Greatest 21 Days Baseball Profiles

Recreation Park in Visalia, Ca., in 2012. Recreation Park was home to the 1990 Visalia Oaks. (G21D Photo) Features on each member of the 1990 Visalia Oaks, high-A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins. Interview (1)  1 - Chad Swanson, Good Pitches Chad Swanson played four seasons and helped prank two umpires. Visalia Oaks (31) 1  -  Brian Allard  saw three major league seasons, then coached 2  -  Mike Aspray  saw four pro seasons, made high-A with Twins 3  -  J.T. Bruett  made majors with Twins over two seasons 4  -  Troy Buckley  played 6 seasons, coached Long Beach State 5  -  Bruce Bucz , Visalia Oaks GM, saw wins as best promotion 6  -  Joseph Bucz , with wife Mary, was Visalia Oaks fixture 7  -  Carlos Capellan  played 8 pro seasons, made AA with Twins 8  -  Ramon Cedeno  played over 8 seasons, saw high-A, Abilene 9 - Jason Elick, Collected Hims...

Scott Ullger began his third-straight big league camp in 1985. He was hoping to get back to the majors, a place he'd been only once, in 1983. Late that spring, after being sent back to minor league camp, Ullger spoke with The Toledo Blade about the rigors, and expenses, in that minor league spring training. "A lot of times you break even or lose money during spring training, but you know the chance is there," Ullger told The Blade . "Kirby Puckett was making $1,200 a month with the Mud Hens last season, but in less than six weeks he was in the big leagues and starting." Ullger never did get to play again in the big leagues. But he has gotten back, as a coach. And he's been back each year since 1995 , with his old parent club, the Twins, alternatively serving as a base coach or as hitting coach. And it's a job he continues into 2013, serving as the big league club's coach at first base . Ullger's baseball career began in 1977, taken b...

The Orlando SunRays won the 1991 Southern League title, with no small part of the credit going to Jay Kvasnicka . In seven playoff games, The Orlando Sentinel wrote , Kvasnicka hit .417 and knocked in four. "This really means everything," Kvasnicka told The Sentinel after the title series win. "We had such a rough start this season . . . to come together and win it all, you just can't imagine how good this feels." Kvasnicka helped Orlando to that title in his third season as a pro. He would only get one more season and he would never make the majors . Kvasnicka's career began in 1988, taken by the Twins in the eighth round of the draft, out of the University of Minnesota. He started with the Twins at single-A Kenosha the next year, 1989. He hit .257 there, knocking in 42 and stealing 30 bases. Kvasnicka moved to single-A Visalia for 1990, hitting .232, but stealing 32 bases. Kvasnicka then moved to AA Orlando for 1991, helping the team to...

Carlos Capellan started off 1991 slow. By late-May, he was hitting just .229, The Orlando Sentinel wrote . But in one game, he improved that average with three hits. He also knocked in two as his Orlando SunRays went on to a 12-3 victory . Capellan went on to hit .241 on the season, his fifth as a pro. That season, though, would be his last full season in affiliated ball. He never made the majors . Capellan's career began in 1987, signed by the Twins as an undrafted free agent out of his native Dominican Republic . He played his first season at rookie Elizabethton, hitting .261 there , knocking in 31. He moved to single-A Kenosha for 1988, hitting .244 over 113 games. Capellan made single-A Visalia for 1989, returning there for 1990 . He hit .261 his first year in the California League and .284 his next. In August 1990, The Los Angeles Times wrote a feature on the California League that included a brief description of clubhouse roughhousing, where Capellan ran into...

By early August 2000, Rich Garces had already appeared in 46 games in relief for the Red Sox, The Hartford Courant wrote . He'd played in seven previous major league seasons, never getting into more than 30. "The teams I played with before," Garces explained to The Courant , "I never got the chances to go out there and prove myself." Once he got that chance, Garces ran with it for two seasons . By the end of the year, Garcas' game total hit 64. The next year, it hit 62. To get that kind of major league time, Garces had waited more than a decade, is career beginning 13 years earlier, signed by the Twins as an amateur free agent out of his native Venezuela. His brother Jesus Garces played three seasons in the minors. Garces started with the Twins at rookie Elizabethton in 1988. He hit single-A Kenosha in 1989, then high-A Visalia and AA Orlando in 1990. By August 1990, Garces had turned reliever, recording 32 saves between Visalia and Orlando...

By July 1993, George Tsamis already had more two months in the bigs behind him. To his hometown Orlando Sentinel , he could only describe that time as a single word. "It's unbelievable,'' Tsamis told The Sentinel . "The big leagues is just the greatest place. Since you're a little kid you've dreamed of it, and that's exactly what it's like." For Tsamis, his stay in that greatest place continued through the end of the season, 41 total relief outings. Though he would play professionally for five more seasons , he never did get back. Tsamis' professional career began in 1989, taken by the Twins in the 15th round of the draft, out of Florida's Stetson University. As a kid, Tsamis played in the Little League World Series . Tsamis began with the Twins at single-A Visalia , serving as a starter. He returned to Visalia for 1990, then made the jump to AAA Portland for 1991. The jump to Portland was an emergency call-up, but T...

Dan Segui got a call from old teammate Curtis Pride in 2002 to help with a fundraiser and Segui couldn't say no, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel wrote . The fundraiser was a wiffle ball tournament to benefit Pride's Together with Pride Foundation, an organization aimed at helping educate hearing-impaired children. "Every kid, I think, grew up playing Wiffle ball," Segui told The Sun-Sentinel at the tournament. He was there with friends he recruited to play. "Some kids never grow up, though." Segui and Pride played together in the Mets organization, at rookie Kingsport in 1987 and at short-season Pittsfield in 1989. But, while Pride would go on to make the majors over a two-decade-long pro career, Segui's career would be much shorter. Segui would also never make the majors . Segui's pro career began in 1987, taken by the Mets in the 47th round of the draft, out of Kansas City Community College. The Mets also took Segui as the son of a ...

Originally posted June 10, 2010 Traded to the Yankees earlier in the summer, Denny Neagle started making connections in his new town, New York. Among those connections, was a man Neagle met at a club . Soon, Neagle called that man, looking to make a purchase. That man was Kirk Radomski. And Neagle was looking for HGH . Neagle, Radomski recalled to George Mitchell, appeared already familiar with the drug . Neagle became a regular customer, of not only HGH, but anabolic steroids, as well. It was a meeting and relationship detailed in the 2007 Mitchell Report on performance enhancing drug use in baseball. The Mitchell Report itself was also the final disintegration of a once great career, but one that had long since self-destructed . It was a career that began 18 years before that report was published, with Neagle taken in the third-round of the 1989 draft by the Twins. Neagle was a virtual hometown product , a Maryland native who played his college ball at the Universit...

Mike Trombley tried to keep his outing in perspective. He'd just got himself out of a jam in this June 1999 game against the Red Sox. But he also knew it wasn't always like that . "You take the good times with the bad," Trombley told reporters afterward. "Tonight I just threw some good pitches in a big situation. Nomar (Garciaparra) and (John) Valentin are not easy batters. The other night it wasn't so good, tonight it was OK. Tonight I got ahead of the hitters and got them to chase my pitches." Trombley spoke with experience. He was in his eighth major league season , all with the Twins. He went on to get time in a total of 11 big league seasons, getting into more than 500 games, almost all in relief. Trombley's professional career began in 1989, taken by the Twins in the 14th round of the draft, out of Duke University. Trombley started at single-A Visalia and single-A Kenosha , moving to full time starting at Visalia in 1990. He hit...

Brian Allard was looking for his second major league victory. The opposing pitcher he had to get through to get that second win was only coming off a perfect game , Len Barker. Allard ended up going seven innings, giving up four hits and a single run, getting that second win. He also did it, he told The Associated Press later, by pitching sticking to his game. "My main objective is to get as many groundball outs as I can," Allard told The AP afterward, "because I'm a groundout pitcher." Allard got that second major league win in his third season with time in the majors. He ended up getting just two more big league wins . But he did go on to a career working with younger pitchers, trying to get them to their main objective, the bigs, though he never returned to the bigs himself. Allard's baseball career began in 1976, taken by the Rangers in the fourth round of the draft, out of Henry High School in Illinois. Allard started with the Rangers ...

Read the March 2015 interview: Chad Swanson, Good Pitches Chad Swanson explained the trick to The Chicago Tribune . The trick was pennying a door. "With the door closed, one guy pushes on the top so it bends," Swanson told The Tribune in July 1988. "Then the other guy slides the pennies in the space between the door and the doorjamb, as close as he can to the latch. You do the same thing on the bottom." He explained it to The Tribune after he and teammate Pat Bangtson were fined $25 each, after successfully deploying the trick on two umpires. Swanson was in his second season as as pro that year in 1988. He went on to get just two more, never getting the chance to deploy his baseball antics in the major leagues. Swanson's career began in 1987, signed by the Twins as an undrafted free agent, out of St. Cloud State University. At St. Cloud, Swanson posted a 3.41 ERA in his final season, along with seven complete games and three shutouts. Wi...

Originally published May 18, 2011 Once a top prospect, Pat Mahomes had never become the star he thought he'd be, The New York Times wrote in 1999. But, in 1999, after a trip to Japan, Mahomes experienced a resurgence, The Times wrote . Helping with that was an attitude change. "I figured I wasn't a boy anymore. I knew I would have to work harder just to get a good look," Mahomes told The Times . He added later, ''I just worked hard. And now it seems like it's all paying off." Mahomes got 39 appearances that year for the Mets, winning eight games in relief against no losses. His next two seasons, with the Mets and the Rangers, he would get into even more games, more than 50 each. In all, Mahomes saw time in 11 big league seasons, plus one in Japan. His playing career itself would span more than two decades. He's now watching another Mahomes play baseball , his teenage son Patrick II. Mahomes' career began in 1988, taken by th...

Carl Fraticelli 's Hawaii Aliis had already set their playoff seed. In this late-July 2010 collegiate league game, though, the Aliis helped prevent the rival Waimea Waves from clinching theirs. "We came out here still wanting to win a series," Aliis head coach Carl Fraticelli told the Hawaii Collegiate Baseball League site afterward. "They took it that way and came ready to play." Fraticelli served as head coach for the Aliis in 2010, part of a long coaching career that continues in 2013 as a volunteer assistant coach at the University of Hawaii. That coaching career came after a brief playing one that saw him come ready to play in three pro seasons, but never above high-A . Fraticelli's pro playing career began in 1988, taken by the Twins in the 19th round, out of Loyola Marymount University. At Loyola, Fraticelli played well enough to make the cover of the media guide . With the Twins, Fraticelli started at single-A Visalia, playing second ba...

Fred White got the notice of scouts in high school, a 20-strikeout game will do that. That performance came in White's senior year, after a 0.64 ERA his junior year at Long Beach's Jordan High School. "His stock has really gone up," White's high school coach Bill Powell told The Los Angeles Times in April 1986. "He throws harder than he did last year, has a lot better control and his composure has improved. He expects to win when he goes to the mound. If he gets a (professional) pitching coach to teach him the right mechanics (after high school), his potential is unlimited." White ended up impressing scouts enough that year to get selected in the third round of the draft by the Twins. White, though, could never seem to realize that potential in the pros, getting a long, eight-season career, but only making it to AA once and never getting higher. With the Twins, White began at rookie Elizabethton, getting eight outings , six starts. He ...

Mike House got himself drafted and played as a pro. Years later, he credited that path with a different path he chose for himself in college. "After transferring to Hawaii Pacific College in 1987," House told his original school , Lewis-Clark State College, years later, "I was able to turn my career around." House did do well enough at Hawaii Pacific to get drafted, but he apparently didn't do well enough as a pro for a long career. He's credited with just two seasons , making it to high-A Visalia, but no higher. A native of British Columbia, House was drafted out of Hawaii Pacific in the 18th round in 1989. In one March 1988 game at Hawaii Pacific, House knocked a two-run home run , and did it off his old school, Lewis-Clark. Also at the school, House is credited with earning 1989 Male Scholar Athlete of the Year honors in 1989 and NAIA All American honors that same year. As a pro, House started at rookie Elizabethton. In 63 games there, Hou...

Mike Aspray nearly got himself a perfect game. Instead, he settled for a no-hitter . Going into the ninth inning, Aspray hadn't allowed a Waterloo Indian to reach base . With one out, though, he walked one, then another. Still, though, Aspray managed to finish off the game without allowing a hit for single-A Peoria. Aspray accomplished that feat in his second year as a pro. But Aspray wasn't able to translate that single-game success into a long career. He ended up getting just two more seasons , never making it above high-A. Aspray's professional career began in 1987, signed by the Cubs after a college career that took him to West Los Angeles College and Cal State Dominquez Hills . He was previously taken by the Royals in the 10th round of the January 1985 draft, but did not sign. In college, at Dominquez Hills, Aspray helped his team to the Division II College World Series in 1987, earning conference co-pitcher of the year honors along the way. With th...