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ballerskrip
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No, not as a player. I knew that wasn't going to happen unfortunately.
BUt when I was interning in the front office with the Angels. The 6 weeks leading up to the draft were amazing. Watching each region come in, rank their board, then watch the cross checkers and scouting director combine each board to one master board. The discussions, the arguments, the gut feels, the medical issues, etc.
It was made even more interesting because I had just concluded my baseball days at Purdue the previous year. So we were discussing many players I had played against. I was asked about Scott lewis from Ohio State over and over again. Eventually he was put on our medical list for good reason.
One thing that was really cool was each day we gave out a player that was our "gut feel" guy. A couple of mine that I remember were Scott lewis, Hunter Pence, and Wade Davis.
The day of the draft was AWESOME. Every one thought the Padres were taking Weaver or Drew, but last minute news that the Padres were taking Bush. Could Weaver really fall all the way to us? I was standing next to Bill Stoneman, our GM when he made the call to Arte Moreno asking if he had the go ahead to spend the cash needed to draft Weaver. What a crazy sequence of events.
It was very interesting watching Tom Kotchman and the pull that he had. Once we hit the 8th round or so, you would see tom hovering around Eddie Bane discussing one "his guys" and shortly after, we were drafting another Florida player. Tom has had great success scouting in Florida, and coaching the Pioneer league team for the Angels. He had found Howie Kendrick shortly before that among others.
It was also very cool to sitting in the draft room and on the MLB conference call to hear two of my Purdue teammates drafted, Simon Klink and Scott Byrnes. They later called me and were giving me a hard time about my announcing voice...
Pat White in the 4th round, agreed to take $1 million and not honor his WVU scholarship to play Qb (as you know he backed out). Taking Mark Trubmo and Nick Adenhart and paying them big $$$$$.
Taking over the announcing duties of the Angels draft picks in the 11th round! That was really cool. The Dodgers had Lasorda, the Angels had.....ME!
Anyways, I love thinking about those days. What an amazing experience, one that I will cherish forever.
Oh, and a quick non-scouting related story. After the last day of one of the regional draft meetings a bunch of the scouts were going out to a bar/club/scummy place called the Fox Fire. They asked me to come along and I obliged. Most of the women were 35+, I was 23 at the time and most of the scouts were in their 40's. They basically used me as bait to get these older women. It was truly hilarious. For the next week or so, Eddie Bane nicknamed me CHUM. (chum is what people put in the water, bloody meat, to attract sharks).
skrip
BUt when I was interning in the front office with the Angels. The 6 weeks leading up to the draft were amazing. Watching each region come in, rank their board, then watch the cross checkers and scouting director combine each board to one master board. The discussions, the arguments, the gut feels, the medical issues, etc.
It was made even more interesting because I had just concluded my baseball days at Purdue the previous year. So we were discussing many players I had played against. I was asked about Scott lewis from Ohio State over and over again. Eventually he was put on our medical list for good reason.
One thing that was really cool was each day we gave out a player that was our "gut feel" guy. A couple of mine that I remember were Scott lewis, Hunter Pence, and Wade Davis.
The day of the draft was AWESOME. Every one thought the Padres were taking Weaver or Drew, but last minute news that the Padres were taking Bush. Could Weaver really fall all the way to us? I was standing next to Bill Stoneman, our GM when he made the call to Arte Moreno asking if he had the go ahead to spend the cash needed to draft Weaver. What a crazy sequence of events.
It was very interesting watching Tom Kotchman and the pull that he had. Once we hit the 8th round or so, you would see tom hovering around Eddie Bane discussing one "his guys" and shortly after, we were drafting another Florida player. Tom has had great success scouting in Florida, and coaching the Pioneer league team for the Angels. He had found Howie Kendrick shortly before that among others.
It was also very cool to sitting in the draft room and on the MLB conference call to hear two of my Purdue teammates drafted, Simon Klink and Scott Byrnes. They later called me and were giving me a hard time about my announcing voice...
Pat White in the 4th round, agreed to take $1 million and not honor his WVU scholarship to play Qb (as you know he backed out). Taking Mark Trubmo and Nick Adenhart and paying them big $$$$$.
Taking over the announcing duties of the Angels draft picks in the 11th round! That was really cool. The Dodgers had Lasorda, the Angels had.....ME!
Anyways, I love thinking about those days. What an amazing experience, one that I will cherish forever.
Oh, and a quick non-scouting related story. After the last day of one of the regional draft meetings a bunch of the scouts were going out to a bar/club/scummy place called the Fox Fire. They asked me to come along and I obliged. Most of the women were 35+, I was 23 at the time and most of the scouts were in their 40's. They basically used me as bait to get these older women. It was truly hilarious. For the next week or so, Eddie Bane nicknamed me CHUM. (chum is what people put in the water, bloody meat, to attract sharks).
skrip
Especially Wade Davis, for Joe and I. Same with Hunter Pence among others of course.
