More on... Colby Rasmus - Blue Jay CF 'Par Excellence'

In a post here yesterday entitled, "Colby Rasmus is batting .191 - the Mendoza Line for this Great Centre Fielder", I took a couple of guesses as to why Colby Rasmas said the hings he said before Thursday's last home game of the 2011 season. (You should see the original article by Andrew Stoeten - here - first.)

Several people at the Drunk Jays Fans post (where I originally wrote the article, then blogged it) followed with some excellent links to video and articles that I'd like to share here - from St Louis and from the Cardinals AAA affiliate, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats - where Colby Rasmus spent some time late this season just before the trade to Toronto. This first link from the "Drunk Jays Fans" commenter 'Chris3173' gives us a good take on how Colby Rasmus does interview - laid back, honest, forth right and introspective.

Via graymatter11's Youtube post, "Colby Rasmus on playing with Fisher Cats".

"Blue Jays center fielder Colby Rasmus talks with New Hampshire Union Leader reporter Kevin Gray about playing in the 2011 Eastern League Championship Series"

Screenshot of the River Front Times article by Larry Borowsky

"Drunk Jays Fans" commenter 'purplehaze89' pointed to this nice piece on Rasmus's father who coached him all his life, until professional ball - published at the Riverfront Times, "Shit Colby Rasmus' Dad Says: The father of the St. Louis Cardinals phenom is never at a loss for words. But what he says might surprise you" written by Larry Borowsky from Thursday, Mar 31 2011.

And, also pointed to by 'purplehaze89', "A very different Colby Rasmus coming in 2011" - an article posted at "The Cardinal Nation blog" (December 9th, 2010) written by Brian Walton. Interesting piece. Not only did the Cardinals - and his father, who was allowed by the Cardinals to help coach him - pile all kinds of expectations on him with-in a systematic off season coaching regime designed to turn him from a 23HR, .276 hitter into a .300 spray hitter - but his father also talked about it in the media!


BATTING Regular Season Career Stats (via MLB)

YEAR TEAM    G   AB   R   H  TB 2B 3B HR RBI  BB  SO  AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS 
2009 STL   147  474  72 119 193 22  2 16  52  36  95 .251 .307 .407 .714 
2010 STL   144  464  85 128 231 28  3 23  66  63 148 .276 .361 .498 .859 

2011 STL    94  338  61  83 142 14  6 11  40  45  77 .246 .332 .420 .753 
2011 TOR    31  119  14  22  40  9  0  3  13   5  33 .185 .216 .336 .552 
2011 total 125  457  75 105 182 23  6 14  53  50 110 .230 .304 .398 .702 

By the looks of these numbers his father is trying to make himself more than he is by turning a 'good' major league player (.276) into a 'great' major league player (.300) - in order to get himself a major league coaching job one wonders?

One could posit that there are very powerful forces at work here: his son as a mirror of himself, the failings of the father's baseball carrier heaped upon the son - or perhaps he was just carried away by the dream of becoming a major league coach? In either case it would appear no one was looking out for Colby, every one got caried away with making the club better by moulding the player at hand into the player not on the roster - never thinking of listening to the soft spoken young man, or allowing the young centre fielder from a small town to find his way at his own pace.

Ah, the weight of a million dollars bonus - too much for any human I expect.


As I said later at Drunk Jays Fans,

Read the article, great link. So now we get the Canadian Border Authority to place a ban on the father entering Canada.  :)

No really, don't call.



mh