1970 Spring Training
My first priority was to head down to Arizona since that is where all the coaches and players were heading. I needed to meet with my Manager Brian Wilde (35) and also talk with my Scouting Director. At that point that is when I found out that I needed to fill the Scouting Director job as Mr. Williams had also fired him as well.
Our complex was in Tempe and it was basically the site of the Arizona State University baseball stadium. Of course the colleges were starting up now too so we would be sharing the space, which was not ideal, but there was nothing I could do about that so I put it off into the category of a problem for future me. I held a meeting with Manager Brian Wilde who let me know that we were missing a 1B coach and also a bench coach. He also told me we were using the ASU medical staff and students for a team trainer so I might want to find someone for that role before we leave Arizona. Of course I knew it wouldn’t be easy, right? I asked Brian if he had any suggestions to fill out his coaching staff and he gave me some names. He let me know that pitchers and catchers had reported last week and that the position players had reported a few days ago and that he would give me a report of what he saw from workouts prior to the opening game of the spring.
Spring training was 30 games and I won’t bore anyone with the details. We made 3 pitching signings and a couple of position player signings to shore up our big league club. Nobody was really moving any talent but we did trade one player. We traded P Eric Landry (who wouldn’t go down to the minors) who was 27 and was on contract for $16,000. While it wasn’t huge that we just didn’t designate him, we swung a deal to bring in minor league SP in Antonio Beserra (25, T-R) who will go down to AAA-Tacoma. Beserra is working on a minor league contract while we aren’t looking for big things out of him, he will take a chance on him. If nothing else we saved Mr. Williams (owner) $16,000 in salary for a player we didn’t want to keep.
We rounded out the staff and I feel pretty good about where we are at. We shored up some of the coaching positions and strengthened the teaching aspect of our staff. They also will hopefully get along fairly well as I do like harmony in the clubhouse.
We ended the spring with a 15-15 record, which honestly surprised me greatly. We will go over who will make the Opening Day roster tomorrow, but here are our spring stats.
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OOC - I screwed up which division we were in when I set the league up. The whole idea was to have us in the same division with Vancouver and Portland. That little mix up moved our season opening games back a week as I had to regenerate the schedule. More time for me to fool around and see if there are any bargains out there. We also have 12 minor league guys to cut loose before the season starts in the minor leagues.
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