True to his word, Bryan Fitzgerald of the Albany Times-Union just published a feature on Brazilian pitcher Murillo Gouvea of the Tri-City ValleyCats (HOU Single A) in today’s edition of the paper. You can read it here: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=945907&category=SPORTS
Great article…Muito Obrigado, Bryan!
A special thanks to Bryan Fitzgerald for prompting me to update this list. Bryan is a sports writer for the Times Union in Albany, NY, and covers the Tri-City Valley Cats (where Brazilian pitcher Murillo Gouvea plays). Bryan sent me an email asking if I had the number of Brazilian players currently in the minors or majors, so now with the short season rookie leagues in full swing, my list of current players signed my MLB teams, and playing on their respective minor league teams (including Dominican and Venezuelan summer leagues) is below. There may have been some newcomers I missed, so please add accordingly if you don’t see someone in here:
From the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, June 20, 2010:
“Leonardo Reginatto, a Brazilian signed last year as a free agent, also played in the Venezuelan league, batting .328 last year. He scored 31 runs and drove in 29.”
http://bdtonline.com/localsports/x383276720/Princeton-roster-full-of-newcomers
Leonardo’s Venezuela Summer League Stats from last year can be found at: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=SS&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=553891
Boa Sorte, Orgulho de Curitiba!
- Andy
A special thank you to Rafael Sersun of SoftParty, who reached out to me after seeing a Brazilian Baseball (@BeisebolBrasil) retweet from Forúm Strikeout. Before I forget, thanks also to the guys at Forúm Strikeout (www.forumstrikeout.net), who have been very supportive of the blog and have been retweeting all of the posts. Muito Obrigado!
Rafael sent me a link and some background information on SoftParty, an annual university co-ed softball tournament that takes place in the greater São Paulo area, and after reviewing the website I can agree that it is exactly what the name implies: Softball and a Party!
There are 24 teams in the tournament, which has been held every year for the last 11 years. The tournament is organized by a number of the universities in the area, and the tournament expenses (which are relatively modest) are covered by sponsors. There are three levels, or groups, in the tournament: Gold, Silver and Bronze, with a champion, 2nd and 3rd place awards in each group. Individual and team awards are also given out at the end of the tournament for categories such as best hitter, pitcher, MVP, etc.
The tournament takes place over a weekend. In this year’s case it was just held last weekend. This year FECAP won the Gold group, FORMADOS won the Silver group, and UNICAMP (Campinas Representing!) won the Bronze group. One of my favorite aspects of this tournament is that it starts on a Saturday during the day, then in the evening (from 10PM to 6AM) there’s a big party at a night club with a band and DJs. On Sunday, the remaining tournament games conclude, followed by a Home Run Derby and the awards ceremony. It looks like a lot of fun judging by the tournament photos and party info on the SoftParty website! www.softparty.com.br
Rafael has been involved with SoftParty since 2006. Rafael has also been involved with the Confederação Brasileira de Beisebol e Softbol Universitário, or CBBSU (Brazilian University Baseball & Softball Confederation), tournament, which is now in its second edition. You can find Rafael’s contact info, as well as that of some of the other SoftParty organizers, on the contact web page: http://softparty.wordpress.com/contato/
Muito Obrigado, Rafael e SoftParty!
Andy
From GTR News:
“KANSAS CITY, MO (June 15, 2010) – The Texas League announced last night that nine players from the Northwest Arkansas Naturals plus three members of the coaching staff will represent the Royals’ Double-A affiliate on June 30 at the Texas League All-Star Game in Midland, Texas.
More than half of the starting lineup of the North Division squad will be Naturals, as five Northwest Arkansas players were voted into the starting lineup: second baseman Johnny Giavotella, third baseman Mike Moustakas, outfielders Paulo Orlando and Derrick Robinson, and designated hitter Clint Robinson. In addition, left-handed pitchers Mike Montgomery and Edgar Osuna as well as right-hander Mario Santiago were selected to the North Division staff.
Montgomery will not pitch after being activated from the 7-Day Disabled List yesterday with left elbow soreness. Naturals’ outfielder Tim Smith was added to the club due to an injury to Tulsa outfielder Jeff Kindel.
Northwest Arkansas manager Brian Poldberg, in his third year with the club, as well as hitting coach Terry Bradshaw and trainer Tony Medina will also represent the Naturals at the All-Star Game, serving in the same capacities for the North Division.
The 24-man All-Star rosters for the North and South Divisions were selected by a voting panel which includes the Texas League President as well as the league’s managers, coaches, radio broadcasters, and newspaper beat writers.”
According to the “Farmstros” Blog, the Houston Astros have assigned Brazilian Righthanded Pitcher Murillo Gouvea to the Tri-City Valley Cats of the short season New York Penn League (Single A). In 2009, with three different teams, the 21-year-old Gouvea went 1-3 with a 4.56 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, and 60K’s in 54.1 innings.
Farmstros link: http://farmstros.blogspot.com/2010/06/2010-valley-cats-roster.html
Gouvea’s career stats: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=517209
Figured I should fit in another blog post before the World Cup officially starts for Brazil tomorrow, and everyone’s main focus there for the next few weeks will be on futebol!
Our next profile (and last, until more teams send in their profiles!) is on the Black Dogs of Santos. Deep thanks to Rafael Esperati for the highly detailed reply to my request to do a profile!
Black Dogs started as a group of baseball fans, including Rafael (3B), Binho Bartolo (OF) and other friends. To pass the time, they started getting together to play, and soon became the first baseball team in the Baixada Santista (Santos/coastal region of São Paulo state). Black Dogs have participated in the Liga Paulista since the league’s first season in 2008.
Black Dogs first started playing in 2006, in Praia do Itararé, in the city of São Vicente (also on the São Paulo coast); a neighboring city to Santos. Today they play in Praia do José Menino, an area of the city of Santos – the same city where Pelé played most of his professional years and became the global soccer legend. Santos is the largest city along the coast of São Paulo state, and I believe the largest port city in Brazil. Black Dogs is the first and only baseball team in the Baixada Santista region (including the cities of Santos, São Vicente, Cubatão, Guarujá, Praia Grande, Mongaguá, Itanhaém, among others).
One of the goals of the team is to acquire a space to build their own baseball field, which would be the first in the region. Right now they are in talks with the city of Santos and other cities in the Baixada Santista to get an adequate space to build a field. Any help or ideas on how to go about that are welcome. Having a field would help them in their overall goal, of course, which is to continue to promote the development of Baseball as a new sport in the region, so they can continue to enlist more players and participate in the LPB.
Black Dogs is a young team, with the majority of players having only started playing the sport on the team with no previous experience. They won their very first game, and then didn’t win another until the 2009 tournament against a more experienced team: the Bats of São Paulo.
The coach of the Black Dogs is Wagner Sasaki, who is also the catcher of the team and an ex-player with the São Paulo Giants (Gigantes), and of Kodama in the city of Santo André, São Paulo, among other teams.
The best players on the team are:
- Wagner, as he was elected the best catcher in the conference in the first season of the Liga Paulista de Beisebol in 2008, and also participated in the first LPB All-Star Game in 2008.
- Fabio Kuroyanagi, one of the team’s pitchers who also plays shortstop. Along with the Black Dogs, Kuroyanagi plays with a team in Cuiabá, in the state of Mato Grosso. He also played in the 2nd LPB All-Star Game in 2009, which was played in the Estádio Municipal de São Paulo “Mie Nishi”. (By the way, in future posts I intend to cover some of the existing baseball stadiums and fields in Brazil.)
- Gerson, shortstop and pitcher, selected for the LPB All-Star Game in 2008. Gerson started playing baseball as a young kid in the city of Piedade, SP.
Interesting tidbit about the team name: “Black Dogs”. It comes from a stray black dog named Lara who lived around the beach kiosks in Praia do Itararé, in São Vicente when the team first started playing there in 2006. Lara became the official team “ball girl”; fetching all of the errant or foul balls while the team was playing catch and having batting practice.
Team Website: www.blackdogs.rg3.net
Twitter: www.twitter.com/blackdogs
Orkut: they also have a profile on Orkut (which is more often used by Brazilians for social media). There are over a thousand pictures of the team since 2006 on their Orkut page: http://www.orkut.com.br/Main#Profile?uid=14621051540558462463
Youtube: check out Black Dog’s videos at: http://www.youtube.com/blackdogsbaseball (including two interviews for TV Tribuna, an affiliate of TV Globo – biggest TV channel in the region – and also for a local channel, NET Cidade) Some of the older videos can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/beisebolbs
Rafael’s contact information is:
Rafael Esperati Lelis
e-mail : rafael.esperati@gmail.com
Twitter: @rafaelesperati
Nickname “Darien” on forumstrikeout.net
Pra Frente, Brasil!
Andy
I meant to cover this earlier in the week, but better late than never! Andre Rienzo, pitching for the Class A Kannapolis Intimidators (Chi. White Sox) of the South Atlantic League, took to the mound last Sunday for his 3rd start of the season, this time against Savannah. Rienzo’s first couple of starts of the season hadn’t gone very smooth (run avoidance-wise), so he was looking to get a solid outing under his belt. Against Savannah, Rienzo was able to put together 4 innings without giving up a run. He did give up 4 hits and two walks, but was able to strike out 3 along the way. Also of note, his ground out to air out ratio for the game was 3.50, so he’s keeping the ball down.
For the season, although Rienzo has a WHIP of 1.69, an ERA of 8.78 and hitters have a .327 BA against him, he’s managed to strike out quite a number of batters: 17K’s in 13 innings. In fact, in his first start Rienzo had 6K’s in only 3 innings (even though he had given up 3 runs on 4 hits and 2 walks). Then, his second appearance of the season was a relief outing where he struck out 5 batters in 2 innings! If anything, his K’s and GO/AO are important indicators to look at this early in the season.
Hopefully, Rienzo can continue to build on the good showing he had on Sunday. For updated stats on Andre Rienzo, you can go to:
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=P&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=516589
- Andy
Our next profile is on the ACA Kanpai Beisebol e Softbol Team. We haven’t really featured too much softball here yet, so hopefully this is the beginning of more ‘balanced’ coverage! Thanks to Rodrigo, coach and representative of the team, for providing information.
The team has only been around for two years and features various players of different ages. The majority of the players hail from Mogi das Cruzes, Universo, Suzano and Guarulhos, which are areas in the outskirts of the city of São Paulo. There are a total of 30 players between women and men.
ACA Kanpai has had some success in its brief history. In 2008, the baseball team finished in second place in the B Conference of the Liga Paulista de Beisebol pre-season, and had 4 players in the all star game: Haruo, Hugo, Rodrigo e Hyodo. In 2009 they were co-champions of the conference. The softball team won 1st place in the B division of the Torneio Wakaba (an important co-ed softball tournament in Suzano) in 2008, and in 2009 they got 3rd place in the competition, this time in the A division.
Rodrigo says it’s hard to define who the best players are on the teams, as each player possesses their own style of play, some are faster, some are better hitters or better on defense, etc. I’m sure there are some pretty good players on ACA Kanpai if they are continually winning tournaments!
This season, the baseball team is participating again in the LPB, and the softball team is participating in monthly softball tournaments in Suzano and Mogi. The Torneio Wakaba this year is July 17 and 18th. If you are in the area, you should stop by. More information on ACA Kanpai and the tournaments they participate in can be found at: http://www.acaruja.blogspot.com/
Not to take away anything from the most important baseball news story of the day: The almost no-hitter pitched by Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga last night (with the admittedly blown call by umpire Jim Joyce with 2 outs in the 9th inning), but I thought I’d continue with our series of Brazilian baseball team profiles.
The next team profile takes us back to the beautiful Northeast of Brazil; thanks to Danilo Moreira for the information provided on the Recife Imortais!
Recife Imortais has been in existence since October 15, 2007. The coaches are Danilo Moreira and Eduardo Menezes, the founder of the team, as well as some others who have come out to lend a hand with the team. Recife plays at the Federal University of Pernambuco, a state university in Recife, on the athletic department’s soccer field. The team is still very amateur; the education and training mainly comes from their trips to play other teams down in São Paulo, from Partners of Americas (an Atlanta, GA-based organization that occasionally sends American instructors to Recife), and, of course, what they can pull off the internet.
The best players on the team right now are Eduardo Menezes SS, Guilherme Torres C (the best), Otávio 1B, Italo Guttemberg 3B/1B, Ernesto 2B, Ramon P/CF and Danilo Moreira P/CF.
These guys are motivated to play baseball in part by simply having fun and helping to develop the sport in the region. They’ve already played Natal Solaris in the Northeast regional championship, so they must be getting pretty good!
The biggest challenge the team has is its training location. They’ve moved around from three different places and none of the fields have been ideal for playing baseball. They thought they might have had a dedicated spot from a neighboring municipality, but the city pulled it away at the last minute. Partners of Americas had been able to gather material for the team to build a field, and they also helped to lead the initiative and financing to secure the location, but the effort fell apart last year.
Seeing as how Natal Solaris was able to secure a dedicated location for a baseball field last year on an air base, it’s given Danilo hope that the same can be done in Recife, however it is a time consuming process for anyone to devote the effort to make it happen. If anyone has ideas for Danilo, by all means please feel free to share it on this blog, or you can contact Danilo directly. His contact information is on the Recife Baseball website: http://baseballrecife.wordpress.com
Boa sorte!
Andy
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