AGRI Biz

Dorothy “Dottie” Kamenshek was the Babe Ruth, so to speak, of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the only women’s professional baseball league in baseball history.  She passed away on May 17, 2010 at age 84.  The Gina Davis character in A League of Their Own was named after Dottie and loosely based on her. The AAGPBL lasted 12 seasons from 1943 through 1954.  At its inception, the “girls” played a ...

In this era of expansion, no pitcher is ever too old or too arm-worn not to get one more chance.  The Nationals have reportedly signed 44-year-old Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez to a minor-league contract. El Duque has pitched all of 26.2 minor league innings the last two seasons combined, but in fairness, he’s pitched pretty well (30 Ks and great ratios).  It will interesting to see if he has enough left ...

The 2010 Cubs are a team I think of as being full of geezers, with Marlon Byrd, Mike Fontinot, Ryan Theriot, Kosuke Fukodome, Xavier Nady, Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Derrek Lee, Ted Lilly, Ryan Dempster and Carlos Silva all over 30.  However, the Cubs have been quietly slipping a number of promising rookies into the mix this year. The position players are SS Starlin Castro and OF Tyler Colvin.  Castro is ...

A couple of days ago I noticed how well Rays' rookies catcher John Jaso and 2B/SS Reid Brignac are playing.  I’ve seen very little written about either of them, so I thought I’d try to fill the void. Brignac is 24 this year, and he’s splitting time almost evenly for the Rays between second and shortstop.  Regular shortstop Jason Bartlett is back after a hamstring injury put him on the DL ...

The White Sox announced the signing of their first round pick LHP Chris Sale for $1.656 million.  Sale was rated the top college left-hander after Drew Pomerantz in most of the mock drafts shown, but he fell to the White Sox with the 13th pick, probably because he went to a second-tier school, Florida Gulf Coast University. Florida Gulf Coast did indeed play mostly second-tier schools. When they played top-tier schools, they ...

Mlbtraderumors. com reports that the Twins and Rangers are the two teams rumored to be most interested in acquiring Mike Lowell from the Red Sox.  Makes sense to me. The Rangers were reported to have strong interest in Lowell this offseason, but nothing got done. Apparently this was because of the Rangers’ current financial problems (the rumors I recall had the Rangers agreeing to pay $2.5 to $3.0 million ...

The current conventional wisdom is that the AL is the better of the two major leagues.  The Giants seem to be taking advantage of this fact. Aubrey Huff, Juan Uribe, Pat Burrell, and Santiago Casilla are all AL cast-offs who seem to have rediscovered their old glory coming (or returning) to the NL.  In the case of Burrell and Casilla, in particular, the sample sizes are too small to draw any ...

I love major league baseball.  I’ll grant that NBA basketball, premier league soccer and professional boxing (because of the price you pay if you aren’t good, and except for the fixes) are of similar caliber of talent/ability, but I won’t admit than anyone plays their sport better than MLB players. Tonight’s game was a lot of fun, particularly because the Giants won.  Lincecum wasn’t perfect in the first inning, but after ...

The first round (including supplementals) of the 2010 MLB Draft is in the books. There were a few surprises (at least based on the mock drafts I saw), with Cal State Fullerton SS Christian Colon (4th Royals) and Texas RHP Barrett Loux (6th Diamonbacks), going higher than projected. Middle Tennessee State outfielder Bryce Brentz, The Citadel’s RHP Ascher Wojciechowski and LSU’s RHP Anthony Ranaudo going lower than expected. I’m not sure ...

This article from the Tacoma Times indicates that Ken Griffey, Jr.’s days as a Mariner are numbered.  Aside from his awful start at the plate and the fact that he can’t play the field because of his sore and gimpy knees, he’s apparently not been the force in the clubhouse he was last year.  In fact, the article reports an anecdote that Griffey was not used as a pinch hitter ...