Greatest 21 Days Baseball Profiles

The major leagues weren't so far away for Ralph "Rocket" Wheeler and his high-A Myrtle Beach Pelicans. And for Jason Heyward , who started 2009 with Myrtle Beach, the majors weren't, WMBF.com wrote . "It's part of the speech I tell these guys every year, you don't know how close you are to the big leagues," Wheeler told WMBF . "Guys think, ‘here I am in Myrtle Beach, I have to go to Double-A and Triple-A before I get to the big leagues.' Believe me: your trip may be quicker than you think." Wheeler's trip is still continuing, more than three decades in. After a playing career that lasted six seasons, all in the minors, Wheeler has gone on to a lengthy coaching and managing career , all in the minors. Wheeler's career in the minors began in 1977, taken by the Blue Jays in the 13th round of the draft, out of the University of Houston. In his six seasons as a player, Wheeler got as high as AA, but no higher. His pla...

Read the February 2012 interview: Brian McRae, Call Up Brian McRae had had a down year in 1992, his second full year in the majors. He hit just .223, that was after hitting .261 in 1991. But, preparing for 1993, he worked through the winter and started 1993 hot and hit .282 on the year. "He's relaxed. He's confident," McRae's manager with the Royals, and also his father, Hal McRae told The Associated Press after that hot start. "Last year, he fought it all year long, and you can't fight it like that and be relaxed. He's learned to stay inside the ball." McRae was still just 25 at the start of 1993, but he'd been playing as a professional since the age of 17, taken by the Royals in the first round of the 1985 draft. He was taken by the same team that his father Hal McRae played for. Brian McRae didn't make the majors in time to play along side his father, but he was there waiting when his father was named manager in 1991 . ...

Otis Green 's Carol City High baseball team won the Florida state championship in 1982, according to The Miami News . And they did so with no small contribution from Green. He was the team's top pitcher and a pretty good outfielder, too. "Otis is our No. 1 and we had to win or lose it with him," Carol City coach Pete Hertler told The News after Green hurled them to the championship. "I was confident he'd come through. He's done it so many times in the last two weeks and I knew he'd do it again." In high school, players like Green are not uncommon, players that both pitch and play a position. Professionally, though, the the list of players that go from one to the other is much shorter. But it's a list that includes Green , starting his professional career using his outfield and hitting skills and ending it using his pitching skills. And, while Green did well enough between them to last more than a decade in pro ball, he didn't d...

Rich Miller knew the bus rides, he knew the plane trips. He'd been through all that, he told The Newport News Daily Press in August 1990. The Tidewater Tides third base coach also knew what it was like to be a young player in the minors with hopes of getting to the majors. "I know what they go through," Miller told The Daily Press , "the ups and downs, the ins and outs. I've done it for 18 straight seasons." He'd done it as a player, as a manager and as a coach . He'd also done it without making the majors. In the two decades since, Miller has continued as a coach and coordinator. He's also continued to relay those lessons to players on their way to the majors, never getting there himself. Miller's minor league baseball career began in 1973, taken by the Mets in the sixth round of the draft out of West Chester University . He made AA Victoria in 1974, then AAA Tidewater in 1976. With Victoria in 1974, Miller knocked in the winnin...

Hugh Kemp pitching for the AAA Nashville Sounds. Kemp pitched in Nashville three seasons in the Reds organization, from 1987 to 1989 without getting a call up to Cincinnati. (Photo Provided) On the mound for DeKalb College , Hugh Kemp knew a coaching visit to the hill was more than enough to draw ragging from the opposing dugout. That's because the coach coming to the mound was his father, Bill Kemp. The taunts came as Kemp's supposed plea to his dad to leave him in the game. "It really just made me mad," Kemp recalled to The Greatest 21 Days recently, referring to the taunts. "Then he'd make me madder because he would come out there and get after me, kind of like how you might grab your son by the arm when he'd done something wrong." Kemp credits his father's help with making him into the pitcher he became. Kemp went on to pitch for the University of Georgia and play eight seasons in the minors with the Reds and the Pirates. He never ma...

The Greatest 21 Days caught up with Dale Plummer in April 2011, read the two-part interview: Dale Plummer, Good Thing Taken in the 23rd round of the 1988 draft by the Mets, University of Maine product Dale Plummer was pleased he was taken, he told The Bangor Daily News . He did wish he would have been taken higher, if only for the better bonus, Plummer told the paper . "But I've worked my tail off," Plummer told The Daily News , "not too many people have this opportunity, and I want to take advantage of it. This is something I've always wanted to do." Plummer took advantage of it enough to play seven seasons professionally . It was also enough to get him tantalizingly close to the ultimate goal, the major leagues. He finally got his call, but he couldn't go. An injury two days before that call dashed those hopes. Earlier, he'd had another close call , with cancer. Taken by the Mets that year in 1988, Plummer started at short-season Lit...

I've had this blog going for over a year now and every so often, somebody who happened upon it will leave a comment or send me an e-mail. Those e-mails helped me complete my CMC set. Others had quick questions or comments about the site. As far as players go, the only response I'd had came early on. A woman posted to my first feature on Joe Bitker last February, saying the subject of the post was her brother. Hopefully she's seen my revisited feature, posted in February . Now I can add to that list an actual subject of a post - a player. And it's led to my fifth interview. Earlier this month, I got an e-mail from a man saying he'd come across the site, and my post on him. The e-mailer was Hugh Kemp. I'd featured Kemp back in October . Kemp played professionally for eight seasons, with five full seasons at AAA. He also never made the majors. Always a little skeptical, I did a few quick searches with the information from the e-mail and things seemed to check out....

Steve Davis had had an impressive year in the minors in 1985. Between AA Knoxville and AAA Syracuse, Davis had gone 20-8 with 2.46 ERA. Now, at the end of August, he found himself in Toronto. And he knew his work was just beginning . "I can't come up here and sit on it (20 wins)," Davis told The Associated Press after his first major league win in his second appearance. "I want to be here next year." Davis' work for the Blue Jays that year totaled all of 10 games for the Blue Jays. And he did return to the Blue Jays for 1986, but it was only for three unspectacular games. Twelve more appearances in 1989 with Cleveland and Smith's work in the major leagues would end, with a big league record of 3-2. His professional career would end a year later, after nine seasons in professional ball . Davis' professional career began in 1982, taken by the Blue Jays in the 21st round out of Texas A&M University . He played that year at short-sea...

The home run hero of a divisional series game a year before, the Yankees' Jim Leyritz now found himself in 1996 in a similar spot, only on an even grander stage : The World Series. His Yankees down 6-3 in the eighth inning of the crucial Game 4, Leyritz launched a game-tying home run in a contest and series the Bombers would go on to win. "Never thought I'd get a chance to hit another big home run," Leyritz told The New York Daily News . Leyritz would go on to get plenty of chances to hit big home runs in his 11-season major league career , and he would take advantage of those chances. Leyritz is now looking to take advantage of another, much different, second chance, one given to him by an independent league team to get back into baseball after a tumultuous three years that began with a Florida drunk driving accident in which a woman was killed. Leyritz first chance at baseball began in 1985, when he was signed by the Yankees as a free agent out of...

Coming in for his major league debut in September 1993, Roger Smithberg settled in. He went three innings, giving up just two hits , all against the eventual repeat champions, the Blue Jays. "It was just like any other game," Smithberg told The Associated Press afterward, "until later when one of the guys said I had just pitched against probably three future Hall of Famers. Then I got nervous." Those future Hall of Famers - and there were three in the Blue Jays lineup - went 0-for-4 against the young right-hander . Smithberg, however, would get only 14 more chances to face future Hall of Famers, or major league hitters for that matter. His big league career would end by July 1994 with a total of 15 appearances and 22 innings pitched. Smithberg's professional career began in 1987, taken by the Padres in the second round of the draft out of Bradley University. He started at single-A Riverside in 1988, then jumped to AAA Las Vegas in 1989. At Las Veg...

I finished up my fantasy baseball draft last night and I think I have a decent team. Though, I believe I think that every year. That feeling, as I'm sure is the case with a lot of fantasy baseball players, is usually proved wrong by about two weeks into the season. I usually follow my team pretty closely, even in the down years, picking up pitchers here and there. Wholesale changes, however, are rare. Anyway, I bring up my fantasy team because, while difficult, several of my draftees do have connections to this blog. As far as I've been able to tell, no actual CMC set members are still playing in the majors. Those connections are either directly through CMC set members, or simply because their names are similar. There are actually six members of my team that fit that bill, a couple of them were intentional. Others just worked out that way. My top pick just worked out that way: Ryan Braun. My limited research before the draft pointed at picking up Braun, if he was available. I w...

Shane Turner started 1988 at the Phillies' AAA team in Maine, then he got moved back to AA Reading . That was after playing the entire previous season at Reading. Turner, however, tried to stay positive, according to The Los Angeles Times . "I had mixed emotions about it," Turner told The Times of the seeming demotion. "I think I proved I could play at this level. I felt I should have had the opportunity to spend all season there (in Maine). But I'm not going to sulk or show anger. I'm just working on my hitting." Whatever the reason for Turner returning to AA, ended up closer to Philadelphia, both literally and figuratively. It was less than a month after that interview with The Times that Turner made his major league debut. Turner debuted in the majors in his fourth season of pro ball, and with his second organization. Turner was drafted by the Yankees in the sixth round of the 1985 draft, out of Cal State Fullerton. Turner spent his f...