What I did this week: I fell on the ice twice again, although on nonconsecutive days this time one of the times I was throwing a snowball at a second-story window, so I probably had it coming. The Phillies report on Wednesday, later than any other team in baseball. This Week’s Fact: Pitchers and catchers for four teams report today, making this the official start of MLB spring training. That’s the number of pitchers scheduled to be in camp Tuesday, one more than last year. If you look closely at the image at right, you can see the small, underdeveloped extra digits on Alfonseca’s hands. Alfonseca’s best season came in 2000 with the Marlins, when he led the National League with 45 saves. Since then, he’s played for teams in Mexico and the independent Atlantic League, and most recently pitched in 2010-11 for the Bridgeport, Conneticut Blufish where he was teammates with former Twin Dan ‘The Man’ Serafini. Alfonseca was signed by the Montreal Expos in 1989 as a 17-year-old amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic, and last pitched in the Majors in 2007 for the Phillies. Known as El Pulpo, or ‘The Octopus,’ because counting is really hard, Antonio Alfonseca was born with six digits on each hand and foot, a hereditary condition shared by his grandfather. The photo at the top of this article is of a young Macho Man. After that, he dedicated himself to wrestling full time, and the rest is history. During the baseball offseason in 1973, Poffo began wrestling professionally as The Spider, but returned for a final summer of baseball for the 1974 Tampa Tarpons. 344 in rookie ball at age 20, but never rose above Class A. Louis, Cincinnati and Chicago White Sox systems. Randy Poffo was a catcher signed out of high school by the Cardinals, but played mostly in the outfield over the course of the next four years in the St. And imagine the value for young, developing pitchers of Drew Butera, manager, catching them for a couple of inning here and there in a game, rather than the bullpen. But a few years down the line, I would love to have an affable young guy with a brilliant baseball mind working with our young pitchers coming through the minor league pipeline, a guy who could pitch mop-up innings if needed and pinch hit in an emergency. I’m not saying that Butera should become a minor league player-manager in the next couple of years contrary to the opinions of some, I believe he provides great value to the Twins as a defensive third catcher, as long as his plate appearances are minimized. By all accounts, the guy is a brilliant baseball mind, is well liked within the organization from the GM down to the bat boys, and we saw last season that he can pitch an emergency inning when called upon. Butera is a great defensive catcher and calls an outstanding game. In my spring training preview of the Twins catchers, staff writer Paula Minell opined that catcher Drew Butera should consider converting to pitcher and start prepping for a career as a coach. The last player-manager in the majors was Rose from 1984-86, although the White Sox toyed with the idea of using Paul Konerko in that role a couple of years ago, before ultimately going with Robin Ventura as manager. In the right circumstances, that sort of arrangement makes sense to me. After his first season as player-manager, he only had one plate appearance combined between 1979-80, and played a grand total of one game in the field. In 1977, 19, former Twins manager Tom Kelly pitched the first four games of his career career while acting as a minor league manager in the Twins organization. A quick glance at his numbers suggest he could have extended his playing career as a power bat off the bench while providing mop-up pitching duties for a young minor-league club, so why didn’t Buck become a player-manager in the minors? There’s a big difference between managing while playing almost daily, like Pete Rose did in 1995, and occasionally saving a young bullpen arm to help foster the development of the prospects the player-manager is charged with. I wrote a little ‘where are they now’ post on former Twin Brian Buchanan yesterday: he retired at age 35 and began managing in the minors the next season. This week, I’ll tell you a little bit about a former WWF superstar who toiled for four years in the minors, and a pitcher with six fingers. In last week’s Twins Porn we looked at John Dillinger the infielder, and a man who played 105 games in the Majors without a plate appearance.
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