Madison graduation 2012
Warren County CC graduation
New Miami graduation 2012
Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy has retired from the Dayton Daily News after covering the Cincinnati Reds for 37 years. Hal's blog, though, will continue to be a must-read for Reds fans. He'll share his thoughts on the team this season and will file updates from Great American Ball Park. You also can catch Hal in print every Sunday in his popular Ask Hal columnHome > Blogs > The Real McCoy | Cincinnati Reds baseball news > Archives > 2010 > February > 23
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Votto befriends Alonso, his competition
GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Yonder Alonso hears it almost in his sleep and for certain hears it over and over and over from his friends in Doral, Florida.
It goes something like this: “Hey, Yonder. You’re a first baseman and Joey Votto is a first baseman. What are you going to do, man? What’s going to happen?”
Alonso thought the same thing when he walked into his first major-league spring training camp with the Cincinnati Reds last year as the team’s No. 1 draft pick in 2008 and the club’s top prospect.
And then he met Joey Votto.
“People ask me that at home and I look at it like this: The guy is probably the best player on the team, if not THE best player. I just try to learn from him every single day. That’s all I try to do. I pretty much nag him. I ask him every day, ‘What do I do here and how do I do that?’ That’s the way it was all last spring.”
What flabbergasted Alonso is that Votto befriended him, despite the fact they both are young and both play the same position.
“He is a good friend,” Alonso said. “He is a great baseball player, a good person and a good friend. You don’t find many guys like that, especially guys at the same position on the same team.
“I thought when I first came in, ‘Man, it is going to be hard dealing with Votto,’ ” Alonso said. “But it was the exact opposite. He has just done nothing but help me out and been a good friend. He told me how Albert Pujols (of the St. Louis Cardinals) helped him out a lot and he is trying to do the same for me.
“You never know what is going to happen because this game is so crazy,” he said. “This is my first year and a lot of things went on - injuries, trades. And I look at it that I’ll do whatever it takes, like play first, third, left, right or pinch-hit. As long as I can play and help the team.”
SPEAKING OF never knowing what events are in your future, Alonso suffered a major one last year.
He began the season at high-A in Sarasota and hit .303 in 49 games with seven homers and 38 RBIs.
HE WAS PROMOTED to Double-A Carolina in early June. It was one week into his Double-A career and Alonso takes it from here:
“We were playing a doubleheader in Knoxville (Tenn.) and in the minors they play seven innings in doubleheaders,” he said. “Well, the first game went 10 innings and I hit a game-winning home run.
“We had 25 minutes between games and then in my first at-bat in the second game I took a swing and fouled off a pitch,” he said. “But I felt something in my neck. It hurt. The trainer came out and looked at my right hand and it was blue. When he touched it, man, the pain was awful.”
Turned out Alonso fractured a bone in his right wrist that required surgery and put him out of action for 10 weeks.
“I started out really good in high-A,” he said. “It’s a tough league to hit in. Then I went to Double-A and was doing good for a week and suddenly I’m done for 10 weeks. I hit that home run and then the next at-bat, poof, I was gone. Done for 10 weeks and that really sucked.
“When I broke it, it landed on two of the veins in my wrist and the pain went all the way to my neck,” he said. “I thought something was wrong with my neck and I told the trainer, ‘My neck, my neck,’ but he pointed to my palm and it was blue.’ “
And his thoughts?
“I had to deal with it, but at the time I thought, ‘Oh my God, what is going on?’ I thought I was done for the year,” he said. “I’m done, that’s it, I won’t play the rest of the year.”
ALONSO DID his rehab work, even though he thought his season was over, and came back in time to play the last week for Carolina, then for Class AAA Louisville in the post-season playoffs.
“I wasn’t healthy, wasn’t 100 percent, but I was able to at least help my team win some games,” he said.
“It was rough, man,” he said.
Now he is in his second big-league camp and is enjoying it much more than last year.
“This is unbelievable,” he said. “Last year it wasn’t much fun because I didn’t know anybody and I didn’t want to step on anybody’s shoes. But I played in high-A, Double-A and Triple-A and I got to know everybody. So we all hang around now, just trying to enjoy things. Much more fun this year.”
ALONSO played mostly first base all last year, but dabbled a few games in left field. He didn’t play any third base, “But I took ground balls there every day, every single day. I could have played there but we have too many guys who are third basemen - guys like Chris Valaika, Zack Cozart, Todd Frazier and Juan Francisco.”
There is no doubt his future is top-shelf, but it remains in the future where he plays and for whom he plays.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment |
Tweet‘I must be in the front row …’
Walked into Don & Charlie’s Monday night, a popular sports-oriented restaurant in Scottsdale that is stuffed with baseball memorabilia, including autographs on baseballs of Hall of Fame players, including Babe Ruth.
I was barely in the door when somebody yelled, “Hey, Captain.” It was Chicago Cubs assistant GM Gary Hughes, formerly a special assistant with the Cincinnati Reds. I call him Mr. Baseball and he calls me Captain Greyhound because we spent a few hours together at the Sarasota Kennel Club wagering a dollar or two on the puppies and checking up on our racing namesake, a faun greyhound named Gary’s Real McCoy, which made the spring All-American team, but made us little money.
Hughes, who knows everybody in baseball, introduced me around at Don & Charlie’s and even brought the owner, Don Carson, to my table while I chewed on barbecued ribs. And it got me free dessert.
As I was leaving, I ran into Bob Uecker in the lobby and one of my companions said, “Hey, I must be in the front row,” a reference to a Miller beer commercial Uecker did years ago where he walked into a ball park holding some tickets and says, “I must be in the front row.” Then it shows him in the top seat of the upper deck, drinking a beer as he says to a guy sitting next to him, “Hey, great seats, huh pal?”
After dinner, it was time for a trip to Casino Arizona in an attempt to retrieve some of the cash I left there Sunday to help the state economy. After a long, long run of bad hands, a dealer named Christopher showed up and it was if he was my best friend - blackjack after blackjack, a string of 20s and some successful splits and double downs.
I not only retrieved my losses, I made some money. As I went, I kept tipping Christopher for the good hands and when he left the table he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Thanks for the tips. You made my night.”
Later he saw me leaving and ran up to me and stuck out his hand to shake and again said, “Thanks for the tips.” No, no, Christopher. Thanks for making MY night. And in all my years of casino visitations, I’ve NEVER had a dealer thank me or chase me down to shake my hand for a few tips.
Refreshing.
THE REASON I’m rambling right now is that it is late morning on Tuesday and the entire Cincinnati Reds team is in camp, but they are engaging in physical examinations and the workouts don’t start for another two hours.
Brandon Phillips, Scott Rolen and Joey Votto showed up and manager Dusty Baker said, “I’m glad to have everybody in camp. Now we feel whole as a team.”
BAKER ON signing Jonny Gomes: “He was in the mix all winter for left field. It was just a matter of getting all the terms of a contract worked out.”
When talk turned to left field and who might be there, Baker said, “It will work itself out. I don’t know much about Josh Anderson (in camp on a minor-league contract after playing at Detroit and Kansas City last year) or Chris Heisey, but we’ll find out.
“I remember in 1986 when Will Clark showed up in our camp with the Giants,” Baker said. “Everybody said, ‘Who is this guy?’ Well, he led the Cactus League in hitting and home runs and pretty soon everybody knew who he was. We might have a Will Clark come along here. Rarely does it happen, but you have to keep your eyes open.”
Baker didn’t include Todd Frazier and Juan Francisco in the left field mix, but only, he said, “Because we have to have them get down all the infield drills and learn the infield stuff. Then they’ll get some time in the outfield.”
Asked if Drew Stubbs is the center fielder going in, Baker said, “Yeah, I think he is our center fielder, but I ain’t gonna tell him that. What he’s done so far is only Step One. He has a lot to learn and accomplish and he knows that.”
Baker also said Chris Dickerson will play some center field this spring, “Because that’s his best position and Stubbs isn’t going to play every day. It’s just spring training.”
So what does all this mean?
Uh, left field is in flex, but it looks as if it will be Dickerson against righthanded pitchers and Gomes against lefthanded pitchers - with Laynce Nix, Chris Heisey and Wladimir Balentien part of the cake badder. And Baker said, “Balentien had a very good winter ball season.”
AARON BOONE told me a couple of weeks ago when he was in town to do our Fireside Chat for the Dayton Heart Institute at the Marriott that he was retiring from the playing field and moving to the press box.
It was official today. Boone will be a baseball analyst on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight.
Boone, a former Reds third baseman, played 12 years in the majors. He worked for ESPN Radio as a guest analyst during the 2009 National League Division Series.
I’ll be leaving Goodyear after today, but I shall return for three weeks just before the exhibition games begin in early March.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment |
Tweet
