Epilogue

I wanted to come back to write one final post over here.  I truly appreciate all the comments and want to thank everybody for them, and for dropping by over the life of the blog.  It’s not been easy walking away from the blog, but certainly if someone wants to carry on with one, it’s not that hard.  Time consuming, but not that hard.  In the meantime, I believe that Neate will carry on with his coverage of the team and the Facebook groups will likely pick up their activity as well.  MSM coverage looks promising so far - with the Citizen and CTV Ottawa showing a great deal of support for the team.  Unfortunately, the news yesterday was not all that positive:

Rapidz fire GM Charrette

Dismissal by new owners ends ‘dream job’

Don Campbell

The Ottawa Citizen; with files from The Ottawa Citizen Staff

Thursday, May 08, 2008

The team name suggests “strong and forceful movement” and the new owners of the Ottawa Rapidz have wasted little time in dusting the franchise’s first general manager.

With the countdown to Opening Day of the 2008 CanAm League season at 16 days and new team ownership only 10 days old, the Rapidz have fired Don Charrette.

The move came late Tuesday, one day after the resignation of Charrette’s wife, Lorraine. She had worked for 15 years with the former Ottawa Lynx Triple-A club owned by Howard Darwin and, later, Ray Pecor. That team moved to Pennsylvania after the 2007 International League season.

Charrette, a 56-year-old former Little League coach, was one of the first hires for the CanAm franchise in January.

At the time, he called it a “dream job,” and he stuck by that assessment yesterday.

“It was a dream come true,” Charrette said. “When Miles (Wolff, the league commissioner), Lorraine and I were doing it, things were wonderful. We had a great team here.

Charrette had just returned to his office Tuesday afternoon after wiring money to a prospective player in South America when he was approached by Rapidz owners Rick Anderson and Rob Hall.

“I never saw it coming,” Charrette said yesterday. “Our family is devastated. I am devastated. I have no idea what my next move is. No idea.”

The Rapidz are to hold a free-agent tryout camp today at their home stadium on Coventry Road. The best of that crop is expected to begin an abbreviated spring training with players under contracts on Saturday morning.

The Rapidz have an exhibition game against a city all-star team next week and home-and-away exhibitions with the independent league’s Quebec Capitales one week later before opening the regular season May 22 with a four-game series against the New Jersey Jackals.

“Don made a strong contribution to getting things going here,” said Anderson, president and CEO of Zip.ca and Rapidz Sports and Entertainment, which bought the baseball franchise from the CanAm League. “We are grateful and respectful for what he has done.

“Baseball has a rebuilding job to do here and things have to be done to do that. Don did a helluva job the last three or four months to get things going.”

The GM’s position was never meant to have any connection with the baseball side of the operation, Anderson said. Charrette had been hired to set up the business side, and Anderson said another person with a business background would be hired to replace him in that role.

Wolff was in Ottawa before leaving on Sunday. He said he was unaware of problems between the new owners and Charrette, who had been hired by Wolff.

“The new ownership has their own ways of doing things,” Wolff said. “For myself, Don Charrette was the right kind of general manager. He did a good job for me. He wanted to become involved in baseball full-time and this was his chance.

“But new ownership will make changes anywhere, and it’s like a player being released. That player is never happy. The new owners have a vision for what they want this to become and they have a plan. The business side of things is where their expertise lies, and I will continue to consult them on the baseball side until Opening Day.”

Yesterday, the Rapidz announced the signing of 27-year-old infielder Juan Carlos Infante.

Losing both Don and Lorraine will certainly sting - I feel sick about this, as I’m sure do many of you.

See you at the UOLB.

Exit stage left

The UORB is closing it’s doors.  Unfortunately, there’s just too much on my plate right now and I don’t see that situation improving anytime soon.  If I can’t do it justice, it’s best not to do it at all.  You’ve probably noticed a steady decline in the blog since the first press conference; my heart’s just not in it anymore.

I should have the occasional Can-AM related post over on the Unofficial Ottawa Lynx blog, but as of today the Raps blog is no more.  Thanks for coming by for the last five months, and we’ll see you at the park.

Carl.

All aboard

Friend of the Rapidz, Mark Sutcliffe writes “How the Rapidz can replace Ottawa’s missing Lynx” in today’s Ottawa Citizen.  Mark captures the substance of what I’ve believed about baseball in Ottawa, that things could turn around, in one clear sentence:

Because the hope that springs eternal dictates that a different outcome is always possible.

I think he’s right of course.  But then, I’ve always believed that thing could be different - that they should have been different for baseball.  Ultimately, the Rapidz success or failure will rest with the team and the residents of the National Capital Region. 

Changing course for the moment, I received an email today asking that I remind everyone about the baseball episode of the Road Grill - BBQ TV show.  The show will be taped this Saturday, May 10^th, @ Brewer Park Baseball Diamond from 9 to 6.  If you plan to attend, please flip me an email and I’ll let them know so that they can save you a spot.  They hope to have two Rapidz players at the BBQ as well, so here’s your first “meet and greet” opportunity.

Who is Kyle Geiger?

Back to the lab again.  With just a few short days until Spring Training begins, the blog returns to player profiling.  Ed Nottle and the Rapz have signed what looks to be their starting catcher, Kyle Geiger.  Geiger will be 26 next week ( May 8 ) and comes to Ottawa via the New Britain Rock Cats - Minnesota’s AA team in the Eastern League.

Batting Statistics

Year	Team	Lg	Age	Org.	Level		Pos	Ln	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	HBP	IBB	SH	SF	DP	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	GB%
2003	Elizabetht	App	21	Min	Rk		c		9	33	1	7	2	0	0	4	0	0	2	6	0	0	0	0	0	.212	.257	.273	530	–
	Quad City	Midw	21	Min	A		c		11	36	4	5	1	0	0	1	0	0	2	7	0	0	1	0	1	.139	.184	.167	351	–
2004	Quad City	Midw	22	Min	A		c		53	189	22	55	8	2	2	25	0	0	15	43	4	0	0	4	3	.291	.349	.386	735	–
	Fort Myers	FSL	22	Min	A+		c		31	82	3	16	1	0	0	7	0	0	7	17	0	1	0	2	3	.195	.253	.207	460	–
2005	Fort Myers	FSL	23	Min	A+		c		81	292	34	75	8	0	6	33	1	3	24	55	7	0	0	1	12	.257	.327	.346	673	–
2006	Fort Myers	FSL	24	Min	A+		c-1b		61	226	27	56	10	0	1	21	0	0	14	40	3	0	1	1	7	.248	.299	.305	604	–
	NewBritain	East	24	Min	AA		c		30	102	5	14	1	0	2	5	1	0	7	33	1	0	2	0	7	.137	.200	.206	406	–
2007	NewBritain	East	25	Min	AA		c		85	276	37	69	17	1	4	35	0	0	17	44	5	0	1	4	8	.250	.301	.362	663	–
Minor League Totals - 5 Season(s)									361	1236	133	297	48	3	15	131	2	3	88	245	20	1	5	12	41	.240	.299	.320	619	–

A career .240 hitter, Kyle appeared in 85 games for the Rock Cats last season and according to our friends at Scout.com, his stock fell a bit from his 2006 season:

Geiger was supposed to have a breakout season for New Britain this season, but after a standout season for the Fort Myers Miracle last season, he struggled with the bat in the Eastern League. Still, he is regarded as one of the better catching prospects in the Twins organization, but could be back in New Britain next season. Overall, he batted only .250, and if he can learn to work the count better, should be a .275 or better hitter.

Still, he made enough of an impact in New Britain that he won the 10th Player Award, which was determined by fan voting.  And as a relative late-comer to the catching position, Kyle offers Ed some much needed versatility.

Kyle Geiger: In high school, my junior year, I played some outfield and DHed a little, but didn’t really catch full time until my senior year.  My senior year, the last home game of the season, I played every position in 1 game. My coach always wanted to do that, but never had that versatile of a player to do it with, so he started me pitching that game, and then I moved all around the diamond in the order of positions every inning.  And since we only played 7 innings in H.S., I played the outfield in the last inning and just moved to the three outfield positions for every out(1 our for left, center, and right).
I also wrestled for 1 year, and played football all 4 years.

Readers of the UOLB will know that our clan has a real soft spot for catchers (e.g. Brandon Marsters, Eli Whiteside, Jason Jaramillo) so we’ll be following Kyle’s Ottawa career closely.