A Fond Farewell

Our good friend Spike sent me an e-mail today......this is the conents of it:

John asked me to mention this to the Faithful, but I haven't been on the blog for a while; David, would you please copy his letter there? As a Michigander, I replied that he will be one of the few migrant workers in that part of the state who is not picking cherries. And nashuapride.com says that our PA announcer and away webcaster, Ken Cail, is moving to the Lowell Spinners to do the radio broadcast.


Hello friends,
Well after many months of pounding away at the job hunt, I'm happy to say that once again I am employed. I today accepted an offer to become the new play-by-play voice of the Kalamazoo Kings of the Frontier League. As all of you know, the North Shore Spirit went out of business after the 2007 season. It has been a long, stressful process (the job hunt) and this was the best offer out there. I will be leaving for Michigan on the 7th of May for the four month baseball season. I want to thank all of you for your great friendship and support. It's great to be back behind the mike again!!

The Kings will be on ESPN 1660 AM and all games will be streamed at www.kalamazookings.net. Again thanks everyone and GO KINGS!!!
--John Leahy

www.staatalent.com/sports/leahy.html
www.johnrleahy.com

I think I speak for everyone who frequents this blog when I say what I said in a comment in the previous post.....
John,it's been a pleasure to have known you throughout these past few years and listen to your broadcasts. The Kings have just aquired a great talent.
You'll be missed here John,thanks for what you did and hope you enjoy it there.

Spirit Lose Heartbreaker; More Nails Lost

The blog's regular conntributor Joe is having trouble getting home at the moment...but is on his way home after a heartbreaking 9-6 loss against the Jackals of the Sewer State. He asked me to write up the report tonight.....but I'd like to get some sleep so I'm gonna cheat and put up the recap from the official North Shore Spirit website and add a few side-thoughts:

By Reid Cargan,SPIRIT Baseball Writer
LYNN,MA (SV)
"Sandy Madera hit a grand slam off Derek Drage to cap off a seven run ninth inning as the Jackals storm back from four runs down to shock the Spirit 9-6 Tuesday night at Fraser field in game one of their series.

It was a battle of the lefties for the first four innings as Luis Arroyo and Josh Brey held their counterparts scoreless. Then with two outs in the top of the fifth, Joe Mihalics singles and promptly stole second. Clay Kuklick hit what appeared to be the final out, but the fly ball tipped of Mike Torres’ glove and dropped in allowing Mihalics to score. New Jersey took further advantage of the error by scoring another run in the frame on a Francisco Leandro base hit to up the score to 2-0.

The Spirit struck for five in the sixth inning to overtake the Jackals. Mike Torres and Luis Lopez both with 2 RBI’s in the frame on a single and double respectively. Jerson Perez chipped in an RBI single as well that scored Lopez from second. The Spirit bullpen cruised through the seventh and eighth innings before Donny Langdon and Jamie Baker imploded in the ninth inning, all culminating in the Madera slam. New Jersey banged out five hits with two walks in the frame. The Jackals gave the Spirit a taste of their own medicine after the Spirit had strung together a few come from behind victories as of late.

Kyle George (2-3) picks up the win in relief, with newcomer Tom Atlee picking up his first save as a member of the Jackals. Drage takes the loss, moving his record to 3-4 on the season.

The two teams lock up again Wednesday night at 7:05. Gary Galvez will oppose Kevin Ool."


NOW...for my mini-rant and thoughts (I know Joe would've loved to do this in the main post XD):
First off may I start by askign the following questions.....Why can;t we seem to win at home,especially latye in the season? AND Why do we always have closer problems late in the season? NOW-we move on....

**Luis Arroyo did phneominal in his outing. His pitching line was 6 innings pitched with 4 hits and 2 un-earned runs (an E7) while stiking out 1 and walking 2.
** I liked the idea of,after Arroyo left,trying to use one pitcher per inning.....worked to a point ;]
** Fraser Field is porbably the only place that can go from active in the 6th to being a carbon copy of Pine Grove Cemetary when sound is NEEDED!!!! UGH!
** I hate how an usher told us to quiet down and then said "It';s only the Spirit" when we were cheering in the 9th....LIKE REAL FANS DO!
** Carl Schaefer is sick!!! He has some VERY good stuff. Maybe we should've kept him in a little later...
** Derek Gange shouldn't have gone in THAT late in the game (the 9th inning).....he's been bad lately,and doing that was suicide. Next time put him in earlier......this isn't helping him or the team at this point.
** Walking Fransisco Leandro (who?) to get to Sandy Madera (top league hitter) was a HORRIBLE discission! ALL of us agreed.....cause then what happened? BOOM! Grand Salami....just like Joe predicted and everyone thought might happpen.
** Why leave in Drage after doign badly and then giving up a grand slam?! Vic....stop being like JK,it's giving us heart problems.
** Vic.......make Carl Schaefer the closer--NOW! ^_^

ALSO: The press box is amazing....thank you guys for the Can-Am updates (they're important now) and thanks Pat for the enthusiastic Josue Lopez intro,you sound remotely like a Spanish soccer announcer subsituting Josue for GOOOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!! XD Can we do that every night? ;-]



NOW.....comment away!

PS: The Utica region of "Who's Now" will be forthcoming (AKA: This week)

The good and the bad

Based on all published reports, there is no getting around the fact that Carlos Rodriguez's disgusting act of throwing a ball at Alex Pena set off yesterday's ugly brawl at Fraser Field. I will re-iterate what I said yesterday: he should be released today, before the league even gets the chance to suspend him. That is totally intolerable, especially from an owner who prides himself on doing things 'the right way' -- I don't like seeing stories like the one I read from today's Worcester Telegram & Gazzette, in which Worcester's GM rips the Spirit. Sadly, it seems pretty true.

Link:

"All of that is conduct that doesn’t sit right with R.C. Reuteman, the Tornadoes president and general manager.

“I think for the most part we do it right,” Reuteman said, “but there are teams in this league that don’t. “We’re professional baseball players,” he continued. “And if we can’t conduct ourselves professionally, we have no (bleeping) business being part of it. There is absolutely no room for it.”

Reuteman said he is very frustrated with the Can-Am League in general and planned to have a phone conversation with league commissioner Miles Wolff last night. “If this is how our league is going to sit back and let these things happen,” Reuteman explained, “that’s not what I’m all about.”

Pitching coach Bobby Ojeda echoed some of Reuteman’s sentiments: “There’s no place in the game for this type of thing, and the saddest part is when you allow individuals like this (on your team), and you look the other way. And you have to look to the owner because he signed them."”
*

Interestingly enough, the official recap on the Spirit website just says that 'a brawl took place' with no explanation as to how it happened; the CanAm recap ignores the incident entirely.

It's not good when you are getting slammed in the media without any sort of response.

The Item's recap is particularly bad. Not only does it not write why the brawl started, it also states that Worcester starter Alex Pena was tossed --- which is not the case. All the Item had to do in this case was look up ANY OTHER REPORT on the game --- or just ask someone who would know.

It's pretty embarassing how the Spirit media coverage of the game tried to ignore the ugly incident.

I do have one issue with the Worcester T & G coverage, however. Here are a few lines:

"The brawl was clearly initiated by the Spirit. "
"Rodriguez, who is 6-foot-2, 220 pounds, then charged and tackled Pena from behind."
"The brawl appears to be part of a trend for North Shore, which also was involved in a brawl with Quebec in June. Its manager, Vic Davilla, has been thrown out of seven games this season. Rodriguez, the instigator this time around, was released from the team earlier this season. He was reportedly arrested during his time away, and then re-signed prior to the series with Worcester. "

If you go over and ask Davilla or any of the Spirit players, they would tell you that there had been trouble brewing between the two teams all weekend - a fact that was totally ignored by the media in general, although briefly alluded to in a quote in the Item's piece.

Also, I don't think it's fair to call two fights for a baseball team a "trend." It's pretty common for teams to have a couple of bench clearing incidents over the course of a long season. I don't know where the Worcester T&G reporter went to school --- Holy Cross, maybe? --- but where I come from, they teach me that two occurences of something does not equal a "trend."

In addition to that, I don't think the number of ejections to Vic Davilla is relevant in any way to any trend of 'violent behavior' by the team. Bobby Cox has the most ejections of any manager in baseball history. Are his teams assumed to be wild and unruly?

John Kennedy consistently led the league in ejections and he was tossed (count 'em) 12 times last year, but all you read about was how he kept a tight ship and ran a professional clubhouse. When he got ejected, it was OK.

Could it be because Kennedy is a graying old white guy who used to play in the Majors? It's not a popular question to ask, but I think it's fair in this situation. That was a blatantly irrelevant fact to use in the article.

Finally, in regards to C-Rod's off the field 'issues,' I heard that he had a run-in with police while he was on the team the first time, which prompted his release; I find it highly doubtful that the team would
1) release him for no reason
2) see that he gets arrested
3) sign him back after that

It would be nice if someone from the Item, or other media affiliated with the Spirit would put out some information from the Spirit perspective here, because the only media reports out there that actually cover the fight and don't gloss over it give the entire organization a huge black eye.

For the most part, the black eye is well deserved - Rodriguez is a numbskull, a jerk, and a bully for what he did on the field yesterday.

I think there's one quote to remember in regards to C-Rod: "Once a Capitale, always a Capitale."

It'll be interesting to see how the Spirit front office -- and Uncle Miles -- responds to this one.

Well, isn't THIS interesting

From yesterday's Salem Evening News: Kennedy's pissed!

...Nor does the 65-year-old Kennedy know why North Shore Spirit owner Nick Lopardo fired him after the season.

"He just wanted to get rid of me. I won too many games," Kennedy said, tongue-in-cheek.

In his four seasons at the Spirit helm Kennedy won 221 and lost 142, made the playoffs three times, reached the finals twice, and in 2005 didn't qualify, but had the second best overall record in the league.

Popularity, it turned out, was part of his getting a pink slip, according to Kennedy.

"I knew when Vic Davilla (the successor) came aboard something was going to happen," he said.

Did he mean when Davilla came out of retirement after one game in 2006?

"No, three years ago, when we first got him," Kennedy said.

"Lopardo likes Vic. Lopardo told me the reason I was let go was for economic reasons. I can only assume he didn't want to pay me and for my benefits. I don't know what he's paying Vic (to manage) and what Vic's benefits are, but that's what Lopardo said to me.

"The owner also said Vic Davilla is the most popular player there. Evidently," Kennedy said, "I wasn't popular. Vic has spent his whole career in independent league baseball and I spent a decade in the big leagues and some of it down the road in Boston and I wasn't popular enough? I don't get it.

"The owner also said something about advertising. Does Davilla get along with advertisers? When they signed me on nobody said I had to sell tickets and advertising and what not. That was brought up a couple of times in discussions we had. There were others who did those jobs. It had nothing to do with me."

Lopardo had told Kennedy the Spirit could be sold in one talk they had at the end of the season.

"He told me there were some people interested," he said.

"The next time we spoke (about possible changes) I said to him, 'Whatever's going on I'd like to let the staff know right away, so they could go out and make contacts about new jobs, as opposed to waiting in January."

It turned out Spirit pitching coach Jeff Ware got a job elsewhere before the ax fell and that Kennedy and first base coach Jim Tgettis, who doubles as the Lynn Classical baseball coach, were the only two staffers who were dismissed.

Tom Donahue, the batting practice pitcher and third base coach, and Frank Carey, a consultant, batting coach and administrator, both survived. Carey also is the nationally known high school baseball coach in North Reading.

"I couldn't throw batting practice every day, same for Tgettis, you need a guy like Donahue, who can," Kennedy said.

When Lopardo did give Kennedy the word, Kennedy said, "He told me he was making the move from top to bottom, starting with me."

Although Kennedy said he often saw Lopardo and Davilla "huddling," and Kennedy suspected something was awry, it still was a little surprising.

"He wants loyalty, and all of a sudden it's see you later," Kennedy said.

"He simply wanted to get rid of me. That was the bottom line. He wanted Davilla in there. Hey, I have nothing against Vic. I heard things that were passed along to me. But that's neither here nor there. That's the way it was, that's what Lopardo wanted. He sure didn't say we didn't do the job on the field. No way he could say that.

"Generally, if you're winning games you don't get fired, unless he felt that we should have won the championship the times we were in the playoffs," Kennedy said.

Kennedy, named CanAm League Manager of the Year for 2006, declined to hint at his salary, but said league managers were paid from $30,000 to $50,000.

Kennedy said he's through with baseball.

"The only reason I did it (with the Spirit) is because it was close by. I'm formally retiring," he announced. "Hey, this was Nick's prerogative. The owner should have just said he wanted Vic to be the manager of the team, and not talked about these other things, like advertising. He wanted to make a change and make Vic the new manager. Say it. That would have been the end of it."

Kennedy played with Washington, the Dodgers, Yankees, Seattle Pilots and Red Sox in his 10 major league seasons. He managed in the Red Sox system for three years and later scouted for 12 years with the Yankees, Phillies and Detroit, through 1996. He also worked for the State Treasury for five years.

**

Interesting stuff. Looks like the waffling over the team's future led to the loss of Jeff Ware. In that case, that was a major screwup by the Spirit.

It's Filson

The Spirit have their man: former Newark Bears pitching coach Pete Filson.

Like Jeff Ware, Filson's a veteran guy. He pitched in the major leagues, then went on to coach in multiple organizations before becoming Newark's pitching coach for 4 years. Now he's on his way to the Spirit.

This seems like a good hire as Filson's a veteran guy and Vic Davilla speaks very confidently about him.

One thing that concerns me: last year Newark's staff went 42-83 with a 5.85 ERA. Still, there's only so much you can do with bad players.

News from the Xmas Party

It was a fun time seeing everyone again. Can't wait 'til '07.

-Alex Trezza will be going to spring training with the Colorado Rockies. Hopefully for his stake he gets to stick around in the organization, but it would be nice for us to have him back. Hey, Olivier LePine is available.

-BJ Weed will definitely be back.

-Expect a new pitching coach announcement within the next few days.

-The Spirit are exploring an exciting new idea for '07: pre-game all-you-can-eat buffets outside the stadium from 6-7 PM. This sounds like fun.

-Tony C's restaurant will definitely be open before next season.

Hallelujah!

It's a new day for Spirit baseball!!

John Kennedy has 'relinquished' his role as manager of the North Shore Spirit and has been replaced by Vic Davilla. Details at Northshorespirit.com.

Also gone is woeful first base coach Jim Tgettis. I'll never forget when he sent DeVries to 2nd against Worcester when it was a normal base hit to right field.

We just need to replace bag o' doughnuts and we're all set.

First and foremost,
We have to thank John Kennedy and Jim Tgettis for their classy service to the North Shore Spirit organization. I have no qualms with either personally and they both had a part in making the Spirit one of the most successful organizations in independent baseball.

With that said...
This is, plain and simple, an exciting, energizing day for Spirit baseball. It became evident after our playoff collapse that this team, from a competitive standpoint, was stuck in a rut and wasn't going to break through to that next level of clutch success. And I am quite frankly convinced that John Kennedy's game day decisions cost the Spirit more games than it won them. He was a good player's manager but his time is past.

I have no idea how Vic Davilla will do as the manager. But I do know a few things:
1) He will have the respect of the players just as Kennedy did. Although he's a younger guy, his long experience at this level and his success give him instant cache in the locker room.
2) He will bring a fresh start at the top in terms of game day management which is much needed after the bitter pill that was the '06 playoffs

And, most importantly

3) This will force the Spirit to hire a legit hitting coach for '07, something they lacked in '06 as Vic was probably too busy with his playing duties to really make an impact as a coach.

Jeff Ware is a tremendous pitching coach. Hopefully the Spirit can get someone of similar calibre as their hitting coach.

I have my concerns about Vic as a manager overall but I think he'll definitely be respected and this is definitely a promising new day for the Spirit.

My question, though, is why did the Spirit make the change? Did they feel it was necessary to improve game day decision making, or did John Kennedy want out? Or was it somewhere in between? Any theories? Anyone in the know of some insider info?

This makes me even more pumped for '07.

GO SPIRIT!