Myers shines with glove and bat

I was searching through some minor league baseball stories tonight when I came across this headline: Myers keys triple play, offense for Barons.

Birmingham shortstop Mike Myers, a good friend of MinorLeagueDugout.com, turned in one of the best nights of his professional career.

It started early. With no outs and runners on first and second in the first inning, Tennessee's Jesus Cota hit a ground ball to short. Myers scooped it up, tagged the runner heading to third, stepped on second base and threw on to first in time to get Cota.

The triple play was the first for the Barons since the early days of Gerald Ford's presidency.

Myers continued his big night when he stepped into the batter's box. Entering the game with a .244 average, Myers smacked three hits and drove in a run as the Barons defeated the Smokies 5-3.

A back injury slowed Myers during his first few professional seasons. He's finally healthy and is looking like he may develop into a quality utility player for the White Sox. This season he's done everything but catch and pitch for the Barons. His versatility and speed are smilar to Cincinnati's Ryan Freel.

One big play won't make a minor league prospect's career. It will, sometimes, make the higher-ups within the organizatin take notice of a player. This may be the break that gets Myers career rolling.

MinorLeagueDugout.com hopes he is able to build some momentum.

Hats off to Toledo

MinorLeagueDugout.com takes pride in highlighting the best minor league promotions in our "Promotion of the Day" segment. We also enjoy following up pn those events.

The Toledo Mud Hens' Hilarous Hat Night was selected as our Promotion of the day for August 3. Our Mud Hen friends sent us some pictures of the event.

The Mud Hens gave away hats ranging from the normal to the surreal to the first 2,000 fans entering the ballpark. Regulation baseball caps were everywhere, along with the occassional velour covered, zebra striped hat and a few metallic blue ones.

Congrats to Toledo for a successful promotion.