Greatest 21 Days Baseball Profiles

The New York-Penn League playoffs begin tonight , pitting the Jamestown Jammers against the Brooklyn Cyclones and the Tri-City Valley Cats against the Batavia Muckdogs. It's the second series that I felt as thought I should point out. It pits two CMC set members against each other for a spot in the NY-Penn League finals. Both managers, Dann Bilardello for Batavia and Jim Panovits for Tri-City, sat down with me earlier this summer for quick interviews. Throw in Batavia's hitting coach Roger LaFrancois and all three of my interviewees will be there. The opposite side of the bracket has no CMC set members with either Brooklyn or Jamestown. Batavia knew it was going to be in the playoffs for several days, going in with a 45-29 overall record. Tri-City didn't know until the final day , holding off Connecticut for the division title, with a record just two games over .500. I'm sure LaFrancois was just happy that his team was in the playoffs, but I'm also sure he would ...

The Principal Family Fun Fest at Bruno Stadium in Troy, NY This is the Principal Family Fun Fest, on its visit to the Tri-City ValleyCats Saturday night. The event is a mass of games and activities, mostly geared toward kids. But the cool thing is it has this traveling minor league baseball museum trailer. That's basically what it is, a trailer. You enter at one end and exit the other. Museum pieces, like bats, gloves, baseball cards are all on display. My wife and I had seen the fun fest before, four years ago before a game in Syracuse. I remember it because we saw it the day I proposed. No, I didn't propose at the game. That all happened earlier in the day, on a boat. (There are multiple exits at a game, few on a boat) And we've been happily married for three years now. So, newly engaged, we went to see the Syracuse Chiefs, and wandered into the Fun Fest and Museum Trailer. Signed Field of Dreams movie script Inside the trailer is a bunch of minor league and baseball...

Batavia Muckdog Alan Ahmady takes a swing from the on-deck circle as Muckdog Joey Bergman waits for a pitch The hitting coach for Ahmady, Bergman and the rest of the Muckdogs is former major leaguer Roger LaFrancois. BATAVIA, NY - Boston Red Sox manager Ralph Houk was an old-school manager, Roger LaFrancois recalled recently. He was a manager who started nine, and played nine, hardly using his bench. It was a managing style that led to LaFrancois getting the distinction of being on Houk's major league roster the entire 1982 season, but only getting 10 at-bats and a single start, that start coming on the final day of the year. "I didn't say anything," LaFrancois said recently of his time on the bench. "I was just happy to be there. But it led to a lot of good opportunities. "In a lot of ways, 1982 opened a lot of doors for me," LaFrancois added, "not only playing in the big leagues, but making a career out of coaching." It was in B...

In the top of the 11th, Roger LaFrancois came to bat. His Boston Red Sox were tied with the hated Yankees 3-3. With one out, LaFrancois hit one to second. He legged it out for an infield single . An error, a ground out and a single later and LaFrancois was across with the go-ahead run in a game the Red Sox won 5-3. It was something anyone would wait a lifetime for. It was no different for LaFrancois. He had a lifetime for that moment, or at least 26 years . But he had also waited an entire season for that moment. LaFrancois spent that year of 1982 on the Red Sox major league roster. This, the final game of the year, was only the eighth in which LaFrancois saw any playing time. He had spent the other 154 games on the bench, as Boston's third-string catcher. Asked afterward by The Day of New London, Conn. , if the season was, in fact, lost, LaFrancois said no, he believed it wasn't. He'd met a lot of good people. He'd learned a lot from the hitting coach. There...

(Be sure to check out my redone version of Roger LaFrancois' review. I redid it in preparation for a trip to Batavia, where LaFrancois is coaching for 2010) There are a few ways to begin talking about today's player, actually a coach. There is his all-too-brief eight-game stint in the majors. There's his years as a minor league coach and manager, including his continuing involvement in baseball as a coach on an independent league team. Then there's his name. I think I'll start with his name: Roger LaFrancois . Despite what his name and team here might suggest, Roger LaFrancois is not a native of Quebec, or even Canada. He's from Connecticut. But he is coaching here for the White Sox AAA affiliate the Vancouver Canadians and managed a couple years prior in the Expos system. With that out of the way, LaFrancois spent the better parts of six seasons as a player, making the Carolina League All Star team in 1978 with Winston-Salem. He was drafted by the Red Sox in 19...