Movin’ From Mobile

Hello everyone-

To my teammates, coaches, and fellow Mobilians, (probably no such thing) I wanted to say thank you for the past couple months. It was a great ride while I was there and maybe I will get to see some of you in the near future. 
Even though the AA Southern League was the stickiest league in baseball, it was still a cool atmosphere to be apart of. 
Best of luck to the Baybears for the rest of the season. Thanks guys. Peace.
Daniel 

Update

Hello Everyone-

Sorry for that month layoff. I have had a struggle with the internet and its difficult to write an entry from my phone. Anyways a lot of things have happened since I posted last. 
I am currently playing for the AA Affiliate Mobile Baybears and we are cruising. We just finished a road trip in Jacksonville and took 4 of 5 from the Marlins AA Affiliate Jacksonville Suns. We had to bus to Raleigh, North Carolina after the game to take on the Mudcats who are in the Reds organization. 
I will be back to post some random adventures that I have endured along the way. Most of these include catching turtles and going to Bass Pro Shops everyday before I have to be at the field.
Talk soon. 
Daniel Schlereth

Give It Up For Evan Frey

This goes out to my homeslice Evan. He was my locker buddy in big league camp. Even though he crowded my personal space and crossed my invisible line that separated our lockers, I want to give him a shout out. The dude is crushin it in camp with the big leaguers.

Evan, a 10th Rounder a couple years ago out of Mizzou, has yet to play above class A ball in the summer. But despite that he has caught the eye of Manager Bob Melvin. I believe Bob called Evan the MVP of the team thus far in camp.

Keep it up french Frey, we are pulling for you.

American Idol

Ok, make fun of me all you want, but I am an American Idol fan. I started to get into it this past season. Mostly because my lady, Bree, likes to watch it and forces me to sit and watch with her. But now I remind her when the show is on. The tables have turned.

I am upset about last weeks episode because my personal fave, Allison Iraheta, was voted into the bottom 3!!! Come on America! This girl is 16 and rocks the mic like Pat Benatar and Joan Jett in their prime!

Please vote for her if you are into that kind of thing because she is the next Kelly Clarkson, maybe even with a little more style. Allison, you will probably never read a blog on this site but if you do, my fiance and I are pulling for you!!! 

 

Hit Run

I am having a great week.

Recently, I went into best buy for about ten minutes at the most. I come outside to find that my tahoe has pretty decent size dent on the left side of my back bumper. No info, no note, no witnesses. Nothing. This stirs my pot. Why…Why must folks not own up.

I know accidents happen, but growing up my parents taught me to take responsibility for my actions. I noticed that the streak marks on my black bumper were light blue. So if anyone sees a baby blue car in Tucson let me know. Can’t be too many baby blue’s out there.

Have a great day, and fess up baby blue car in Tucson,

Daniel Schlereth

For The Fans…

I want to shake things up a little…

To be quite honest, I haven’t had a good story to talk about in a week. So, with that said, I want to ask the fans of baseball if there are any questions or comments that they want to ask or talk about.
Please do not be shy, I want to be interactive with this blog because what we are writing in our blogs is for you (the fans) to read.
Also, I heard that there is an increase in spring training attendance and ticket sales this year in the cactus league. I would like to thank all the fans who come out and support what we do. Without the fans, this game would not be what it is today. So a special thanks to all the fans.
I will check back daily to answer your comments and questions the best I can.
Peace be with you, talk soon.
Daniel Schlereth

Let it begin..

Nothing better… The smell of fresh cut grass in the mornin, the crack of the bat, and heaters smackin’ the leather of a catcher’s mitt. The 2009 Major League games have officially begun.

A great time for the fans to take a break from the real world to watch their favorite clubs as they all begin their journey toward a world series championship. 
For me personally, I am not slated to pitch until Friday against the Chicago White Sox. With that said, I stay back with the players who aren’t scheduled to play in the game to get some work in. For pitchers, that means a “side” bullpen session with some fundamental and PFP (Pitcher Fielding Practice) work. For position guys, that’s hack after hack to go along with baserunning drils and fielding drills. 
Fans might think that their favorite players simply have an “off” day if they are not in the lineup. Well I can tell you that is not the case at all. They are at practice early in the morning working on a pitch or an approach at the plate, while some others like my teammates Eric Byrnes and Tom “Flash” Gordon are working their tail off with the trainers and strength coaches to prepare for the long demand of the season as they are being hampered right now with nagging injuries from last year. 
Anyhoo, I hope this post is a help to some of the fans looking for a little insight on how spring training works if they ever ponder why a certain player isn’t in the game. 
I hope to see all you Tucsonians (not sure if that’s right) at Tucson Electric Park to support the 2009 squad. This club is loaded with young talent and should be a tough competitor in the National League… So look out! 
That’s all for now, see you next week. Love the comments so keep them coming, D-Back Dan out. Peace.

Javelinas in Tucson…

This morning at around 8:00 am shortly after completing my urine sample in the clubhouse, there was a topic of conversation that broke out at the breakfast table. A few guys (Brooks Brown, Clay Zavada, Hector Ambriz, Tony Barnette) were discussing a javelina sighting near their apartments the night before. For those of you who don’t know what a javelina is, think of Pumba in the disney movie “The Lion King” with jet, coarse, black hair that smells like garbage. 

These fugly beasts typically travel in packs, roaming around the desert at night trying to salvage a few crumbs of food wherever they can find it. I know from a previous experience in my college years that “pumba” loves to dig through trash. Quick story, there was one night my freshman year where my roommate and I forgot about some trash we left on the porch. Little did I know this would come back to haunt us. Totally forgetting about the 8-10 trashbags we had put out, I became startled at about 3:00 am. My first thought was that there were people outside of my place havin’ a little party on our patio. As I approached the sliding glass door to open the blinds I realized what I was dealing with was a little different. There was a group of large and small black pigs ransacking through our garbage that we had forgot about that day. I flipped on the porch light thinking they would go away…they didn’t. So me being the tough guy I am, decided to march out in my underwear with a butter knife trying to scare these weird creatures away, after all I had no idea what they were. They barely flinched, maybe because their eyesight is terrible, or maybe because they had never seen a terrified human attack them half naked holding an intimidating butter knife. After my charge, I gave up, I let them have my trash. 
I just thought everyone would like to know a little javelina story. Especially for those of you who aren’t lucky enough to be living among them. Thankfully, I was the lucky recipient of an encounter with these dirty pigs that I will never forget. What a great start to my blog, I will actually begin posting entries that are relevant to baseball here shortly. Thank you, and have a great day. Diamondback Dan out.
Please feel free to comment on your javelina stories, or anything else for that matter.