{"id":6709,"date":"2010-07-15T16:53:41","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T23:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=6709"},"modified":"2010-07-15T19:36:20","modified_gmt":"2010-07-16T02:36:20","slug":"it-was-a-busy-week-from-northern-league-all-star-dominance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/15\/it-was-a-busy-week-from-northern-league-all-star-dominance\/","title":{"rendered":"It Was a Busy Week From Northern League All-Star Dominance"},"content":{"rendered":"

With reports that at least 10 major league scouts were on hand to watch, the Northern League <\/strong>jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first three innings and never looked back in taking a 9-3 victory over the Golden League <\/strong>in the only All-Star Game <\/strong>between two Independent leagues in front of a reported 4,625 fans in Tucson, AZ <\/strong>Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> The Northern\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s two newest teams provided the biggest offensive output with Rockford, IL <\/strong>outfielder Jason James <\/strong>taking MVP honors with a 2-for-3 performance that included a double and two early RBI while Lake County (Zion, IL) <\/strong>infielder Amos Ramon <\/strong>broke the game wide open with a three-run triple in the seventh.<\/p>\n

As an important side issue, the Golden League may move future home games of the new Tijuana Cimarrones<\/strong> to Yuma, AZ <\/strong>because of what The Arizona Star<\/em> is reporting are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153poor field conditions.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Commissioner Kevin Outcalt<\/strong>, according to The Star<\/em>, said the decision will be made before Tijuana\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s next home game which is scheduled for July 23.\u00c2\u00a0 There would be irony to such a move since The Yuma Sun <\/em>reported this week pay to Yuma Scorpions <\/strong>players has been late to the point they could become free agents.<\/p>\n

Interim Manager Contributes All-Star Homer<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

With host Southern Illinois<\/strong>, <\/strong>which has dominated the season with a 39-9 record, having Manager Mike Pinto <\/strong>and 10 of his Miners <\/strong>in uniform, the West <\/strong>broke out to a 7-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning to blitz the East <\/strong>9-2 before 4,426 fans at the Frontier League All-Star <\/strong>classic in Marion, IL.\u00c2\u00a0 Tim Grogan <\/strong>stretched the Most Valuable Player streak for Florence (KY) Freedom <\/strong>players to four years in a row with a first-inning home run and three RBI overall.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the losing team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s highlights came when outfielder Matt Maloney<\/strong>, who also is interim manager for Kalamazoo, MI, <\/strong>homered.\u00c2\u00a0 One would think the all-time baseball record book might take a beating to find another active manager with an All-Star round tripper.<\/p>\n

* * * *<\/p>\n

www.AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com<\/a> ADDED TO www.IndyBaseballChatter.com<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n

FOR ADDITIONAL INDEPENDENT BASEBALL COVERAGE? <\/strong><\/p>\n

* * * *<\/p>\n

Continental Calls It Quits After Playoffs<\/span><\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Continental League <\/strong>Founder and Commissioner Ron Baron <\/strong>called to say the best-of-three playoff series July 30-August 1, in all likelihood between Big Bend (Alpine, TX) <\/strong>and Las Cruces, NM<\/strong>, will signal the end of the four-year-old league, which has struggled from the beginning to find stable markets.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re done,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the friendly Baron, also a lawyer and sports consultant, said.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve given it my all; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just too tough.\u00c2\u00a0 Hopefully, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve made a difference in our communities.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Baron said the teams, which this year also included two travel squads, will play at least 52 of the originally-scheduled 60 games, but will end the campaign two weeks ahead of the original plan.\u00c2\u00a0 He said he had run seven teams himself in the four seasons in trying to make a go of it with a low-end pay scale operation.<\/p>\n

Pittsfield\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Carte Hits Safely in 38 of 40 Games<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Daniel Carte <\/strong>has smashed the Can-Am League <\/strong>record by hitting safely in 30 consecutive games\u00c2\u00a0 between June 8 and July 10 for the new Pittsfield (MA) Colonials<\/strong>, and that may not be the greatest feat for the 26-year-old West Virginian<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 The rightfielder has hit safely in 38 of his 40 games this season with two or more safeties 20 times.<\/p>\n

Carte, a second-round draft choice by Colorado <\/strong>in 2005 who got into one major league spring training game with the Rockies <\/strong>this season, is within reach of the Triple Crown.\u00c2\u00a0 He shares the league batting lead with another right fielder, Quebec\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Sebastien Boucher<\/strong>, at .395 (64-for-162), is third in RBI with 39 and is tied for third with eight home runs.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

(This is an excerpt from the column Bob Wirz writes on Independent Baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 Fans may subscribe at <\/em><\/a>www.WirzandAssociates.com, enjoy his blogs, <\/em>www.AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>www.IndyBaseballChatter.com<\/em><\/a>, or comment to <\/em>RWirz@aol.com<\/em><\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 The author <\/strong>has 16 years of major league baseball public relations experience with Kansas City and as spokesman for two Commissioners and lives in Stratford, CT.)<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With reports that at least 10 major league scouts were on hand to watch, the Northern League jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first three innings and never looked back in taking a 9-3 victory over the Golden League in the only All-Star Game between two Independent leagues in front of a reported […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4746],"tags":[8917,8913,8919,8915,508,8924,6049,7116,1952,8921,8920,8916,8922,8914,8912,618,499,8923,375,8918],"class_list":["post-6709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-indy-baseball-insider","tag-arizona-star","tag-baseball-record","tag-east-9","tag-florence-ky","tag-frontier-league","tag-grogan","tag-home-game","tag-independent-leagues","tag-infielder","tag-interim-manager","tag-jason-james","tag-league-scouts","tag-losing-team","tag-matt-maloney","tag-mvp-honors","tag-offensive-output","tag-outfielder","tag-star-classic","tag-time-baseball","tag-yuma-sun"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6709","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=6709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}