Back For More

The Asheville Tourists announced that their management team will remain the same for the 2016 season. Returning are Manager Warren Schaefer, Hitting Coach Mike Devereaux, Pitching Coach Mark Brewer, and Development Supervisor Marv Foley. The Tourists had an overall record of 72-67 and earned a playoff berth facing Savannah in the first round and before losing to the Hickory Crawdads for the South Atlantic League championship.

Continuity is very important in the lower levels of minor league baseball where the game of professional baseball is really taught. The basic fundamentals of baseball should already be instilled but learning how to be a professional baseball player begins at these levels.

An Exorcism Is Needed On The Bats

I remember a scene out of the movie Major League in which they were looking to perform a ceremony on the bats to take the curse off of them and I am thinking the Asheville Tourists need the same thing. The character Sorano used golf head covers for his bats ("hats for bats") to try to solve his problems with hitting the curveball but the Tourists can't seem to hit anything thrown their way for over the past week. They were shut out by the Greenville Drive last night 6-0 and could only muster 6 hits. Team slumps are hard to explain and happen to just about every team over the course of a season. Hitting Coach Mike Devereaux has the pedigree and has had success in the pastand I would attribute the team slump to several new players, a lot of young players, and several who might be hitting the proverbial wall. Baseball, if anything, is a long season and it has been a rainy one with a lot of rain outs meaning a lot of makeup games and doubleheaders.

The New Manager

The Colorado Rockies finally got around to naming former Asheville Tourist player Fred Ocasio as the new Manager for the 2013 season. Ocasio has been a manager for the past six seasons at Tri-City in the Colorado Rockies system with an overall record of 232-224. He is joined by Last years pitching coach, Joey Eischen, and hitting coach Mike Devereaux. Ex-major league catcher Marv Foley was named as the director of player development. Ocasio played 55 games for the Asheville Tourists as a middle infielder in 1994-95 and had a .317 Batting Average with 1 Homerun and 14 RBI's. He also pitched in 2 games, throwing 1 2/3 innings, and giving up 0 runs. The major advantage to him taking the step up to Asheville is that he will already be familiar with a lot of the Tourists players. First Pitch is a little over two months away.