{"id":6301,"date":"2010-07-02T20:23:55","date_gmt":"2010-07-03T03:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=6301"},"modified":"2010-07-02T20:23:55","modified_gmt":"2010-07-03T03:23:55","slug":"if-form-holds-on-last-to-first-ritual-york-will-win-it-all-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/02\/if-form-holds-on-last-to-first-ritual-york-will-win-it-all-this-season\/","title":{"rendered":"If Form Holds on Last-to-First Ritual, York Will Win It All This Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Longtime major league catcher Andy Etchebarren <\/strong>has been mourning the loss of his wife the last several months, but he now has at least one reason to find some happiness in that he has completed a rags-to-riches type story in rebuilding the York Revolution <\/strong>from last season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 53-87 disaster into the Freedom Division\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <\/strong>first-half champions.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>\"\"<\/a>If his buddy, Southern Maryland <\/strong>Manager Butch Hobson, <\/strong>can find one more victory against second place Camden <\/strong>in the next three days <\/strong>to nail down the Liberty Division<\/strong> the skippers can relax a bit before the playoffs begin in September and devote more of their daily telephone conversations to such important things as whether Hobson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cornbread is the best around or is too dry.<\/p>\n

York became only the third team in Atlantic League <\/strong>history to go from last place overall the previous year to a first half title, according to the Revs\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Darrell Henry, <\/strong>and if they continue to follow the pattern of the 2000 Nashua (NH) Pride <\/strong>and the 2007 Newark Bears <\/strong>they will end up with the postseason championship.<\/p>\n

* * * *WANT MORE INDEPENDENT BASEBALL COVERAGE?\u00c2\u00a0 Check out\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 www.AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com<\/a> and www.IndyBaseballChatter.com<\/a> * * * *<\/strong><\/p>\n

Willie Upshaw on Barry Bonds<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

One person who would like to get in on a championship in the second half of the season was the answer to a trivia quiz we saw being circulated a few days ago.\u00c2\u00a0 The question asked who the first person was to congratulate Barry Bonds <\/strong>after the home run that broke Hank Aaron<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s major league record.<\/p>\n

The answer was Willie Upshaw<\/strong>, a San Francisco Giants <\/strong>coach at the time, who has assembled a potent offense of his own as manager of the Bridgeport<\/strong> Bluefish.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Upshaw loves teaching hitting, but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to teach him (Bonds).\u00c2\u00a0 He was the master of the swing.\u00c2\u00a0 He was the best hitter I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever seen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Trio of Former Bluefish Win Top Monthly Honors<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Three players in Bridgeport<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <\/strong>immediate past, including two prominent sluggers, have been making names for themselves in other independent leagues this season with a decent shot at having Triple Crown seasons.\u00c2\u00a0 Brandon Sing<\/strong> and Jesse Hoorelbeke<\/strong> were the only Bluefish <\/strong>with more than seven homers last season, each pounding 23.<\/p>\n

The duo had 22 home runs between them in June\u00e2\u20ac\u201dHoorelbeke had a dozen\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand both players were named their new league\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Player of the Month.\u00c2\u00a0 They also rank as season leaders in homers.\u00c2\u00a0 Sing has 17 round-trippers, also leads in RBI (50) and is third in average (.391) in the American Association<\/strong> while playing for the Sioux Falls<\/strong> (SD) Pheasants.<\/strong> Hoorelbeke is at 14-33-.328 with Fargo<\/strong>, ND<\/strong> <\/strong>of the Northern League. <\/strong> Making it a total family affair, younger brother Casey Hoorelbeke,<\/strong> also at Bridgeport last season, was the Rawlings Pitcher of the Month <\/strong>in the Northern League.<\/p>\n

This \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcn That<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The duo of General Manager Charlie Dowd <\/strong>and Field Manager Tim Raines, Jr. <\/strong>at Newark<\/strong> <\/strong>are continuing to shuffle their roster in an effort to bounce back in the second half.\u00c2\u00a0 They have brought in nine players in the same number of days with the most prominent being outfielder Elijah Dukes, <\/strong>who has 31 major league home runs even though he just turned 26.\u00c2\u00a0 Dukes drove in 58 runs in 107 games in about two-thirds of \u00e2\u20ac\u212209 with the Washington<\/strong> Nationals. <\/strong>The Bears <\/strong>have played 32 position players and 21 pitchers this season\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6former major league pitcher Damian Moss, <\/strong>who was with Long Island <\/strong>for part of 2006, <\/strong>has been released out of Triple-A by Colorado.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong> (Subscriptions to the <\/em>Atlantic League Notebook <\/em>are available on a monthly or full season basis via \u00c2\u00a0www.AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com<\/a> or www.WirzandAssociates.com<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Bob Wirz also writes a weekly subscription column, the Independent Baseball Insider<\/em>, which can be found via his blog, www.IndyBaseballChatter.com. The author <\/strong>has 16 years of major league baseball public relations experience with Kansas City and as chief spokesman for two Commissioners and lives in Stratford, CT.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Longtime major league catcher Andy Etchebarren has been mourning the loss of his wife the last several months, but he now has at least one reason to find some happiness in that he has completed a rags-to-riches type story in rebuilding the York Revolution from last season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 53-87 disaster into the Freedom Division\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first-half champions. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6254,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atlantic-league-notebook","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/452"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}