June 11 thru 14
- Lugnuts 2 games, Wizards 2 games
- Lugnuts are 29-39 (.426)
- Fifth (last) place, ten behind the Whitecaps and one behind the Battle Cats.
- The Nuts and the Caps have each played 35 home games. Attendance:
- Whitecaps: 242,203 (avg 6,920)
- Lugnuts: 242,196 (avg 6,920)
Yes! That’s better; real baseball, well-played. Three good games and one great game; unfortunately, we lost the pitcher’s duel. But it was wonderful, and [Kevin] Hodges deserved to win. So did the team.
[Carlos] Febles has been hot. [Juan] Rocha’s been hotter. [Mark] Quinn’s been hot when he’s been healthy.
Rumor is that [Carlos] Beltran will be assigned to Spokane when he gets healthy. That makes sense, under the circumstances; which outfielder would you bench in order to get him in the lineup? KC would likely bench Rocha, and that would be silly.
The rosters for the Spokane and GCL clubs are being settled this weekend; both teams will begin league competition early next week. Those guys are Lansing’s immediate future; I’ll give you a rundown in a few days and keep my eyes on the stats. Both teams will likely consist mainly of recent draftees, with a sprinkling of folks who played on one team or the other last summer.
Kevin Hodges is a 1996 Lugnut who played in the majors, but we hardly knew him. He joined the team in mid-season on what amounted to a rehab assignment, pitched in nine games, and got moved up as soon as the Royals decided he was fit.
By the time he made the majors–in 2000 with Seattle–we’d all pretty much forgotten he’d appeared in Lansing; indeed, his short major league career hardly registered. The Mariners released him (from their Tacoma farm) after the 2001 season; he’d pitch in Japan in 2005 and for the independent Atlantic League in 2006. Since then he’s apparently been scouting in the States for Japanese teams.
That attendance note was important, as two years before the then-new West Michigan franchise had blown away the longstanding Class A Minor League attendance record (Kane County also beat the old standard in ’94). The Caps had upped the record again in ’95, and these teams would push the record still higher in ’96 (Whitecaps 547,401, Lugnuts 538,325).
That crown now belongs to Dayton.
In the event you’ve just stumbled onto this entry, here’s an explanation of what I’m up to. With an index!