There were no shortage of baseball people — and even a very large basketball person — willing to offer an opinion about the Avaitors’ logo during Day 2 of the winter meetings at Mandalay Bay.
Aviators/Baseball
Bobby Grich arrived in Las Vegas as they still were hanging banners for the Baseball Winter Meetings. The six-time All-Star wants to raise awareness in the Association of Professional Ball Players of America, a charity of which he recently became president.
One of the unofficial traditions of baseball’s winter meetings is a sports writer from the host city informing readers that trades no longer are conducted in hotel lobbies but in posh hotel suites via cellphone.
Founded in 1991, Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation has spared more than 40,000 cats and dogs and spawned a roster of related programs that have created awareness in the mission.
It was the bottom of the ninth inning Monday of what in theory would be the last professional baseball game played at Cashman Field. The baseball gods were only warming up.
It has been proclaimed on billboards that the Raiders are coming to Las Vegas in 2020. Which would be the second time.
Former Las Vegas physician Julian Lopez was the first recipient of the Roland Hemond Award for humanitarianism after donating a kidney to former White Sox minority owner Eddie Einhorn, who became ill at Cashman Field.
At last count, there were 3,786 teams who began summer ball hoping to win the big one in North Carolina. The Desert Oasis Aces finished second, losing the American Legion World Series championship game 1-0 in extra innings.
If there was a Mount Rushmore for local baseball luminaries, one could make a case for carving Manny Guerra’s tanned face into the outcropping alongside those of Greg Maddux, Bryce Harper and Kris Bryant.
For many years, denizens of “Club Chuck” in the bowels of Cashman Field — i.e., next to 51s president Don Logan’s office — have debated if the semi-secret meeting place and watering hole is a nook or a cranny.
Since Manny Guerra was admitted to the hospital, and now a long-term care facility, baseball people say the local ballparks, diamonds and sandlots don’t seem quite the same.
Another All-Star Game is upon us, which means guys are faking hamstring injuries to get out of playing in it and baseball writers are pontificating about how to make it great again.
The 51s and El Paso Chihuahuas were tied 5-5 after nine innings, setting the stage for implementation of a new minor league baseball rule in which a runner is placed on second base to begin an extra inning. The 51s’ runner immediately got picked off.
The local Miracle League had its ninth opening day March 24. A lot of kids ran or were pushed around the bases at the Miracle League Field on South Rancho Drive. A lot of parents and brothers and sisters cheered.
