Day: June 19, 2014

Shorebird of the Week – June 19, 2014

A few weeks back, you may have seen a Tweet about Houston Astros prospect Delino DeShields, Jr. and a nasty collision a fastball had with his face. Strangely enough, Anthony Caronia had a similar incident about a week before that, but since he’s not the son of a former big league player and not considered as much of a prospect, it didn’t attract nearly the notice.

The timing of Caronia’s injury wasn’t just bad luck, but it interrupted a promising start to a 2014 season where Anthony hoped to make the jump back to Frederick. In 2013 Anthony bounced back and forth between Frederick and Delmarva, but not getting a lot of playing time at the higher level meant he hit only .179 (5-for-28) in 13 games. This was in about six weeks on the Keys roster. While with Delmarva, though, Caronia hit .289/0/12/.665 OPS in 45 games, proving to be a reliable fill-in at three infield positions. This came after a 2012 season where Anthony, a 27th round draftee out of the University of Tampa, rocketed from the Gulf Coast League through Aberdeen to play seven games here at the tail end of the campaign, going 2-for-20.

With his solid start to 2014, Anthony was trying to shake the “organization player” tag as he got off to a 6-for-19 start to the season. But on April 11 he was hit in the face by a Domingo Herman fastball in a game against Greensboro. You may notice the additional guard in the upper photo as the pitch nearly hit Caronia in the eye socket. Anthony missed nearly eight weeks before finally returning to the lineup June 3. In eight games since, Anthony has kept up the good hitting, going 8-for-28. Also, unlike last year where his fielding was shaky at times, Anthony has an errorless streak ongoing for the season.

Obviously the question will be whether Anthony continues to reside in the lineup – he’s not doing a bad job but he’s also a little older than league average at 23 and this is his third season at Delmarva (although, including this season, he’s only played 67 games at this level which is less than a half-season.) He’s fit well into a Shorebird order which has done surprisingly well at the plate, so maybe this second half can be the springboard back to a better opportunity to play up the ladder.

Wading into an issue

At the intersection of sports and politics is where Larry Hogan and I both resided last night.

I’ll start with Hogan, who reacted to the news about the U.S. Patent Office cancelling some older Redskins trademarks in this manner:

Larry Hogan slammed today’s decision by the US Patent and Trademark Office to cancel several of the Washington Redskins’ trademarks. The GOP gubernatorial frontrunner is a native of Landover in Prince George’s County, home to the 82-year-old National Football League franchise.

According to Hogan, “Whether you’re a fan of the Redskins, the Ravens, or God forbid, the Cowboys; today’s unprecedented action by the US Patent and Trademark Office should offend anyone concerned about Constitutional limits on government power and free speech. This matter should be decided upon by the Redskins and their fans without the politically-motivated interference of pandering state and federal politicians,” Hogan said.

As I found out by reading this piece from ESPN, though, we’ve been down this road before. And the trademarks affected are ones the team registered between 1967 and 1990 – the current logo is not one. I agree with Hogan on the sentiment, and I suppose it may pick up the Redskin vote to some extent.

I was more offended by this Tweet from my alma mater, noted at the end of the ESPN piece:

We went through this whole controversy a few years after I graduated, but the difference is that Miami University actually interacts with the Miami tribe – yes, there is a Miami Indian tribe, which mainly resides in Oklahoma but is native to the region encompassing southwest Ohio. During my time there we had “Chief Miami,” a mascot who would do a native-based dance in full regalia and lead the football team out on horseback. I still think the name change was a gutless bend to political correctness, but it is what it is.

As for the gubernatorial race, I suppose Hogan’s coming out in opposition to the name change is better than David Craig’s baseball realignment plan. (Me? I would make the NFL more geographically logical, but that’s a topic for another day. For the most part I like the divisions, although I HATE interleague play and the designated hitter.)

The real sport for both those guys has its league championship next Tuesday.