MLB Draft and Ralphie

  The recent baseball draft made me think of a time when the baseball draft was a big deal to me and writing about it here.

I so rarely watch baseball anymore that I hardly knew many of the prospects for the draft.

I watched some of the early rounds of the College World Series, so I was familiar with the two stars from LSU (pitcher Paul Skenes and outfielder Dylan Crews), Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford, Wake Forest pitcher Rhett Lowder with a few other names from high schools/junior colleges and that was about the extent of my knowledge.

That saddens me honestly and while I've written before about the perfect storm that took several issues (both large and small) to congeal and create the current malaise, it really hit home yesterday when I had a person send me a message asking about the Guardians (one of the small issues there) first-round pick in California high school catcher Ralphie Velazquez and I had to write back to say not only did I not have an opinion, I had never heard of him.

Now, that's because I didn't do any research to do so and not a knock on Velazquez in any way but it made me wonder just how deep this was for me.

After all, the first thought upon hearing the selection of Velazquez wasn't positional need, financial issues, contract demands, or what other players that Cleveland could have selected, it was this-

My thoughts were of Ralphie Valladares.

Between being a California native and the name Ralphie, my first thoughts were of Valladares, an already ancient star of the "World Famous" Los Angeles T-Birds of Roller Derby when I was a kid.

Valladares was already gray-haired, had a physical look that combined the head and upper body of Fred Flintstone with the height of Barney Rubble and looked more like your local butcher than a star of a sport.

Valladares passed in 1998 at the age of 62, which really shocked me because that meant when I was watching him on television he would have been in his forties and looked like he was sixty even then!

I would have lost money on that bet as I was certain looking at him that he was at least 55 when I saw him skating for the first time!

Valladares was treated like the Babe Ruth of the sport, often coming off the bench for a stunning miraculous performance to somehow lift the T-Birds to another win over the villainous Ms. Georgia Hase and her minions, despite reminding you more of your grandfather's drinking pal than a pro athlete.

Yet when it came to the MLB draft, it was Valladares that I was thinking of and not baseball.

And when I did think of another sport to read or wonder about, it wasn't baseball, it was checking to see if Harvey Barnes of Leicester City (English Premier League) had signed with Newcastle United yet.

I've watched one game from Japan this year and a few innings here and there at my dad's of a few Orioles games as the total sum of the baseball that I've watched this year.

While I don't think I've filled the gap once held by baseball during the summer, I've filled it with a few different things over the rest of the year.

I've really enjoyed learning about the English Premier League and my chosen team, Newcastle United, and would consider writing about them here but I don't know enough about the game to really add anything significant.

I have considered perhaps discussing the occasional signing during the two transfer windows but even then it's not like I know whether a player is a good or poor signing with a few exceptions.

I've enjoyed building my program collection with some additions that I've been very pleased with.

I've also been working on cleaning up some of my toy collections to make them a little easier on the eye as they their display stands.

It's a roundabout way of writing about how baseball may or may not have been replaced for the long term but I've found things to fill the void in the short term.

 I do wonder if I'll ever care the same way again but one never knows what small spark may reignite my interest in baseball, so never say never- just say we'll see.