Category: Dailies

History was made!

Welcome back! 

Let me start by saying that even tho i cant vote in the united states yet (I’m a Dominican citizen and US Permanent Resident) i’m really happy to say that i was in this country when the first african american was elected president of this great country. Barrack Obama had a very strong campaign and i honestly believe that it came down to President Obama being more demographically appealing to our generation. it was great to see the voter turn out in the United States because it shows how much the people care and how much the wanted their voice to be heard. 
Moving on to so baseball news. We got on a little funk after being in first place we lost 8 games in a row and now sit 5 games behind the leader. when we pitched we didn’t hit and when we hit we didn’t pitch! It happens in baseball you just try to prevent it from happening frequently. I’ve started to see better results in my last couple of outings. i’ve been stretched out to 2 innings now and hopefully i can get some longer outing before is all set and done. My  Yankee teammates are playing very well . kevin Russo is still red hot . i believe he has hit in 14 straight games (GO RUSSO). Ajax has continue he strong play, Hommie (J Marquez) is not in the starting rotation and pitch 5 scoreless innings yesterday. Phil has continue to work on his game and has pitched very well over his last couple of starts. Again I want to point out that is not all about results while we out here.
Halloween was a blast. I have to some great pictures but unfortunately I havent had a chance to put transfer them from my camera into my computer but i will put them up over the weekend! aiden loved his chicken costume and I not posses pictures to brive him once he gets older hahahahaha. we have 2 weeks left in this league and by no means are we out of a little playoff action. I will post those pictures in the next cuple of days so look for them! talk to ya soon!

Long games, injuries, technical difficulties and halloween!

Hi fans, sorry it took me a couple of day to post I had some difficulties with the internet provider in the condo I’m renting in arizona, so if you missed me i only hope i wasn’t gone long enough. its been a wild week in arizona but the javelinas (or the pigs as we call each other) are playing well. I had a rough week on the mound, but we are still playing around the top of our division and most important we are working on whatever aspects of the the game we are here to work on.

This past week feature some of the longest 9 inning games i ever been a part of. I swear we play a 15 hour game the other day!!! hahahahaha. a little exaggeration of my part but that’s how it felt. My yankee compadres have enjoyed a very solid fall league. Kevin Russo told me about a week ago that he has not gotten 2 hits in a game since i joined the trenton team. He of course of kidding and just 2 days later he collected 5 hits in a game!! I made sure to remind him of his comments and threw some of my stuff in his locker. Phil has  pitched a lot better than his number will tell, he had 1 tough outing and that kind of escalated his number a bit, he started the rising start game which our division one on a walk-off walk by Drew Stubbs of the Cincinnati Reds. Austin Jackson has continue to develop in front of our eyes and he in my opinion is not very far of the ultimate goal. Jeff (Hommie) Marquez is pitching well while working of fine tuning some aspects of his game. Kevin Whelan has been our most reliable reliever, numbers wise he has not giving up a run which is pretty hard in this league, so I’m counting on him to continue the good work. As for myself lets just say i’ve seen better days and better results. I had a real tough outing this week in which i gave up 6 straight hits with out retiring a batter. I must admit that’s the first time that has ever happened and hopefully the last, is not a good feeling to walk off the mound like that. After the outing i went in the clubhouse and took a long look in the mirror and told myself the following ” At this time last year you did not know if you would ever get back to a mound again” me realizing that 1. this was a first in my career 2. I was physically fine and my arm felt great 3. Days like this are bound to happen to the best of us, help me put this weird experience behind me and move on with the fall league.
We played in some weird games this week, in one game there were 3 injuries to guys on the field. Jeremy Jeffress had to come out of a game because of sore arm, moments later taylor green got hit on the nose with a pitch. Luckily it also hit the tip of his helmet before hitting him on the nose which took away a lot of the impact. He’s fine now and should start playing soon, we also lost Wade Thousand to arm problems, I want to wish him good luck and a quick recovery. Winning is great but I come to understand that this league is not so much about how many games you can win as it is a league in which you can showcase your abilitie, fine tune your skills or in my case make up for lost time on the field. I’m greatful to be here and I wish all of my injured team mates a rapid recovery because I’ve been on the other side of that street for a long time and know that is not fun!
The upcoming week should be really fun. I get to take my son trick or treating for the first time. Us the Whelans are taking our boys out in halloween suits which should be fun. Aiden is dressing up as chicken hahahaha Gavin Whelan will be a turkey. i’ll make sure to post pics to get coments from you guys. Also this week i’ll have a surprise guest blogger on here for you guys telling you about his experiences in the AFL,

Round 2.

Hey I’m back! i wanted to wait until we had play every team in the league to be able to share more thoughts and experiences in the league. Its been and pretty exciting week for us as a team. We started the season 3-0 which was nice. then the escalators started to descend. We lost 4 in a row after we got our beloved but now absent mascot CHUCKY the guinea pig. We really liked and cared for him but unfortunately he wasn’t bringing much luck to the team. Throwing in the fact that i gave up 4 runs in 2/3 of an inning (which i see that some of you guys notice by your  comments in my last entry) and things were not where we wanted so we decided to get chucky out of the clubhouse. Since then we have played better until tonight, when we lost but it was a well played game. I have only made one more appearance on the mound since my forgettable one and it when a lot better. I’m schedule to pitch again tomorrow so this is probably not going to be a very long entry.

Arizona has been great, unfortunately i haven’t had much of a chance to enjoy the great outdoors here but I’m sure i will before my time is over here. there’s just so much to do yet so little time. a regular day consists of waking up at 7 am to head to the ballpark ad usually not getting back until 4 then is onto the gym to workout and run at around 6 add those things up 5 to 6 days a week and there’s not room to fit in some sight seeing. 
we have a great bunch of guys and this gives us an opportunity to really know what guys on other teams are like. Usually when you face other teams unless you know guys there you have a wrong idea of what some guys are like. sometimes you really do not like opponents then you come to a big melting pot like the fall league and find out that they’re actually not much different than you and you build relationships with some of these guys. I still keep in touch with some of the guys that i played with here in 2005, just today i ran into kevin frandsen of the Giants and it was nice to see him because i haven’t seen him since the fall of 05.
Its is now 1 am here in arizona and I’m just about to pass out. we had a night game in scottsdale and by the time we got back to peoria, drove one of my teammates home and got back to my apartment it was midnight. i had a very long and that’s fine with me, there’s worst things i can be doing i guess but I’m so ready to hit the hay. Im very happy with the responses i gotten from my first entry and please guys if you want me to write back just make sure you emails are showing, I’m new at the blogging stuff , my hacking skills are not up to date. thanks for all your comments and i’ll keep you guys posted as much as possible. Got to go sleep so that i can help the javelinas win a game tomorrow! TTYL

Hello to everyone from Peoria, AZ!

Hello everyone! Humberto Sanchez (Humbe) here coming to you straight from Peoria, AZ, home of the San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners and the Peoria Javelinas. This is my first time blogging, and i’m already having a lot of fun at this. I will start by telling you a bit about myself. I’m a Dominican Republic born right-hander pitcher, i grew up in the Bronx, NY idolizing the team i now play for. I sign my first professional contract in 2002 with the Detroit Tigers. I was in the Tigers organization for 4 years making stops at all their minor league stops. On November 10, 2006 i was part of a package that brought Gary Sheffield (who in my opinion is a future Hall Of famer) to the tigers and send Kevin Whelan, Anthony Clagget and myself to the New York Yankees. 

Unfortunately I spent the first 1 1/2 years with the Yankees recovering from elbow reconstruction surgery ( Tommy John). I was finally able to get healthy in 2008 and start climbing up the latter once again. I started the year by making about 12 appearances for our gulf coast team then went on to the Florida State league and and 2 appearances for the Tampa Yankees. Towards the end of august I joined the Trenton Thunder for the playoff run (this was one of the closest groups of guys i have even been around, they really knew what all becoming one really meant) where we won the Eastern League Championship.  After our last game i received news that I was joining the big club and that I was going to reach what at one point seemed to be moving further and further away. It was the second best moment in my life (watching my son Aiden’s birth will always be first). I made 2 appearances with the Yankees and most important i was able to have a front seat for the last game at the stadium where I use to watch the most games as a kid. It truly was a september to remember for me.
I now find my self in Arizona where I will looking to get some more work in since I only pitched about 20 innings this season. This is my second tour in the Arizona fall league the first being in 2005 as a member of the Mesa Solar sox. I’ve been here for about a week now. So far we have played 3 games winning all of them and in the process getting to know all my new teammates as good as possible. I have to say we have a pretty fun group of guys in this team and so far its been a very pleasant week. 
I will be checking in and answering any questions you guys may have for me! Hope to hear from you guys soon!