All Things Valley League

Harrisonburg Turks Card Set Available

When I attended the July 11th game between Waynesboro and Harrisonburg, I had a pleasant surprise: the Turks have released their team set of baseball cards!

The cards, put together by Matt Wease, are a wonderful idea for autographs or just to hang on to in case some of the Turks become major leaguers someday. This is the first time most of these players have been featured on a card! The set costs $10, and can be purchased at Memorial Stadium.

Jerry Carter has some cool pictures of the cards on his website, located here.

Nice job, Matt!

Luray Roster Available!

The very last Valley League roster is now available!  The Luray Wranglers have their list of players up on their new site.

The Wranglers have a few returners: Jordan Yost, from West Virginia, Donald Jordat, from Miami-Dade Community College, and Austin Markel, from West Virginia (played for Waynesboro last year). Jordat had an excellent season last summer: I named him the #4 reliever in the league.

Two local boys are on the team: Josh Wright, who is from Bridgewater and attends Old Dominion, and Andrew Armstrong, from Harrisonburg, who attends Ohio State.

Mike Bocock is back to manage the team, and Jimmy Hamilton, last seen as a pitching coach for Staunton, will join Randy Smith as an assistant coach.

A Friday Evening at the Johnny Appleseed

Friday night, May 2nd, I was honored to attend the Grandstand Managers Club of New Market's 2008 preseason dinner at the Johnny Appleseed restaurant in New Market.

The Grandstand Managers Club was created in 1993 to help support the New Market Rebels team with many usually unpleasant tasks: raising money, finding sponsors, advertisers, volunteers, and host families, just to name a few.

I was honored to be seated at a table with some important folks: Jerry Carter, the creator of the Around the Valley in 60 Days promotion, Katie Getz, Rebel Intern (and faithful reader), and Austin Gisriel and family. Austin is a freelance writer/landscaper from WIlliamsport, Maryland, who is currently writing an article on the Valley League for Virginia Living magazine.

After the meal, Valley League President Dave Biery started off the speeches with a "Proclamation" from the League: May 2, 2008, will now be known at "Maynard 'Mo' Weber Day." The "longest standing first base coach in league history" was also honored with his own award; each season, the league will give the coach of the year the "Mo Weber Award."  Those who know Mo are aware that he is seldom speechless; on this evening, with this surprise, he was just that. (For proof, see the picture to the left)

Austin Gisriel, keynote speaker went next. It's clear that Austin has spent time in the classroom teaching English; his speech was a delight of stories and metaphors. He recounted his first visit to a Rebel game back in 2002, when he and his daughter approached a man changing into uniform to ask about the quality of play they were about to see, and were told that the league's play was very high. Of course, would Coach Weber say anything different?

Austin regaled the audience with his central metaphor: life is like baseball- a series of moments, each holding a multitude of possibilities, with each moment influencing the next. The mantra "wait 'til next year" ensures that our childhood innocence remains intact.  (He's pictured right- sorry Austin, it was the best shot I had)

Jerry Carter, part owner of both the Luray Wranglers and the promotion listed above, held forth next. He spoke about heroes, starting with God at #1, and ending his list at Bruce Alger, #4. (His father and Greg Maddux were in there, too.)  Jerry will be kicking off the "Around the Valley" promotion in Woodstock on Saturday, May 31. (This blog will be following the promotion throughout the year as well.)

Bruce Alger also reported on improvements made to Rebel Park, everything from a new school bus for travel (but no air conditioning!) to a (hopefully) newly paved parking lot.  Bruce also told a fascinating story about a new player due into New Market this summer: Florida Gator Riley Cooper. (I'll save the story for another time: hopefully there will be an interview with Riley at some point this summer.)  Put it this way: Riley is going to help the Rebels.

Last but not least, Mo Weber showed that it's official: New Market's long-standing first base coach is still full of vim and vigor- two ingredients essential if one is to coach well into one's 80s. Mo, who will turn 85 this July, read a letter from (unfortunately) missing head coach Nolan Neiman, describing the team and his plans for the year.  Mo also had a few sketchy stories to share from the history of New Market which had the crowd rolling.

Frankly, each team could use a group of folks like this to support operations; the excitement for baseball and the new season was almost palpable!

Front Royal Roster Available!

The Front Royal Cardinals have posted their roster for the upcoming season!  (This leaves just Luray...)

The Cards have some excellent players returning:

• Bennett Davis, from Elon: hit 280/377/411 with 14 doubles and 14 stolen bases in 175 at-bats (3B)

• Drew McCormick, from Shepherd: hit 170/261/230 in 135 at-bats (INF)

• Bradley Ray, from Auburn: hit 245/331/382 in 110 at-bats (OF)

• Kevin Crimmel, from Villanova: went 2-1, 3.07, with 31 strikeouts in 29 1/3 innings

• Thomas Gray, from Tennessee Tech: went 5-3, 4.60 in 8 starts

• Matt McCarty, from Shepherd: went 3-3, 3.23, with 49 strikeouts in 47 1/3 innings and 8 starts

• Jesse Henry, from Shenandoah: went 1-9 in limited action (INF)

And, last but not least, the Cards have picked up another player who played for New Market last year:  Parker Neal, from Christopher Newport. Parker hit 138/219/172 in very limited action for the Rebels. (He's hitting 330/395/425 in 31 games in college this spring. He's going to be an excellent addition!)

FR was an exciting team to watch last year; I would anticipate that this year will be similar!

Staunton Adds Three Local Players

The Staunton Braves added three JMU players to its roster: sophomore Matt Browning, junior Matt Townsend, and returning to the Braves, sophomore Steven Caseres.

This will undoubtedly help the Braves this summer: Browning, from the word on the street, is a pro prospect, while hitting 309/360/559 in 68 at-bats for the Dukes; Caseres will most likely anchor the middle of the Staunton lineup, and is hitting 324/390/622 in 74 at-bats; Townsend is hitting 421/532/684 in 38 at-bats.

It looks like the Braves just got tougher!

Below: Browning at the plate

Haymarket Roster Out, Sort Of

The Haymarket Senators sent out an email with a list of the team's roster, but it isn't available anywhere online (that I could find, anyway)- either at the Senator's new site or the Valley League site.

To make things worse, I thought I would copy and paste the roster here for all to see, but the format is a mess.  I even tried to paste it into a word document, and then a wordpad document, but neither of those ideas worked either.

SO, if any of you want to see the entire roster, drop me a line, and I can forward the email on to you.

At any rate, Haymarket has two returners from last year: outfielder Joe Conforti, from Wagner, and pitcher Ben Hildreth, from Averett. They look like a young team, but they also look very large. They have pitchers who are 6-7, 6-5, 6-4, 6-4, and 6-3. Might make a good basketball team, at least.

This year will be interesting in the other 'Market, as there is a new ownership group and coaching staff. Time will tell!

Covington Roster Available

The Covington Lumberjacks (beware many angry large men!) have posted their roster!

The 'Jacks have an interesting looking squad, with four players from Hill College, two pitchers each from Ferrum and JMU, three hitters from Coastal Carolina, and two from Virginia Tech.

They have five returners:

Brian Santana, from Florida International: 1-0, 2.88 in 25 innings
Robbie Andrews, from VCU: 4-2, 2.45, with 5 saves in 22 innings (He was my #9 reliever in the league last year)
Evan Noell, from Coastal Carolina: 209/382/233 in 43 at-bats
Junior Arrojo, from Florida International: 275/373/316 in 171 at-bats, and played a sterling shortstop last season (I saw him range waaaaayyyyyyy up the middle and throw out the runner in a game last year)
Kevin Bishop, from Kentucky: 203/256/327 in 153 at-bats

The Lumberjacks will have a few more questions to answer than, say, Waynesboro (11 returners), so time will tell how the team will play for Coach Chalot!

And then there were three teams remaining: Luray, Haymarket, and Front Royal.

Waynesboro Roster Available

The defending Valley League champion Waynesboro Generals have released their 2008 roster (header still says 2007, but it's updated!), leaving only Luray, Haymarket, Front Royal, and Covington roster-less at this point.

If there is any correlation between returning players and success (and I believe that there is), Waynesboro will have a very strong team in 2008.  A whopping eleven players are scheduled to return to the Valley from the '07 team:

Player, school, '07 summer stats

Ryan Danbury, North Florida CC: 316/458/421 in 8 games
Grant Buckner, West Virginia: 214/289/250 in 140 at-bats
Evan DePotter, Butler: 0-0, 3.18, in 5 2/3 innings
Pete VandenBout, College of Charleston: 2-2, 4.83, 1.45 WHIP, 4.5 BB/9, 7.4 K/9 in 31 2/3 innings
Pat Irvine, Elon: 265/431/409 in 181 at-bats
Ryan Adams, Elon: 309/432/395 in 152 at-bats (led team in batting average)
Danny Williamson, North Florida CC: 3-1, 2.45, 0.96 WHIP, 3.1 BB/9, 7.7 K/9 in 29 1/3 innings (also my #10A reliever)
Shane Ardoin, LSU: 0-0, 5.23, 1.84 WHIP, 4.8 BB/9, 10.4 K/9 in 20 2/3 innings.
Adam Liberatore, Tennessee Tech: 6-2, 3.47, 1.41 WHIP, 3.5 BB/9, 6.9 K/9 in 62 1/3 innings (10 starts).
Chris Enourato, West Virginia: 280/372/369 in 157 at-bats
Brandon Sizemore, College of Charleston: 260/330/375 in 208 at-bats

The 2007 starting catcher, second baseman, third baseman, DH, left fielder, and a crucial starter and set-up man are returning.  In addition, Sizemore was known to the General faithful as a "gritty" player- one of those guys whose uniform is always dirty after a game.  It certainly looks like the Generals (if all these players return, of course) are going to be in the top tier of the league in 2008!

A Few Short Videos

I've been waiting to post these videos for a long, long time.  Anna Kipps is one of New Market's biggest fans. She helps administer the "New Market Rebels" facebook group, and she has posted some very funny videos on youtube.

These are my favorite videos from Anna's youtube account. (To see them all, click here)   The New Market bullpen has a reputation for having some fun during the long summer evenings...

First, bullpen macarena; second, pop-up bullpen; and third, whack-a-mole bullpen!

Waynesboro #6 Team in Nation

PGCrosschecker has posted its latest "Summer 16" list; the list of the top summer league teams in the country. Waynesboro, on the strength of both the regular season and playoff championships, has moved to the #6 position (from the #15 spot).

The comment under the Generals was : "Akron 1B Kurt Davidson (.307-5-54), Butler RHP Jon Dages (7-2, 2.62) power Generals to regular season, playoff titles."   
The really odd thing about this list is that only one league had more than one team listed (Cape Cod League, with three). Thirteen other leagues had one representative.  Again, it must be difficult to rank teams from different leagues, but since I love lists (I'm just about to start one of my own), I needed to post on this. 

Hmm. I wonder what would really happen if the #2 team, the Havasu Heat from the Pacific Northwest League (they have a 48-2 record!?!), played the #1 team, the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, from the Cape Cod League, in a best-of-7 series.  Sweep?  Sox in 5?

No way to tell. Wouldn't it be cool if the Generals, or whoever won the VBL championship, were invited to play in a tournament with all the other top teams from the other leagues?  I think I'd travel to see that, wherever it might be!