This weekend represented a tale of three baseball lives.
I received a call from Earl Stroman, the father of Marcus Stroman. Earl is a retired New York police officer who was my son’s Jon-Erik longtime mentor in the Suffolk County police department.
We got together in Sarasota Florida to watch his oldest son Marcus pitch against the Baltimore Orioles. Before the game Marcus came over to his dad and gave him a hug then he gave his baby son a kiss and acknowledged his 16-year-old brother Jayden who happens to be a big-time pro prospect at IMG Sports Academy.
When Marcus took the mound it was all business. He pitches like a world-class artist. The way he was hitting the corners and just working the whole zone, you would have thought he was Picasso.
His dad Earl hangs on every pitch. Naturally, he has been watching Marcus since he was a little boy so he knew when Marcus made a great pitch and when Marcus may have made a mistake and got away with it.
In watching Marcus I saw a little bit of the great Cuban pitcher Luis Tiant. As Marcus gets older I think we will see more of that.
Marcus pitched four very strong innings even though Earl wasn’t happy with the 3rd inning because even though Marcus got a three up three down innings all three outs were fly balls. If you know anything about Marcus then you know that he is a notorious ground ball pitcher. He did come back in the 4th and final inning and got two strikeouts and a groundout.
After the game, we got together outside Ed Smith Stadium and chitchatted for a while and then Earl had to hurry to the airport to get back to New York. All in all, it was a very sweet afternoon for the Stroman family.
When it comes to Juan Soto I now understand why Marcus Stroman says that Soto is one of the top five hitters in baseball.
Yes, he has three homers during the first week of spring training however it’s how he does it.
I don’t profess to be an expert on hitting but I have been around some of the best hitters in the game during my fifty years in baseball. I learned a lot from arguably the best-hitting coach ever in Charley Lau. The only time that Reggie Jackson hit 300 was under the tutelage of Lau.
Soto works a count beautifully, almost purposely fouling off borderline strikes until he gets his pitch then he drives it out of the park as was the case yesterday when he hit his third homer of the spring… a Lazer over the right-center field fence.
As he rounded the bases you see the true little boy in him. This is something that the fans in the Bronx are going to fall in love with… especially the Latino fans. I could hear the drums in the bleachers now. The Bleacher Creatures are going to go crazy. Tina Louis who is the head of the Bleacher Creatures is definitely going to have her work cut for her.
The thing that I find interesting in Soto is that as jovial as he is on the field he is an extremely serious person off it. This is a guy who understands that baseball is both a business and a game that belongs to the fans. He understands the part where he’s also an entertainer for the people that pay top dollar so he doesn’t want to let them down.
To the fans of New York, I can only say that they better strap in because as I used to say in the 70s The greatest show on earth is about to begin!
Sunday the Yankees played the Tigers and an old friend came over and gave me a wonderful bear hug. He wouldn’t let go and I didn’t want him to.
Former Yankees fan favorite Gio Urshela was the friend. I love Urshela like a son. We became extremely close because during the pandemic there were many sick kids that needed support and Gio was the one guy who helped me out in so many ways. We went to hospitals in New York and New Jersey and did whatever we had to do to get the job done.
Gio quietly received many accolades for the wonderful things he did in the field of philanthropy including helping the Cristian Rivera Foundation which deals with children with a horrible brain cancer.
The bottom line is that Gio is a very nice person and I wish him and his beautiful family all the happiness in the world.
