Brandon Moss, friend of The Dugout, becomes a Pirate

Sure, Boston traded Manny for being Manny and the White Sox got older by adding Junior. Brandon Moss, however, is the player involved in yesterday’s deadline deals that means the most to The Dugout.

Moss spent most of 2004, his third year as a professional, with the Augusta GreenJackets. Prior to one of their games that summer, Moss and then teammate Brett Bonvechio, who began this season with Camden of the Atlantic League, sat on the bleachers with The Dugout and offered the following story, which ended being published in The Funniest Thing I’ve Ever Seen: More than 100 crazy stories from minor league baseball.

Enjoy.

Jamming Up Jammer
Playing for the Augusta GreenJackets is almost a home-field
advantage for outfielder Brandon Moss. The 20-year old grew up in
Monroe, Georgia, about an hour and a half drive from Augusta.
Moss compares his teammates to family: “It’s like having 25
brothers all together. Everybody makes fun of everyone.”
He also experiences the comfort of having his biological family and
hometown friends visit and watch him play.

For a high school draftee especially, playing close to home makes
for a smoother transition into professional baseball. Moss is able to
concentrate more on baseball because he is operating in familiar
surroundings.

As much as Moss enjoys playing close to home, he actually prefers
being on the road.

“We don’t have to spend our own money – we get meal money,”
Moss said. “I like playing in different parks. I like sleeping in hotels
better than our apartment because [hotels] get cable for free.”

Moss also looks forward to seeing the fans in different baseball
towns and especially likes getting booed by them. He’s interested to
hear original criticisms because, he says, it makes him laugh.

One sure fire way to incite a home crowd is to take on the home
team’s mascot. That’s what Moss did one night while playing against
the Jamestown Jammers of the New York/Penn League.

Brandon Moss: Remember when Randal Simon hit that
[Milwaukee Brewer’s sausage] mascot last year? All that
controversy was going on.

During the fifth inning the mascot always ran around the bases.
[The mascot] was a dog, because they are the Jammers and they
had a dog for some reason. I don’t understand why.

He was running around the bases and I tackled him on the
ground and started hitting him and all that stuff. It was great. The
general manager for the other team and I were the only one’s who
knew [what was going on]. I wasn’t supposed to be hitting him, but I
was trying to get the crowd to go wild. I got in a lot of trouble with
the fans on that one. The whole time they thought I was just doing it
to be a showboat, but I wasn’t. I was told to do it.