Chris Hayes — Guest Blogger
Hello from the Arizona Fall League. My name is
Chris Hayes and I’m a relief pitcher with the Kansas City Royals.
I’m a fan favorite. I know you all have been waiting weeks on end
for mlb.com to ask me to be a guest blogger on this site, so on their
behalf, I would like to apologize for the delay. My blog will
be the best baseball blog ever…
…Because I will be interviewing Matt Wieters.
He is my teammate on the Surprise Rafters and is excessively good at
baseball. And let’s be honest, who’s heard of Chris Hayes? I
would ask for a show of hands but I don’t have a cricket sound maker
or any tumbleweed, so we’ll assume you are all looking up the
Surprise Rafters blogs to hear about Wieters anyways. If you haven’t
heard of Matt and you are reading this, you must be a relative of
mine, because anyone who invests the time to scour the depths of the
Internet to find this blog is obviously one of my relatives or a
baseball super-fan and any super-fan knows Matt Wieters. For my
relatives’ sake, I’ll introduce Matt before we get going with
this interview.
Matt Wieters (left) walking back to home plate after a mound visit with Chris Hayes. Matt stands 6’5″ and scouts say has a big league body. Chris is a pitcher.
Chris Hayes: “Matt sorry for the delay here, thanks
for being with us, I’ll begin the questions shortly. Feel
free in the meantime to sign some autographs.”
Matt was the Orioles 1st
pick in the 2007 First Year Player Draft. He struggled horribly
this year only hitting .345 in Hi-A Frederick with 15 HRs and 40 RBI
in just under 9 games. Due to his struggles at the plate and
lack of speed output (only 1 for 2 in Stolen Bases at Frederick), the
Orioles sent him to AA Bowie to try to keep him out of the eyes of
scouts. Again, he struggled. In 61 games in Bowie, Matt
only had 1 stolen base, but did limit his caught stealing totals to
0. He did not reach base safely almost 50% of the time while in
Bowie and in his first season as a professional, we can all assume
the Orioles were looking for more out of him. They sent him
here to the Arizona Fall League to try to jump-start his confidence
by surrounding him with talented players like myself whose upsides
cannot be described without using the phrases “sky high”,
“unlimited”, and “existent”. The Orioles have made an
effort to boost his self esteem by having hundreds of autograph
seekers come to Arizona and treat Matt like the Beatles and swat guys
like me away like a fly. Without further ado, please give your
attention and your support to our catcher, Matt Wieters, as outlined
above, he could really use both.
CH: “Matt, thanks for being with us today, thanks for
taking time away from excelling at everything you do to be with me
today.”
Matt Wieters: “No problem, Chris. I think I’m
even contractually obligated to be here.”
CH: “Well it means a lot. The Fall League
suggested I finally do something to ‘make myself useful’ and ‘add
value to the league’ so I’m hoping this blog goes over really
well. Getting this interview is a big step for me in that
direction.”
MW: “Glad to help.”
CH: “Alright, phew, deep breath. It’s going awesome
so far. Let’s get started… Can you sign this ball for me?”
MW: “Seriously?”
CH: “Maybe later, then. Did you know that you
are, like, my favorite player? What’s that like?”
MW: “Well, I’m flattered, Chris, but maybe we could
stick to the questions you want to ask for the interview.”
CH: “I’ll be honest, I really didn’t have a whole
lot planned, I’m kinda new to this and just wanted an excuse to get
to chat with you. I figure that way I can tell my grandkids
someday I interviewed Matt Wieters.”
MW: “”
CH: “Also, during some games when you are catching
and I am pitching and there’s a base runner on second base and we
need to agree on which finger signs you are going to give, I get to
chat with you, but otherwise I haven’t gotten to hang out that
much.”
MW: “That’s true is that why you’ve let so many guys
get to second base?”
CH: “I think that was a run-on sentence, Matt.
Just a tip. Speaking of grammar, did you know that you are
famous enough that ‘Wieters’ does not get underlined in red as a
misspelling on most word processors. Hayes doesn’t either,
but I think that has less to do with my fame than yours. Your
thoughts?”
MW: “There was that one president Hayes, right?”
CH: “Great point. Let’s go with it. In 1931,
Babe Ruth was asked why he wanted a higher salary than president
Herbert Hoover and his response was, ‘I had a better year than he
did.’ Would you say you had a better year this year than Babe
Ruth?”
MW: “The Babe is such an icon. He really
revolutionized the game and made baseball what it is today.”
CH: “Yeah, and unfortunately today he is dead.
Despite your struggles, I think your 2008 campaign might have the
slight edge over the Sultan of Swat’s 2008.”
MW: “This year I did attend big league spring
training for my first spring as a professional, was named the top
prospect in the Carolina league and made the All star team, made it
all the way to Double-A in my first full professional season, got
named to Baseball America’s Minor League Baseball All Star team,
and capped it off by winning Baseball America’s Minor League player
of the year award. I think that’s a pretty decent year.”
CH: “Gulp.”
MW: “I’m sure you had a great year, though, too,
right? I mean we’re both here in the AFL.”
CH: “I did
stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”
MW: “And…”
CH: “And… And….
I have a blog! Well, a guest blog, I’m not even a regular. But
still, literally 7 to 6 people are waiting to read it because I am so
famous.”
MW: “”
CH: “I’m hoping Google Searches for your name direct
people here. You know, get some more hits that way. I really need
this thing to be a hit. I promised the AFL the best blog ever. How
do you think it’s gonna be?”
MW: “Pretty decent. May be the best of the year.”
CH: “Really?! That’s awesome! So glad you think
that.”
MW: “Well yeah, everything else I’ve been involved in
this year has ranked me #1.”
Note: This blog
does not reflect the views, beliefs, or thoughts of Matt Wieters, the
Orioles, the Royals, or really even Chris Hayes for that matter.
Matt is not only the best baseball player ever, he’s a pretty darn
humble guy. Hope you all enjoyed the blog, I know I did. I figure
it’s more entertaining than hearing some guy you’ve never heard of
ramble about how gorgeous Phoenix is in the fall and how the AIG
retreats are really a blast this time of year. Hope wherever you
are, you are having as much fun as we are playing ball.
Royals in the AFL 