After the two week adventure to the Cactus League and Grapefruit League I’m getting back into the daily grind in the Northwoods League office of preparing for the upcoming season. To complete the thoughts that I previewed on my previous post Monday morning, we were able to secure four more interviews before the conclusion of our trip.
The day finished in Viera, FL (a new city that has broken off from Melbourne) where the Washington Nationals train. We talked with Jordan Zimmermann who is off to a great start this spring. With 8 1/3 scoreless innings thus far Zimmermann has pitched the third most innings this spring of pitchers with a 0.00 ERA. He’s allowed just four hits while striking out ten and walking two batters in three appearances (two starts) so far. Zimmermann, pitching for the Eau Claire Express in 2006, was the top pitcher in the Northwoods League. Coming out of division three Wisconsin-Stevens Point, he credited the exposure he gained in the Northwoods League as playing a major role in getting him to where he is today. Baseball America rated him as the number one prospect in the Nationals organization. He has a good shot to make the Nationals opening day roster as a back of the rotation starting pitcher.
In my previous post I stated that I hoped to interview both Brad Holt and Dillon Gee, two of the top pitching prospects in the New York Mets organization. On Monday both were involved in a busy day of minor league camp and were not available while we were in Port St. Lucie, spring training home of the Mets. However, we were able to chat with a few other notable names from the Northwoods League’s 16-year history.
George Sherrill and Bobby Kielty were teammates with the Kenosha Kroakers in 1997. They were both players in the Orioles/Mets game on Monday. Although it has been about a dozen years since their days in the NWL, they both looked back at there experience fondly.
As the 2009 Northwoods League season draws nearer, look for excerpts of the 20 interviews we conducted on northwoodsleague.com and nwltickets.com. Follow the blog and I’ll be sure to keep you posted on our plan to add the footage to the website.
One other interview that we happened to come by Monday on our final day of the trip was with two-time American League Cy Young Award Winner and 1985 World Series MVP Bret Saberhagen. The Kansas City Royals great coached briefly with the Alexandria Beetles two different times during his son Drew’s four-year tenure as a player with the team. I know Bret from my former ties to the Beetles so it was nice to bump into him and have a chance to interview him about his and Drew’s NWL experience.
He’s recently become a sports agent and spoke about it to mlb.com. Click here for that interview.
Check back soon as I’ll begin to track some of the player movement of Northwoods League alumni during training camp.
-Curt
