A place to follow the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, the Midwest League, Minor League baseball, Major League Baseball, and everything in between in that order.
The Peoria Chiefs are playing the Kane County Cougars at Wrigley Field tonight. This is the second time in two years the teams will play there. Trust me it doesn't get old. This headline proves it!
The Peoria Chiefs will be heading to Wrigley Field on Wednesday in a much different atmosphere than when they played in the inaugural “Road to Wrigley” game in 2008.
Their manager that year, Ryne Sandberg, was also a pretty big draw around the Midwest League, to say nothing of Chicago. His return to the Friendly Confines was his first in a uniform since his Hall of Fame playing career with the Chicago Cubs.
Just because the atmosphere will be a little different from that 2008 game doesn’t make it less special.
“That’s why everyone plays everyday and what you put your spikes on for,” utility player Greg Rohan said after the game was announced in May. “You get to play up there and get comfortable in the clubhouse.”
When the Cubs decided to start the “Road to Wrigley” game, the hope was that it would serve as an incentive to the minor-leaguers. That’s still the case.
“It will be a good opportunity for them to go and play in a place where they’re striving to get to,” Chiefs manager Casey Kopitzke said. “It should be a real eye-opening experience to play on that field and in front of fans and be a part of that atmosphere.”
As a personal aside to Nathan and Jeff, the respective radio voices of the Chiefs and Cougars, "Have fun tonight, boys."
If you clicked on either the Peoria or Cedar Rapids story in the Midwest League post this morning, you saw that right. Two no-hitters in the MWL last night.
The last time I remember two no-hitters on the same night was June 29, 1990.
Dave Stewart of the Oakland A's no-hit the Blue Jays in Toronto. Later that night, Fernando Valenzuela pitched a no-no for the Dodgers over the St. Louis Cardinals in Los Angeles.
The fact-checkers in Peoria found this little gem and put it up on their twitter feed...before the Kernels no-hitter was official:
The only other time in MWL history there were 2 no-nos on the same day it was also the Chiefs and @CRKernels. 7/10/87. Finish it off CR!
Of course, @CRKernels (and @jeje66) spat in the face of baseball tradition by continually mentioning the no-hitter. Maybe that's what I did wrong in Burlington earlier this month.
The pitchers of those no-hitters on July 10, 1987 were:
CR: Mike Converse (vs. Kenosha) PEO: Jeff Schwarz (vs. Kenosha)...
My MWL Record Book is at the ballpark. I'll be over there in about an hour and I will try to get to the bottom of this mystery. Consider this post to be updated by 11:30.
Meanwhile, just enjoy the final out from Cedar Rapids as the Kernels no-hit Kane County.
My favorite things about the video.
The crowd noise The pitcher coming out of the dugout for the handshake line who give the fist pump The player who does the double take after realizing that he just slapped five with a man dressed up as an ear of corn.
UPDATE: 11:15am.
I just checked my Midwest League Record Book. It has the following entries under the NO-HIT GAMES
Mike Converse, Cedar Rapids vs. Kenosha, 4-0, July 10, 1987 Jeff Schwarz, Peoria vs. Kenosha, 4-0, July 10, 1987
The Baseball Reference entry for Converse has him as member of the Cedar Rapids Reds, but in 1986. The 6'-9" righty was 7-13 for the Reds in '86. He would pitch for Tampa in the Florida State League in 1987, but was let go after the season.
The mystery is solved. I went back to the 1986 Highlights at Joel's Midwest League Guide and found this entry:
June 6, 1986
Mike Converse (Cedar Rapids) No hitter; Beloit, 2-0
Great story from last night, but now - thanks to a typo/mistake in the media Guide - we know that it's even better. Last night was the first time there have ever been two no-hitters thrown on the same date in Midwest League History.
The Chicago Cubs and Peoria Chiefs have announced the 2010 Chiefs field staff, which includes a pair of familiar faces. New manager Casey Kopitzke will be joined by pitching coach David Rosario, hitting coach Barbaro Garbey and athletic trainer Dan Golden.
"We are excited to have Casey join the Chiefs staff," said Chiefs President Rocky Vonachen. "He has a great baseball background having been with the Cubs either as a player or coach for 11 years. He knows the system and already knows the players from Boise who will likely by with the Chiefs this season. He is in position to be the next in a long line of young managers who have had success in Peoria on their way up the ladder to the Majors."
Kopitzke is a newcomer to the Chiefs staff but has spent 11 seasons in the Cubs organization as a player, coach and manager. Last season he managed for the first time with the Boise Hawks of the Short Season-A Northwest League. The 31 year-old guided the Hawks to a 34-42 record in 2009 and a third place finish in the East Division of the NWL. He managed possible future Chiefs and top prospects Hak-Ju Lee, Logan Watkins, Matt Cerda and Chris Rusin. Before managing the Hawks last season, Kopitzke served as the Cubs roving catching coordinator from 2007-2008 and made numerous stops in Peoria and other venues around the Midwest League to work with Chiefs catchers and hitters.
Why are we expecting a big pass list on the nights Peoria is in town?
Born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Kopitzke was drafted by the Cubs in the 27th round of the 1999 draft out of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. He began his pro career as a catcher with Eugene in the Northwest League in 1999. Kopitzke spent the 2000 season in the Midwest League with the Lansing Lugnuts hitting .224 with 22 RBI in 68 games.
The Peoria Chiefs announced on Tuesday that despite recent rumors to the contrary, their beloved mascot Homer has signed a new lifetime contract to remain in Central Illinois. With his previous five-year contract ending Monday night, speculation had been running wild that Homer may leave Peoria to take over as head football coach at Notre Dame.
"This is where I want to be," Homer said Tuesday through his spokesman Lucas Smith. "Notre Dame football is a dream job for some people and it is humbling to be considered. But when it comes down to it, this is where I want to be working for as long as they'll have me."
The rumors started a couple of weeks ago when Homer's name was linked in an online report as a possible successor to fired football coach Charlie Weis. Despite having no prior football coaching experience, certain Notre Dame boosters were pushing hard for Homer to get the job and return Notre Dame football to its glory days. It is unclear when Notre Dame officials first contacted Homer or if they made an official offer. But with the Chiefs coming off an 81-win season and a playoff appearance, the timing was right for Homer to renew his contract.
Be careful Chiefs, you might wake up the echoes cheering her name. But, probably not.
The Bowling Green Hot Rods have been working their way through the Midwest League to introduce their fans to the new teams they will be seeing. This week, the spotlight was turned on the Peoria Chiefs. A little history from the middle of the article.
While the Chiefs didn't win it all in '85, a total of eight players on the roster eventually played in the big leagues. Two of those players made lasting legacies to say the least. Greg Maddux, he of the 355 career wins and future residence in the Hall of Fame, went 13-9 with a 3.19 ERA, pitching six complete games. He was joined by 20-year-old outfielder Rafael Palmeiro, who in just 73 games hit .297 with five home runs and 51 RBI.
A year later the Chiefs made their last playoff run as a first-time Cubs affiliate, doing so with another pair of big league stalwarts. Three-time MLB All-Star Mark Grace hit .342 in 126 games. Three-time, and possibly soon to be four-time, World Series champ Joe Girardi was the back stop of the '86 club.
Members of the Peoria Chiefs staff will be featured on Thursday's episode of Pranked on MTV (9:30 Central). The prank to air is a retaliation prank cooked up by the sales staff against the promotion/production staff and it took place in August.
Original prank by the interns:
Revenge of the sales staff
Three things:
1.) Hyperbole, much? 2.) The multiple angle replays are pretty awesome. 3.) So, you want to be in minor league baseball?
Even now, almost a week later, it is hard to separate the Peoria Chiefs’ season in full from their last two games.
Maybe it’s the fact that the Chiefs, the best team in the Midwest League’s Western Division, were swept by Cedar Rapids in the opening round of the playoffs.
That those two games ended in two of the most improbable ways for games to end — any games, let alone playoff contests — factors into the cloudiness.
Perhaps the best way to put the second-best season in Peoria’s franchise history in perspective is to start temporarily at the end.
Looking back, it shouldn’t be surprising that the Chiefs struggled in the playoffs. In some ways, the case could be made that they were too good in the second half. The Chiefs clinched a playoff berth on Aug. 27 and the Western Division title on Aug. 31, leaving a week with little to play for.
Too good? Hmmmm. Your views intrigue me and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.
And the very thing that ultimately caused the Chiefs’ demise in the bottom of the ninth, the inability to throw strikes, was a problem at the start of the season.
“We cannot continue to give free passes away like we have,” Chiefs manager Marty Pevey said. “You are going to walk a guy, that’s part of the game, but when you get to this advanced stage you have to have been able to have thrown strikes somewhere.”
Pevey made that statement as the Chiefs started a four-series with Cedar Rapids on April 25 with a 5-8 record. The Chiefs swept the Kernels and would never be below .500 for the remainder of the season.
Payton McSimov can’t do some things his classmates take for granted. However, the 9-year-old is also doing things the average person doesn’t get to enjoy.
At 2, Payton was diagnosed with Costello Syndrome, an ultra-rare disorder that can make everyday life painful and challenging beyond measure. But the ailment can’t deter Payton, who happens to be a big-time sports fan.
Last year, the Bradley basketball team brought Payton in for a practice. On Friday, he was the guest of the Peoria Chiefs for their game vs. Lansing.
If I had a heart -- and were capable of feeling anything, this next part might get to me.
Throughout Friday’s locker room journey, pregame warm-ups and a drive around the diamond, Payton’s smile was infectious. It shined through despite his pain, which will hopefully be remedied by hip surgery on Aug. 6, his sixth major operation.
“It’s good he’s so tough, because doctors say he should be screaming,” grandfather Ralph Sutton said.
It is a toughness that Kristie believes came from above.
“I think God made him with this resilience because He knew he’d be faced with so many obstacles,” she said.
When told about his upcoming surgery, Payton had but one concern.
“He said, ‘Me still play Wii?’” Kristie said, referring to the Nintendo game system that allows Payton to live his sports dreams on TV.
Testifying in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court, Castillo said he had been having pitching control problems earlier in the game, became frightened as the brawl began, and did not throw at an opposing player or with the intention of hitting anyone.
"I saw that the players with the Dragons were coming," the Spanish-speaking Castillo said, testifying through a translator. "I was nervous and frightened. I threw the ball in front of the dugout to see if they would go back. I didn't throw it to hit anyone."
Under cross-examination by assistant Montgomery County prosecutor Tracey Ballard Tangeman, Castillo acknowledged that he threw the ball hard and that it went into the stands.
Chris McCarthy, 45, of Middletown, testified for the prosecution in the trial of Julio Castillo, who is charged with felonious assault. Castillo, a 22-year-old pitcher from the Dominican Republic, has pleaded not guilty.
Castillo was pitching for the Peoria Chiefs against the Dayton Dragons when a bench-clearing brawl broke out last July.
McCarthy says the swelling in his head got so bad that he couldn't wear a hard hat for the part of his job in which he goes into a paper mill.
McCarthy said Castillo, who appeared angry, hurled the ball toward the Dragons' dugout and that the ball came into the stands, striking him in the temple area.
"It came and struck me in the head here, knocking my hat off and leaving a mark where the seams hit me," said McCarthy, who was sittinng with his wife, his 7-year-old son and 7-year-old nephew at the time. "I didn't remember all the details after that. I did not lose consciousness, but I was not thinking clearly."
Rachael Randolph, a 35-year-old urban planner for the City of Wilmette who resides in Kenosha, Wis., is the 5 millionth Peoria Chiefs fan.
Randolph’s winning ducat was picked from nearly 6,600 tickets during the fifth inning of Saturday night’s game between the Chiefs and the Beloit Snappers at O’Brien Field.
The Chiefs entered the Midwest League game with the Snappers 391 fans shy of 5 million. Front office personnel said it was nearly impossible, with three entrances to the ballpark, to pinpoint the 391st fan.
“We decided several weeks ago to pick the 5 millionth fan through a drawing,” Chiefs President Rocky Vonachen said. “We have had such loyal fans over the years, we decided to give all that came today a chance to win.”
Kenosha? Okay. That's not the best part.
Included in the prize package were four tickets to a Chicago Cubs game. And if living in Wisconsin isn’t ironic enough for the Chiefs’ 5 millionth fan, Randolph is also a St. Louis Cardinal fan.
“I have friends from the dark side, I sure they can use them,” said Randolph of her newly acquired Cubs’ tickets.
Growing up, Michael Brenly wanted to be a catcher for one reason. He liked wearing his father’s equipment.
“I think like a lot of little kids he gravitated to the position that had the most equipment,” Michael’s father, Bob Brenly, said earlier this season when the Peoria Chiefs — for whom his son catches — played in Milwaukee’s Miller Park.
“I remember his running around the house as a little kid with my shin guards,’’ said the elder Brenly, a former all-star major-league catcher. “They went from the shoulder down to the floor, but he would strap them on and wear them around the house.”
Brenly (Michael) and the rest of the Chiefs will be at Time Warner Cable Field for the second half opener on June 25.
I thought the story about the Chiefs and Snappers suspension of play that is linked below was interesting. So, here is again with a few of the pertinent facts that are in play when teams are deciding what to do when there is bad weather in the area.
“They were just hoping that the rain would move through,” Chiefs president Rocky Vonachen said of play continuing and then waiting more than an hour to suspend it. “I don’t think any of us thought it would rain that hard, that long.”
The game started 42 minutes late after a rain-anticipation delay.
“I thought we should have started on time,” Beloit manager Nelson Prada said. “I know they worry about starting pitchers and I understand all that.” ... We get together with (Chiefs manager Marty Pevey) and the umpires and we look at the weather and what’s coming and we try and make the best decision with what we’ve got,” Vonachen said. “We saw the front coming so we thought, hey, let’s wait an extra 15 minutes to see if it was going to hit us. When we looked at that, we thought it might slide by us.”
When it appeared that the system was not sliding by, just moving slower in the approach, the decision was made to start since Peoria’s Chris Archer and Beloit’s Daniel Osterbrock had begun to warm up. But the rain started falling in the top of the first and turned harder by the bottom of the inning when the Chiefs scored their run behind a throwing error, a walk and three wild pitches.
Still, for umpires Luke Hamilton and Charles Billington it was not enough to stop play.
There must have been something that made them decide to stop play, no?
Finally after Peoria catcher Michael Brenly dropped a bunt that stuck, literally, to the third baseline for a single was play stopped.
“It was like a truck tire. You could see the mud building up on the ball,” Pevey said. “When the third basemen came and picked it up his shoes stuck six inches in the ground. That’s when they said, ‘Oh that will be enough.’ ”
Do you know how I know this is a big deal? I got a press release on it from someone who does not send out press releases unless he really, really has to send one out.
Here's another reason -- okay, well A reason -- to keep an eye on the Peoria @ Beloit game tonight.
Peoria Chiefs third baseman and top Chicago Cubs prospect Josh Vitters carries a unique streak into the Chiefs series finale at Beloit on Tuesday night. Vitters has collected three hits in four straight games and has homered in three straight. According to Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus, only 18 Major League players have had three straight games of at least three hits and one home run since 1955.
Here is that list:
Hall of Famers Duke Snider (1955) and Dave Winfield (1983), likely Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. (1994) and Hall of Fame candidates Fred McGriff (1994), Jose Canseco (1994), Larry Walker (1995) and Barry Bonds (2000). Others who have accomplished the feat and are still active in the Majors include current Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano (2005), Bill Hall (2006), Johnny Damon (2007), Carlos Lee (2003) and Evan Longoria (2008). Willie Horton (1965), Rico Carty (1967), Mike Greenwell (1988), Kelly Gruber (1990), Rondell White (1999) and Jeff DaVanon (2003) round out the list.
I'll give you a hint in case you haven't clicked that link yet...It was posted in late-October and was the continuation of an event that happened in the middle of the season.
Yes, it was big news. But, new season, guys. New season.
The Chicago Cubs and Peoria Chiefs have announced the players and coaches who will make up the Peoria stop of the Cubs Caravan which is scheduled for the RiverPlex on Thursday, January 15 at 5:00 PM. Possible closer-in-waiting Carlos Marmol along with rookie sensation Jeff Samrardzija highlight the panel which also consists of pitchers Sean Marshall and Kevin Hart and 2008 Chiefs outfielder Brandon Guyer.
In addition to the five players, Cubs Assistant General Manager Randy Bush, Vice President of Player Personnel Oneri Fleita, Pitching Coach Larry Rothschild, Bench Coach Alan Trammell, Hitting Coach Gerald Perry and Third Base Coach Mike Quade will be on the Caravan as well. Radio broadcaster Cory Provus will emcee the event.
