From around the internet, here are a few highlights:
*The New Orleans Times-Picayune has a note suggesting the Nationals have recalled OF Ryan Church, possibly to replace an injured Alex Escobar.
*Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star writer Todd Jacobson has a blog. Todd is one of the few local guys who provides consistent coverage of the minor leagues.
MLB.com Nationals beat writer Bill Ladson had this nugget:
Third baseman Dustin Dickerson, drafted in the 15th round of the 2006 First-Year Player Draft, took batting practice with the Nationals on Friday afternoon. He got off to a slow start, but started to hit line drives toward the end.
Dickerson said he and Washington have not begun negotiating a professional contract. He signed a letter of intent to go to Baylor University, but is leaning toward playing Minor League baseball for the Nationals.
This is great news, if true. Dickerson was considered a second to fourth round talent who slid due to beliefs that his commitment to Baylor was too strong. From Baseball America
One of the top high school hitters in Texas this spring, Dickerson should go off the board somewhere between the second and fourth rounds. He incorporates his hands well into his swing and employs a sound whole-field approach. At 6-foot-4 and 205 pounds, he offers plenty of strength and raw power. He also has displayed an aptitude for making adjustments at the plate. While Dickerson isn’t one-dimensional, he’ll be drafted mainly for his bat. He has good athleticism and speed for his size, and he played wide receiver on Midway High’s district champion football team. But he has just adequate arm strength and glovework at third base, so he might move to an outfield corner or first base down the road. He’s a good student committed to Baylor, but he should sign if he gets drafted as high as expected.
*Major tip of the cap to Jonathan Helfgott, theguy behind Global Baseball. He sent me a link to a Listin Diario article on Esmailin Gonzalez, the Nationals big signing out of the Dominican Republic.
Here is a rough translation:
[From] extreme poverty to wealth.
Ana Mercedes Mars, the mother of Esmailin González, will not have more to late remove each her loaded table from fried foods: meats, yucca and guineítos (type of food) to install its fritura, that is several years old being the favorite place to have supper of many of the residents in Pisarrete, an impoverished sector of the district San Antonio in Baní.
In just a short time, the poor woman and humble house that has been their home for more than one decade will become a sad memory. Its physical structure represents the most suitable picture of the humble and close state in which it has developed the life of Esmailin, second from a family of six children of Ana Mercedes and Daniel González Martinez, who dedicates himself to the agricultural works.
Within months they will not have to look for “sellalotó” to cover the holes during the rains.
Like a many other young Dominican players, baseball will change the life of Esmailin and his family after the youngster finishes signed a $1.4M contract with the Washington Nationals.
How much is that? A little more than 45 million times the minimum wage.
There will be no more poverty for the González, as if they were touched by a magical wand, his way of living has been transformed by the heavens. Because in this house was a player who in a relatively short time would become desired by more than a dozen of Major League teams.
Many have projected Esmailin to have a glove like Ozzie Smith, and generate an offense like Miguel Tejada, but aside from these comparisons of his athletic abilities, he is till a young an inexperienced player.
Before buying a luxurious car, the first thing that Esmailin will do is build a house for his mother, Ana Mercedes, with all the comforts that his parents deserve. Because they made a tooth and nail effort to raise this family of six.
“The vehicles will come later, I am not in a hurry to buy it, to make my parents and brothers comfortable is the first thing,” said Gonzalez speaking with a security unknown in a young person of 16 years.
As if he already felt hunger to leave the poverty, González took refuge early in baseball and little by little developed the qualities that recently have made him one of the highes prospects in the country.
“The conditions he grew up in was something that affected me and I tried to help him as much as I could,” expressed Jose Lust, special Assistant of Jim Bowden who along with Basilio Vizcaíno, Gonzalez’ agent, and Jose Báez helped in the signing of González.
Before in buying mansions, Esmailin wants to continue cultivating its abilities, because many scouts have already compared him to the best existing talent in their position.
He wants to prove that the experts were no wrong.
*Also at Global Baseball, a link to the attendees at MLB’s second annual European Baseball Academy from July 27 through August 18 at the Italian Olympic Training Centre in Tirrenia,
Italy. The MLB European Academy is run by former Major League manager and
player Jim Lefebvre, Bruce Hurst, Lee Smith and Hall of Famer Rod Carew. Hopefully the Nationals will have a few scouts in attendance.