Atlantic League title against the Blue Crabs. Game 1 was scheduled for Thursday night.

Halama was 8-1 with Southern Maryland in 10 starts through early June before joining the Atlanta Braves’ Triple-A team in search for more big league time. He went 4-7, 4.48 with Gwinnett, GA, mostly as a starter, but returned to the Atlantic League in time to get a three-inning tune-up the final weekend of the regular season.

The 6-foot-5 Brooklyn native, whose best of seven major league stops were in 1999, 2000, 2001 at Seattle when he had consecutive plus-.500 seasons with 11, 14 and 10 wins, took any frustration of not getting to join Bobby Cox’s Braves out on Long Island, NY, for whom he had pitched two years ago. Halama opened the best-of-five Liberty Division series with eight shutout innings (four hits, no walks) in a 1-0 victory, then came back in Game 5 and allowed only one earned run in 7.2 innings (eight strikeouts) as the Blue Crabs prevailed, 7-5.

60 Wins Not Out of Reach

Former Independent pitchers had amassed what this corner considers an excellent 58 victories in the major leagues this season heading into the final four days of the campaign. The pack is led by onetime American Association (Fort Worth, TX) hurler Max Scherzer of Arizona with nine victories while Northern League (Edmonton, Alberta, now in the Golden League) righty Scott Richmond of Toronto and the Northeast League’s Craig Breslow of Oakland both had eight. Breslow pitched for the New Jersey Jackals (Little Falls), now in the Can-Am League.

(This is an excerpt from the column Bob Wirz writes on Independent Baseball. Fans may subscribe at www.WirzandAssociates.com, enjoy his blog, www.IndyBaseballChatter.com, or comment to RWirz@aol.com. The author has 16 years of major league baseball public relations experience with Kansas City and as spokesman for two Commissioners and lives in Stratford, CT.)