Reds Press Clippings January 4, 2016

THIS DAY IN REDS HISTORY 1940 - In a trade of , the send to the Yankees for , who had to clear waivers from all seven teams. This is due to the new rule voted last month barring the AL pennant winner from any trades within the league. Beggs will go 12-3 for the Reds, while Grissom will be sold to the Brooklyn Dodgers on May 15th.

MLB.COM Opportunity with Reds in front of Rodriguez Prospect has chance to land outfield spot in By Mark Sheldon / MLB.com | @m_sheldon |

CINCINNATI -- The stars appear to be lined up just right for longtime Reds outfield prospect Yorman Rodriguez ahead of Spring Training.

Cincinnati is rebuilding and willing to take a long look at the club's young players. There is definitely an opening in left field, and there could be another one in right field if is traded. And Rodriguez, 23, is out of Minor League options.

"From a maturity standpoint, he's just older. He's got way more at-bats now. He's a guy that can do a lot of things in the outfield," Reds said on Dec. 5. "He was starting to get to his power, stealing a few bases, playing much better defense. So I think he's the type of guy that if this kid comes in, has a good winter ball, shows us something in Spring Training, you see him at least as a platoon player on your club in this situation."

Being out of options doesn't make Rodriguez a lock, however. Others like and recent acquisition will be in the mix competing for spots, too. "I'm not a believer in giving guys spots on teams because they are out of options," Price said. "I've never been any place where that's a good business deal. It doesn't help the team to have a guy that's not a Major League player that's taking up a spot on a Major League roster because you don't want to lose him. I'd like him to come in and have a nice camp and show a maturity that would suggest he should be on our club."

In 2008, the Reds signed a then 16-year-old Rodriguez for $2.5 million -- a record bonus for a Venezuelan amateur player at the time. The right-handed hitter made his big league debut as a September callup in 2014 and played in 11 games. He was called up briefly in July of last season but did not play.

Over 85 games at Triple-A Louisville in 2015, Rodriguez batted .269/.308/.429 with 10 home runs and 41 RBIs. He did not play after July 28 because of a left calf injury. That foiled a chance for the Reds to give him more significant playing time, especially after Marlon Byrd was traded to the Giants on Aug. 20. Rodriguez also played 21 games in the Venezuelan Winter League. MLBPipeline.com ranks him as the Reds' No. 18 prospect.

Tony Jaramillo, who was Louisville's hitting last season before being promoted in November to assistant hitting coach on the big league club, gave Price encouraging reports on Rodriguez.

"Tony felt that this kid was turning the corner and was about to become the type of player that we thought when we signed him as a young kid," Price said.

Mark Sheldon is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Mark My Word, follow him on Twitter @m_sheldon and Facebook and listen to his podcast. This story was not subject to the approval of or its clubs.

Griffey's path toward Hall started as wunderkind By Tracy Ringolsby / MLB.com | @TracyRingolsby | + 6 COMMENTS

Ken Griffey Jr. was one of those eye-catching high school talents.

"What you saw were the tools for him to be a great player," said Dick Balderson, the general manager of the Mariners at the time. "But you can say that about a lot of 17-year-olds you see, they have the tools to be a very good player."

There was a difference between Griffey and a lot of 17-year-olds.

"He proved to be a Hall of Famer," said Balderson. "He was that legitimate five-tool guy, but even more than that. He had the instinct. I'd say he was a six-tool player. He was not in awe of any situation. He really enjoyed the game."

People around the game -- players, executives, scouts, fans and media -- enjoyed Griffey's game. And just how much they enjoyed it should become evident on Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET when the National Baseball Hall of Fame's Class of 2016 is announced on MLB Network and MLB.com. On a crowded ballot, Griffey is the one player who stands out as a virtual lock to be elected to the Hall of Fame by the veteran members of the Baseball Writers Association of America in his first year of eligibility.

It's a no-brainer.

Griffey finished a 22-year big league career sixth on the all-time home list with 630 and 15th in RBIs with 1,836. A career .284 hitter, he was a 13-time All-Star, finished in the top 10 in Most Valuable Player Award voting six times, and won the AL MVP in 1997. Griffey was a 10-time Gold Glove Award winner and he won seven Silver Slugger Awards. Oh, and he played center field. Griffey was in the big leagues at the age of 19, having played only 129 games in the Minor Leagues. It wasn't how the Mariners planned it. In his first full pro season, 1988, he was limited to 75 Minor League games because of back issues. He was invited to big league camp the following spring as a courtesy.

Griffey, however, forced the Mariners to keep him.

Each week that spring, longtime Mariners scout Bob Harrison said in the past, the staff would meet, and when Griffey's name was brought up, the point would be made that Griffey was going to be sent back to the Minors. Finally, with Griffey having dominated during the spring, at the final meeting, the discussion turned to Griffey and the fact he was going back to the Minor Leagues, and the question was raised, "Who's going to tell him?"

The answer was nobody. Griffey was only 19, but he was ready, and he never looked back. "The first impression of him was about his athleticism," said Hall of Fame . "He could run and he had great body control. He threw well. He was such a complete player. As he matured not only was he a really good hitter, but he was such a power hitter, too.

"He was the most complete player I had seen in a long time. You always thought of him as a Hall of Fame caliber player. It was going to come to do whether something was going to derail his career."

Nothing did.

Funny thing is, the biggest challenge in Griffey's career was convincing then-Mariners owner George Argyros that Griffey was the right player to draft. Tom Mooney, a third-year scout whose area included , was in awe from the start.

"You'd watch him and he was a man against boys, and he was a 17-year-old high school senior," said Mooney, now a pro scout with Milwaukee. "The game was just so easy for him. No matter when you saw him, he did something each game that reinforced how good he was. He dominated the games. It was not just with his bat, but he threw out runners, played great center field, stole bases and could even bunt."

Argyros, however, lived in Southern California, and he had a fondness for college players. He was caught up in pitcher of Cal State Fullerton, which was close to Argyros' office in Orange County.

"Tom was sold on [Griffey] and so was Roger [Jongewaard, the Mariners' scouting director at the time]," said Balderson. "Roger was so experienced and such a good evaluator. And really, there was no comparison between Griffey and the other players in that Draft."

13-time All-Star and 1997 AL MVP Ken Griffey Jr. is one of the top candidates for the Hall of Fame after an incredible 22-year career

Six of the top 20 picks that year never got to the big leagues, including , who went to Pittsburgh with the second overall selection.

Out of the 1,263 players who were selected in the Draft that year, only five of the position players appeared in as many as 2,000 games, led by Griffey with 2,671. Only two pitchers won more than 150 games -- (270), the 273rd player taken in the Draft, and Kevin Appier (169 wins), selected ninth overall.

Ken Griffey Jr. follows his father's homer with one of his own, making the duo the first father and son tandem to connect in the same game

But there was the Argyros factor, and it became a concern several times.

Griffey's score on a standardized psychological test came back among the lowest ever recorded, which set off an alarm with the front office. Mooney checked with the Griffey family, and discovered that Griffey didn't realize the value of the test, and had allowed a younger brother to take it. Given the test a second time, Griffey scored well.

"George [Argyros] finally agreed, but he told me, `This one is on you. You better be right,'" remembered Balderson. "To us, it was a no-brainer. I'm not going to say we knew he would be a Hall of Famer, but we knew he was the most talented player in the Draft."

And before long, everybody around baseball knew that, too.

Griffey made his presence felt in the Majors at the age of 19, and in the next couple of days, just how much of a presence he had will be reinforced by his anticipated election into the Hall of Fame.

Tracy Ringolsby is a columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

WCPO - Channel 9 Large O'Toole family gathers to remember late Reds Hall of Famer John Erardi 7:36 PM, Dec 31, 2015

CINCINNATI -- Jim O'Toole, the late former Reds pitching star, received a full-house sendoff Thursday morning at St. Rose Church in East End.

His son, Jim, said his father, who wore No. 31 for the Reds, was always good-naturedly pointing out the serendipity and coincidence of "31" and "3 and 1" in the things he encountered.

"He would be pleased that today we thought there would only be one priest here (celebrating the Mass of Christian Burial)," said his son, Jim, in an end-of-mass eulogy, "but there were three -- and one deacon."

That brought a good laugh to the full pews and standing-room only crowd.

And, as another O'Toole son, Bill, observed, the funeral mass was celebrated "for No. 31 on the 31st."

James J. O'Toole, 78, the native who started who Games 1 and 4 of the 1961 and also the 1963 Major League Baseball All-Star game ahead of , , and -- all future Hall of Famers -- died last Saturday, the day after Christmas and the day before the official celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary and Joseph).

That, too, was appropriate, given the significance of the feast day to the pitcher and his wife, Betty. They signed their courtship notes with a "JMJ" and raised 11 children.

"I never saw a man who raised 11 kids make it look so easy," said one of the O'Toole sons, no doubt triggering a smile from his mother, Betty, in the front pew. She knew, as do most mothers, who does most of the work.

Jim Jr. told of his left-handed father kiddingly tying his first-born son's right arm to the crib in hopes of raising a southpaw.

"It didn't work -- believe me, it didn't work," said the younger Jim, smiling. "But he got his wish with my brother, Frank, a southpaw (and a good pitcher). They had a special bond because of it."

No. 31 was signed by the Reds two days before Christmas in 1957, and debuted for them at age 21 on Sept. 26, 1958 (he lost a 7- four-hitter, 2-1 -- one -- to the Milwaukee Braves' star righthander Lew Burdette, who won his 20th game that night for the defending World Champions and World Series-bound Braves). O'Toole was 98-84 over 10 seasons, finishing with the in 1967. He was 19-9 in 1961, when he finished second in the with a 3.10 . He twice won 17 games and had a career ERA of 3.57.

After the , the O'Tooles built a home in Anderson Township with Jim's loser's share from the Series (the Reds lost it four games to one to the ).

In 1962, Jim told a reporter he was 12-15 as a bachelor, 24-15 as a husband, and 8-2 as a father. As is also recalled on Jim's "SABR bio project page" on Baseball-Reference.com:

"August 1961 (brought) the arrival of James Jerome Burke O’Toole, the first of 11 children in 13 years from the union of Jim and Betty O’Toole."

A Betty quote from 2007 also appears there:

"In 1967 and 1970 we didn't have a child,” she said. "Jim told people he had pneumonia those years.”

Despite a long battle with cancer, Jim had a "miraculous" final week of life, his children recalled at Thursday's mass.

It was Frank who at Wednesday's wake approached a family friend -- a former Reds official -- and related to him that Frank had only a few days earlier helped his ailing father up from his chair. As Big Jim was taking his son's hand, he said to him, "Frank, you know I can still kick your (behind)."

The Reds Hall of Fame has lost one of its favorite sons. The Hall held an impromptu reception at 100 Way on Thursday afternoon, New Year's Eve; 130 people showed, and witnessed a slide show in all-star theater. Songs by Frank Sinatra, No. 31's favorite, scored the tribute; there were toasts from the family in the "Great Teams" room, and plenty of tears, laughs and good times in the place Big Jim loved so much.

Jim once told me that it was his honor -- and another happy coincidence -- that his plaque in the Reds Hall hangs right next to that of his former skipper and mentor, Fred "Hutch" Hutchinson, himself a feisty righthander with the .

Hutchinson particularly liked O'Toole because "O'Toole believes he's better than the hitters he's facing, and I don't have a problem with that," even though the young O'Toole came across as "cocky" to some of the writers covering the club.

There was one memorable occasion when Hutch penciled No. 31 into the lineup, even though he knew the lefthander might take some lumps that day.

It was at against the Cubs, July 3, 1960, the day after O'Toole married his high school sweetheart.

"Hutch, I got married last night," O'Toole protested.

"I know -- I was there," Hutch answered. "I told you not to get married during the season. Now get out there and pitch."

That story, too, was told in one of Thursday's eulogies.

Left unsaid was Jim's favorite punch line, which he told me back in 2003 as we were preparing his foreword to ": Celebrating Cincinnati's Baseball Holiday."

"It was a terribly hot, humid day -- suffocating -- and, given the circumstances, it was one time I didn't want to be out there," Jim said. "I tried every which way to get thrown out of the game -- I called (home-plate ) every name in the book -- but he said to me, 'O'Toole, I know you got married last night. If I've got to stay out here, so do you! Now get your (posterior) back out there and pitch!'"

And so, No. 31 did. The Cubs knocked him out in the fifth inning. Reads the still-viewable headline online in the July 4, 1960, Chicago Tribune sports section: "O'Toole Soaked in 'Shower,' 7-5; (Ron) Santo Connects off Bridegroom."

Appropriately, the back page of the eight-page pamphlet distributed at Thursday's mass is Jim and Betty's wedding picture. As happy as the couple looks in this photo, one can readily see that nobody could have told Jim at that moment that he was going to suffer his first loss to his hometown Cubs the next day.

On page 7 of the pamphlet is the photo that would have made Jim proudest: A group shot of the couple and their 11 children.

Here the 11 children are, for the record: Jim Jr., Holly, John, Lucy, Peggy, Billy, Frank, Jerry, Josie, Mary and Dinah.

The O'Tooles have 38 grandchildren.

Also for the record is this: St. Rose of Lima, the church's namesake, died at 31, as No. 31 himself once noted.

On page 2 of the pamphlet is the day's "lineup": lead celebrant -- Father Barry Windholtz; servers -- grandsons Frank, Jimmy and Casey O'Toole, and pallbearers -- sons Jim, John, Bill, Frank and Jerry, and grandsons Adam, Peter and Shane O'Toole.

For some reason, I checked my car's odometer when I pulled out of the parking lot after Mass at St. Rose, and again at the west end of East Way where comes into view ; next door is the plaque of James Jerome O'Toole, the best friend the Hall ever had.

The distance between the church and first-view of the park?

3.1 miles.

John Erardi has covered baseball in Cincinnati for 30 years. He is a two-time Associated Press Ohio Sports Writer of the Year and co-author of six books on the Reds, including "Big Red Dynasty" and "."

ESPN.COM Picks to click: Breakout pitchers for 2016 Jeff Samardzija should be a great fit in a Giants jersey and back in the National League. AP Photo/Eric Risberg Christina Kahrl MLB Staff Writer

Last year, I ran through my picks to click on the mound in 2015. There were a couple of hits -- thank you Danny Salazar, Kyle Gibson and Nate Eovaldi -- and a few misses, and several guys got hurt, but there’s still plenty of reason to believe in what , Drew Smyly and Marcus Stroman might do, just one year later.

With that mixed bag in mind, who are the guys I’ll be following most closely to see if they’re going to bust out on the mound in 2016? In some cases, I'm picking guys who are already good and will take it up a notch, and in others, guys who will do better than they have before. And no tabbing rookies in this space (sorry, Tyler Glasnow and Jon Gray), and no doubling down on guys like Smyly and Stroman -- that would be too easy now that they’re back in action, plus let’s again use career RA/9 to projections from the new Bill James Handbook and FanGraphs’ Steamer for ERAs to compare past performance with future potential.

5. , Cincinnati Reds: 4.13 RA/9 | 2016 James NA, Steamer 3.57

Following in Aroldis Chapman’s footsteps by signing with the Reds in 2014 after emigrating from Cuba, Iglesias turned heads in his abbreviated big league debut, showing command of a four-pitch mix, and rattling off seven consecutive quality starts beginning on Aug. 1. But between a couple of stints in the minors, an oblique injury that cost him a month, some time in the bullpen and getting shut down in mid-September, he made only 16 big league starts while going 3-7. Given a full season in The Show, he may not rack up wins on a weak Reds roster, but his 26 percent rate was a preview of 2016 dominance.

Offseason fails (so far) Reds president Walt Jocketty has not gotten much back for the talented veterans he has traded. Dec 30, 2015 Dan Szymborski Special to ESPN.com

Every Major League Baseball team heads into each offseason with specific goals in mind and some sort of general idea of what they're planning to do, and of course, each team's goals and plans are different. Team A could be looking to trade its proven vets and rebuild, while Team B could be going the exact opposite direction. Either way, all teams will be looking to avoid a wasted winter, one in which their objectives weren't met.

Obviously the winter isn't over yet, but there are definitely some MLB teams that haven't met their objectives.

The flip of the calendar to 2016 signals the start of the league's pennant race, as spring training opens just a month and a half later (on Feb. 18). Back in my school days -- which really wasn't that long ago, as I'm not even 40 -- when a student got well into a grading period, if he or she wasn't performing well, the teacher would send home an interim report to be signed by a very annoyed parent. As someone who tended to be "homeworkally challenged," that happened to me a few times. No team has flunked the offseason yet, but let's just say a handful of teams should be grounded on the weekends until they get their grades up. Here are those teams:

Cincinnati Reds

The Reds won 97 games in 2012 and 90 in 2013, but after the latter season, they found themselves at a crossroads: They needed to either start a rebuilding/retooling phase or invest enough in the team to make them better for 2014. Instead, they did next to nothing -- their big moves were signing Manny Parra and Skip Schumaker -- and after 2014, the Reds somehow did even less, spending a total of $1 million in major league free agency. The Reds put off hard decisions for years, and even though they finally have made the decision to rebuild, they're still facing the consequences of their procrastination.

It would have been tough (on a personal level) to trade right after his derby show in Cincy, but the team held on to him at the absolute height of his value, and he followed up a .284/.337/.585 first half with a .220/.274/.390 second half. As such, if you looked up underwhelming in the dictionary, you'd see a snapshot of the players the Reds got back in their trade of Frazier. (If that's really the case, you have a rather odd -- yet contemporary -- dictionary.) The Reds got one prospect of interest in Jose Peraza, a 25-year-old corner in Scott Schebler who struggled to hit in the and , who put up a .647 OPS at -A.

The Reds got perhaps even less in this week's Aroldis Chapman trade. The best prospect in the deal, Rookie Davis, looks like a midrotation prospect at best, and given his lack of good secondary pitches, he's more likely to be a reliever. Now, it's not the team's fault that Chapman is being investigated for an alleged domestic violence incident, but it is the team's fault that they didn't trade him a year ago at this time or at the trade deadline, when they could have gotten much, much more for him.

Add in the Brandon Phillips fiasco in which the team announced a trade and seemingly only then got around to working on the exact parameters to get Phillips to waive his no-trade clause; the cynic in me would suggest they were hoping that making the trade a fait accompli would put pressure on Phillips to relent. Either way, the trade fell through. Jay Bruce is another player who would have fetched a good return after 2013 if the team had decided to rebuild then, but he has seen his trade value collapse after two lousy years.

The Reds came into the winter with one primary task: Catch up on the rebuilding process and acquire some building blocks for the next good Reds team. They have not accomplished that to any significant degree.

EXAMINER.COM

Vern Rapp, 87, former Cardinals and Reds manager January 1, 2016 7:56 AM MST

Vern Rapp, former major league manager with the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds, passed away Thursday December 31, 2015 in Colorado. He was 87.

Rapp, who spent parts of two seasons at the helm of the Cardinals (1977-78) and the Reds (1984), started out as a in the Cardinals minor league system in 1946. After surviving a beaning during his second season, Rapp found himself starting in the playoffs for the Cardinals AAA team in Columbus in 1948 just one step away from the big leagues.

"We had a pitcher by the name of Clarence Beers," Rapp recalled in 2008. "He could throw all kinds of pitches; he threw knuckleballs, everything. I’ll never forget in the playoffs, we had an old-time umpire by the name of Moore. Clarence threw a knuckle ball to the right and I just stuck out my bare hand and caught it. He said, ‘Well, that’s the first time I ever seen that done.’ I said, ‘Well, it’s done!’”

The promising start for the young catcher was derailed like many others of his era by Uncle Sam. In 1950, Rapp was drafted into the United States Army. He lost two years of his career to his military service, something that he couldn’t recover from.

“I was in the service for two years,” he said in 2008. “They either remember you or forget you. I went in 1950 into the Korean War. Someone else comes along and they forget about you. I had a good chance. You make your own way. The game got different. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I stayed in the minor leagues until I was 32 and then I went into managing. Those two years, you lose a lot of things. Even though I didn’t go over [seas], I was lucky."

He played at the AAA level until 1960, but spent most of his remaining time in the minors as a player-manager starting in 1955 with Charleston. At only 27 years old, Rapp was offered the job halfway through the season to replace Danny Murtagh. He quickly asserted himself as the manager, ruffling the feathers of many of the veterans, including the 39-year-old legendary slugger Luke Easter.

“We were in Minneapolis one night and was with Minneapolis,” he said. “Back in those days, you didn’t talk to the other team before the game, it was always a war.

"We got in to this game in the old Nicollet Park. We had it won about 10-4 and they came back and beat us. I was a tough loser. I blew up in the clubhouse and Luke had a contract with Danny if he hit 30 home runs, he got bonus money. We got into an argument. I was talking about all the fraternization, I don’t buy that. If you are going to be a winner, you think about winning, you can’t be buddy buddy [with the opposition]. You can be buddies off the field, but not when the gates opened. I wasn’t against either one of them, but Luke got all upset. … I said, ‘If you don’t like what I’m doing, I can take care of that real easy.’ He said, ‘I don’t like it.’ So I said to the trainer, ‘Get him a ticket back home, you’re suspended for insubordination.’ He was off the team for three days and we got back to Charleston and the GM said you’ve gotta straighten it out with him. … At the end of the season, they were going to choose the MVP; the writer was going to choose Woody Smith. I said, ‘You can’t do that, this guy hit 30 homers and drove in over 100 runs. If you’re gonna have a MVP on the last place team, you’ve gotta put Luke’s name.’ He did. Luke put his arm around me and said, ‘You might have been mad, [but] you the man.’”

Rapp managed in the minors until through the end of the 1976, even getting a base hit at the age of 48 during that season with Montreal’s Denver farm club. During our interview in 2008, he recalled how and why he put himself in the lineup that day.

“We had a kid that was going to play every position so I started out as a catcher to a spot in the lineup,” he said. “Hank Edwards was managing the other club and he kind of set me up with a good pitch and I hit a line shot up the middle. I threw a guy out that game. I stayed in shape; I threw batting practice two hours every day.”

In 1977, he replaced the easy going as manger of the St. Louis Cardinals. Tactics that he used in the minor leagues to regulate the actions of his players didn’t fare well for him at the major league level. Enforcing strict rules about how the players dressed and forcing players like to remove his trademark mustache caused tremendous dissent among the ranks. Shortly after a public spat with catcher where Rapp referred to him as a “loser,” General Manager Bing Devine fired Rapp after 17 games into his second season.

“The climax could have been averted, but it did appear more or less inevitable,” Devine said in a 1978 Associated Press article. “Frankly, it was a problem, a continuing problem. When it became apparent, we decided, ‘Why wait for something you can’t solve any other way?’”

Rapp quickly got back on his feet, joining the as a coach from 1979-1983. Just as he was going to retire, the Cincinnati Reds hired him as their manager to start the 1984 season. One of his prized pupils was , who currently holds the major league record for saves by a left-handed pitcher. Rapp helped encourage Franco’s transition from a starter to a reliever during his rookie season.

“I made him into a ,” Rapp said. “I asked [Roy] Hartsfield, how come he couldn’t go past five . He said, ‘He’s great a pitcher for five innings.’ I got information. When I saw him in the spring, I could understand. His stature, he wasn’t a big man. He was short and about 170 lbs. I pulled him aside, ‘How about giving it a whack as a short reliever?’ Well, he became a great short reliever. He knew how to pitch inside and wasn’t afraid to.”

His work with Franco was one of his few highlights of his time with the Reds. After posting 50-71 record in which he used 101 different lineups, he was replaced in August by Pete Rose who was acquired from the Expos as a player-manager. It spelled the end of Rapp’s managerial career. He finished with a 140-160 record in parts of three seasons in the majors.

Despite his reputation as a strict manager, Rapp felt a tremendous obligation towards the fans. Well into his retirement he continued to receive autograph requests sent to his home and he proudly fulfilled every one of them.

“I was taught in the old school that you take care of the fans first,” he said.

Some sixty years later, Rapp continued to look at the game through the his managerial lens. He noted how the minor league system has experienced an upheaval in almost every regard possible.

“When I was managing in the minor leagues it was just me,” he said. “Now they have five coaches and they still can’t do it. In those days, you only had nine pitchers. What are you going to do? You can’t take them out every day. Back then, you had a four man staff. Once they gave money to the pitchers, that’s when it changed. We’ve got $2 million in this guy, what are you going to do, wreck his arm? Then there was the development thing; that’s when it changed. They were making decisions on guys 20 innings. How can you judge on 20 innings? In my day, they’d play two-to-three years and pitch over 100 innings to find out if he’s going to be a prospect.”

The million dollar salaries that Rapp felt were affecting player development were a far cry from the peanuts he made at the lowest level of in 1946. The struggles he had to make a dollar stretch during those years ultimately fostered a deeper love for a game that gave back to him for almost the next 40 years.

“I got $150 per month if you were lucky,” he recalled. “We used to get $1 per day in meal money. We used to go to Walgreens for $.35 for breakfast. That was about the only place you could go on the road.

"When I was in Marion, because I wasn’t old enough, a guy from the bar invited me into the kitchen. He gave me a big platter of spaghetti. I’d eat my garlic bread and spaghetti and he’d charge me $.50. You were always looking for ways to get through because you had no money. They had signs in left field and they would give you $5 if you hit it over the sign, and they [home runs] always seemed to come before payday. I had about 15 homeruns, five over the signs. I’d go and take guys for breakfast. That was the love of the game. We didn’t even have showers at the ballpark. We’d go back to my home; I was about 10 blocks from the park. We’d used to just do anything to play the game.”

TRANSACTIONS

01/01/16 invited non-roster SS Alex Bregman to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster 3B Tyler White to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster RHP to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster RHP Jake Buchanan to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster 3B J.D. Davis to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster LF Derek Fisher to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster 2B Joe Sclafani to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster RF Jon Kemmer to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster RHP Jordan Jankowski to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster RHP Chris Devenski to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster 2B Tony Kemp to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster C Tyler Heineman to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster 1B A.J. Reed to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster RHP Brady Rodgers to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster 3B Colin Moran to spring training. Houston Astros invited non-roster C Roberto Pena to spring training. Houston Astros signed free agent RHP Cesar Valdez to a minor league contract and invited him to spring training. Houston Astros signed free agent LF Eury Perez to a minor league contract and invited him to spring training.

12/30/15 Dodgers designated LF Daniel Fields for assignment. Hanser Alberto changed number to 2. Delino DeShields changed number to 3. Detroit Tigers signed free agent LF Chad Huffman to a minor league contract. signed free agent LHP Scott Kazmir. signed free agent LHP Donnie Veal to a minor league contract. Detroit Tigers signed free agent RHP Michael Crotta to a minor league contract. Texas Rangers signed free agent C Michael McKenry to a minor league contract and invited him to spring training.