All Star Roundup

I just wanted to throw out a congratulations to the Clinton LumberKings on a great show last night. Also, I would like to discuss the technology (or magic) that you used last night to keep the rain away from Alliant Energy Field. How in the HECK did you do that?

Maybe it was the line I heard on press row last night...Jamie Pedroza is the grand marshall of the hit parade...I couldn't concentrate for a couple of innings after I heard that one.

Anyway.....

Here are the stories from the Hometown paper:

Organizers poke it out of the park

East All-Stars beat West

LumberKings help West All-Stars battle to the end

From the kinda hometown papers:

Bandits backstop Cutler rolls with changes

All-Star Game notebook (with video)

All-Star Game more than just 9 innings

Jayson Marten, a freckle-faced 9-year old from Oshkosh, Wis., will tell you.

So will 65-years-young Roger McLean of Aurora, Ill.

The Midwest League All-Star Game is more than nine innings of baseball.

It's an event.

The league's 45th annual all-star game started at 7 p.m. Tuesday night at Alliant Energy Field, but fans arrived on the Clinton riverfront long before Kane County's Kenney Smalley threw the game's first pitch.

Marten took a few cuts in the T-ball home run derby that was among a number of youth-friendly games that were part of the Principal Family Fun Fest.

"This is pretty awesome," said Marten, who had his eye on heading to a rock-climbing wall with an older brother. "There is a lot to do."

I saw a few Timber Rattlers fans in the stands. Hope they had a good time. At least I am guessing that a family from Oshkosh would be fans of the Timber Rattlers.

This 0-fer doesn't bother Bandits' Cutler

Cubs prospect Vitters meeting high expectations

Fort Wayne made it over

TinCaps make mark at All-Star

Jeff Johnson has blog posts with pictures and video

And the MiLB.com coverage:

Bourquin's blast carries East to win

Notebook with this:

Stop us if you've heard this one before -- a top prospect named Gordon comes into his first Midwest League season, tears up the competition and earns a nod to the league's annual All-Star Game in Clinton.

It's a case of deja vu all over again for devoted Midwest League fans, a familiar story told 21 summers ago in places like Appleton, Wisc., and Waterloo, Iowa. The towns on the map have changed, but the story itself is remarkably the same. In 1988, Tom Gordon took the field in Clinton for the league's annual midsummer classic as a hot prospect on a tear. This year, his son, Dee, will do the same, representing the Great Lakes Loons as the starting shortstop for the East Division.

Tom Gordon was an Appleton Fox in that 1988 All-Star Game.

Brett Lawrie's position switch is covered in the notebook, too.

Either one of those MiLB.com links will take you to a photo gallery...a pretty lame photo gallery...with one shot of game action, three shots from Monday, and a post-game handshake for the Star of Stars.

LIVE BLOG: 2009 Midwest League All-Star Game

Rattler All-Stars playing schedule

Just got back from talking with the Timber Rattler all-stars and with Clinton Pitching Coach Lance Painter and manager Scott Steinmann.

Catcher Corey Kemp and infielder Brett Lawrie are scheduled to play the second half of the game or after the starters get two at bats.

Regarding the pitchers:
Daniel Meadows is scheduled to share the sixth inning
Wily Peralta is scheduled to share the seventh inning
Jime Henderson is scheduled to share the ninth inning.

2009 All-Star Game Starting Lineups

EAST:
Josh Harrison (PEO)......DH
Jamie Pedroza (GL).......2B
Josh Vitters (PEO).......3B
Kyle Russell (GL)........RF
Kyler Burke (PEO)........LF
Sawyer Carroll (FW)......CF
Tony Delmonico (GL).......C
Ron Bourquin (WM)........1B
Dee Gordon (GL)..........SS

Ryan Cook (SB)...........SP

WEST:

Alexi Amarista (CR)......2B
Jason Christian (KC).....3B
Nick Van Stratten (BUR)..LF
Steve Kleen (KC).........1B
Jeremy Barfield (KC).....DH
Charlie Cutler (QC).......C
Denny Almonte (CLN)......CF
Nick Francis (BUR).......RF
Dusty Coleman (KC).......SS

Kenny Smalley (KC).......SP

All-Star Preview and some quotes

The QC Times had this on Sunday, but I saved it until today. First, Ex-Rattler Denny Almonte, who is the lone Clinton position player starting tonight, is the main focus of the early part of the story.

Almonte, a 20-year-old outfielder from Miami, is in his second season in the Midwest League. A second-round pick of the Mariners in 2007, he hit .249 with 20 doubles, 10 homers and 51 RBIs last season when Seattle's affiliate called Wisconsin home.

He's batting .262 for the LumberKings, and leads the team with 69 hits, 15 doubles, 12 homers and 44 RBIs.

"My goal has always been to find a way to put the ball in play and use my speed. It's been a good start, but I don't think I should be our only starter in the all-star game," Almonte said.

A little history:

Clinton hosts the Midwest League All-Star Game for the fourth time on Tuesday.

Ross Gload was named the Star of Stars on most recent occasion in 1998, a game that also included Peoria's Rick Ankiel, Quad-Cities' Juan Rincon and Fort Wayne's Michael Cuddyer.

And a preview, too. You'll have to click to find out those players.

The quotes referred to above would be in the Clinton Herald story on the Home Run Derby last night. I didn't expect them to have the story on-line already and the post from the L-Kings website was up already...so...enough, already.

Ridling, a 25th-round selection out of Oklahoma State, belted three dingers in the first round, four in the second and five in the final to claim the title.

“I thought once I had the timing, I would be able to hit a few out,” said Ridling, who also won a home run derby in high school. “Then I got the timing and took advantage of it.”

Clinton also hosted the league's All-Star Game in 1976, 1988 and 1998. But those midseason showcases did not feature a home run derby.

Lawrie, the No. 16 overall selection in the 2008 MLB Draft, hit one homer off the scoreboard in the finals, finishing in second with five total round-trippers.

“I just wanted to try my best and get the fans going a little bit,” said Lawrie, the highest-ever draft pick out of Canada. “I got a little tired toward the end there, but it was great to be a part of this.”

Why were home run totals down in this derby? There are two theories.

Some of the 13 contestants said Monday's weather caused rapid fatigue. Temperature displays at the contest’s onset read 96 degrees.

Ridling, however, said the humidity had no effect. It actually helped him stay loose.

“When it's this hot out, you take a couple practice swings, and you're ready to go,” he said. “It was probably worse for the (players) who have to sit and watch.”

The Midwest League sluggers faced a pitching machine during the contest and reported problems picking up the ball. Players train their eyes to track the ball during a pitcher's circular delivery.

The machine doesn't provide such a motion.

“You could tell it affected some of the guys,” Lawrie said. “It takes a while to get used to. You know when a guy who has 17 home runs this year (Russell) only hits two, something's up.”

Lawrie batted first in the finals. After a short massage at the plate from teammates, he pelted the top of the scoreboard beyond the left-field wall.

Ridling took it from there.

Yes. Yes, he did.

Midwest League Action: June 22, 2009

No games. But, the home run derby and the skills competition were last night.

Dave's headline makes me yell More! MORE! MORE!

Rebel Yell: Ridling Wins Derby
Peoria's Rebel Ridling belts 12 homers in derby, Great Lakes' Dee Gordon wins Skills Contest

Strong throws, pinpoint bunts and tapemeasure blasts highlighted All-Star Monday at Alliant Energy Field as the Skills Contest and Home Run Derby champions were crowned. Great Lakes' shortstop Dee Gordon won the Skills Contest with a pair of three-point bunts in the sudden-death bunt-off round, and Peoria's Rebel Ridling blasted 12 home runs, including five in the finals to take the Derby title.

I'll bet that you thought you would never read the phrase sudden-death bunt-off in your life.

Rattlers? Any Rattlers?

Ridling belted three first-round home runs and cracked four more in the second, taking the lead on the field of 13 hitters. Wisconsin's Brett Lawrie reached the finals with two home runs each in the first and second rounds.

Lawrie batted first in the finals, blasting a ball off the scoreboard in left-center for his only shot in 10 outs. Ridling then stepped to the plate, lifting off with several clouts over the wood wall. Just three outs into the final round, he claimed the title with a home run off the scoreboard. Ridling then added three more to finish with a final total of 12 home runs.

Read on to see the prizes won by the winners

Oh, heck. You know it's going to happen...

Sorry. Embedding of the real video has been disabled. Click here for the glory of the 80's.

A preview

This is from Saturday's Quad Cities Times and gives a bit of a preview for what to expect if you are going to the All-Star Game in Clinton.

In more than a quarter century of working in professional baseball, Ted Tornow has sat through dozens of all-star games.

He's watched skydivers, chewed on rubber-chicken banquet food, listened to long-winded speakers and witnessed many of the bells and whistles that typically accompany such events.

Until this week, the Clinton LumberKings' general manager never had been part of hosting an all-star event, and when he and his staff began planning to host the 45th Midwest League All-Star Game, he started with one simple question.

"What can we do differently?" was the challenge Tornow presented to his staff.

Well, what can they do differently?

Clinton was regarded as the sawmill capital of the United States between the 1850s and 1900, a time when huge log rafts were floated down the Mississippi River from Wisconsin and Minnesota to mills in Clinton, where they were cut into lumber and shipped across the country.

In 1892, production at sawmills in Clinton, Lyons and Camanche had risen to more than 196 million board feet annually.

A group of lumberjacks will demonstrate competitions similar to those held in that era as part of pregame festivities on grounds adjacent to the Alliant Energy Field on Tuesday beginning at 4 p.m. Festivities also include all-star autographs, the traveling games and displays of the Principal Family Fun Fest and woodcarving exhibits.

"I think we have everybody other than Geppetto lined up to be here," Tornow said. "The lumberjacks are the same professionals that compete on ESPN, and it will add something completely different to the all-star event. It won't be a competition per se, just an opportunity for them to show what they can do. We told them to have some fun with it, and they're excited about that chance."

Player introductions are scheduled for 6:40 p.m., preceding a 7 p.m. first pitch. Birdzerk and Breakin' B-Boy McCoy and the Klement's Racing Sausages from Milwaukee's Miller Park will provide in-game entertainment and fireworks will follow the game.

Lumberjacks, sausages, and Breakin' B-Boy McCoy...That's different alright....Breakin' B-Boy McCoy?

Five on the All-Star Squad

I mentioned it in the game notes, but it really does deserve its own post.

Five Timber Rattlers are on the Western Division team for the Midwest League All-Star Game.

Jim Henderson
Corey Kemp
Brett Lawrie
Daniel Meadows
Wily Peralta

Here is the team release at the website.

Congratulations to our All-Stars.

Introducing...

THE logo for the 2009 Midwest League All-Star Game


Well...I see Louie, Lumber, Stars, the Mississippi River, and the Green paddlewheel of a steamboat.

And if you unfocus your eyes, there you can see Louie in 3-D!*

*I am probably making that last part up. I could never get those stupid posters to work.