__Former Tribe shortstop Kyle Padgett finds himself on the fringe of pro baseball__

Kyle Padgett never saw it coming. It was the summer of 2005 and his future employer didn’t bother to tell him he was a top candidate in a pool of hundreds of qualified applicants. To the men debating his merits, he came with four years of statistics to analyze. Was he a five-tooled prospect or a bust?

p. Other than the numbers next to his name, the men knew little. One, maybe two scouts from the organization had ever seen him in action. But that didn’t matter so much in a business that prides itself on requiring multiple psychological questionnaires that probe future employees on such weighty issues as “Would you rather be a bus driver or an airplane pilot?”

p. The news came late June 7, 2005, after he sat at his computer for hours, anticipating a job offer. The day wore on when familiar names flashed by on the screen. And then the phone rang. It was the Florida Marlins.

p. Welcome to a two-day, 50-round marathon, otherwise known as the MLB Amateur Draft. Before his selection as the 546th overall pick in the 18th round of the 2005 draft, Padgett was the College’s primary shortstop for four years. Throw out a year-long sophomore slump in 2003, and he hit over .300 for his career.

p. Most notably, he was a kid who nearly set the school record for games played, and succeeded current Tampa Bay Devil Rays infielder Brendan Harris as the next standout Tribe shortstop.
Kyle dreamed of playing professionally since his prep career in the Boston suburbs, and all he could do was wait and watch the 2005 draft unfold on the computer screen. In the weeks prior to draft day, scouts from the San Francisco Giants and Chicago White Sox among others contacted Kyle to tell him he was on their draft board. All that was history when he picked up the phone and the scout told him he’d be a Marlin.

p. Within weeks, he was shipped south to play for the Gulf Coast League (GCL) Marlins, the organization’s rookie ball affiliate, in Jupiter, Florida. The Marlins were, in his words, a great organization and he couldn’t wait to start his career with them. Just two years removed from a World Series title, their farm system was once again in need of young talent.

p. On a balmy July evening this summer at a ballpark in the northwest part of Michigan’s lower peninsula, the manager of the visiting Washington (PA) Wild Thing’s signaled to the dugout for a replacement when his starting shortstop for the game injured his leg trying to beat out a hit. As the Wild Thing’s cleared the bases in the top of the fifth inning, leading the host Traverse City (MI) Beach Bums 3-1, the summoned player emerged from the dugout and made a beeline across the diamond. The PA announcer’s voice could be heard over the incessant chatter of the crowd. “Now playing shortstop for the Wild Things, Kyle Padgett,” he told the 3,142 fans in attendance.

p. Two years and a month removed from the 2005 MLB draft, this was the same Kyle Padgett that signed to play with the Florida Marlins. To be sure, he hadn’t lost anything from his lightning fast arm that won him praise during his college career.

p. Tonight’s game was a match-up between two foes in the Frontier League, an amalgamation of independent teams scattered across small towns in America’s heartland. The league was arguably the lowest level of professional baseball, featuring players who dropped under the scouting radar in college or were released prematurely from affiliated baseball.

p. And this was where Kyle came to resurrect his career. “I wanted to come here and prove that I can play when I got the everyday starting job – something I never got to do with the Marlins,” he told me.

p. As recently as the summer of 2006, Kyle was a Marlin’s farmhand, but after falling out of favor with the organization they cut him unceremoniously last January. Before the advent of numerous independent leagues in the early 1990s, a released minor leaguer ran out of career options and inevitably retired. As a Frontier Leaguer, Kyle had new life. If he got a call from a scout or an invitation to spring training from a big league organization he wouldn’t think twice about leaving the Wild Things.

p. “It’s always in the back of my mind,” Kyle said of being signed an MLB team. “I’d love to get the phone call tomorrow, but you can only control so much. If you start worrying about things outside your control, then it gets in your head and you don’t do well.”

p. It was June 2005 and the Marlins organization had a new look after dumping big money talent and bringing in young and unproven prospects. If someone failed on the big league level, the nature of the business meant players in the farm system would advance. “Coming into the system I was thinking if I did well, I’d get pushed along quickly,” Kyle said.

p. Waking up every morning at the crack of dawn, Kyle endured workouts and then played a game starting each day at noon as the Florida sun reached its peak. At 22, he soon discovered he was one of the oldest players on the GCL Marlins, and one of the few who had spent four years in college.

p. Appearing in 35 games, Kyle batted .227. “I tried to do too much too quick,” he said. But according to Kyle, the team coordinators were mainly concerned with potential. Along with batting average, a stat was kept for hitting balls hard, and when the coordinators were in town they saw Kyle’s results weren’t reflecting his high level of play.

p. Without warning, the manager brought Kyle into his office after a game and told him he’d be leaving Jupiter the next morning and flying over 1,000 miles north to New York to play for the Jamestown Jammers of the New York-Penn League, a short season low-A affiliate of the Marlins.

p. “I was completely caught off guard. Nobody said, ‘Hey, you’ve been doing a good job, you might be promoted’,” Kyle said. “I was completely in the dark.”

p. In the minor leagues, many players report there is poor communication with management. Will Rhymes, a close friend and teammate of Kyle at the College, who is currently in the Detroit Tigers system, was promoted to the double-A Erie SeaWolves this past summer at the same time his family and friends were flying to Lakeland, Florida to see him play for the Tiger’s high single-A affiliate.

p. In Jamestown, Kyle played in only six games, even though the team didn’t have an everyday shortstop. In his brief tenure for the low-A club, he batted .208 in 24 at bats.

p. Unlike his first stint with the GCL Marlins, there would be no handshake waiting when the Jamestown manager brought him into his office after a game. Just a ticket back to the Gulf Coast League.

p. As much as professional baseball was a physical grind for Kyle Padgett during the summer of 2005, the mental aspect was tougher. “I sat around and thought about if they were satisfied with me. I kept asking myself if I was doing enough,” he said. “It ate at me.”

p. Fast forward to the spring of 2006 and Kyle was at the Marlins spring training complex vying for a spot on the Jupiter Hammerheads, the Marlin’s high-A affiliate.

p. He knew that if the Marlins thought you were good enough to play in the high-A Florida State League (FSL) in just your second year of professional baseball, in their eyes you were quickly becoming a top prospect in the organization. Somehow the tryout seemed too good to be true.

p. When Kyle saw his name on a list for extended spring training, it meant he would drop the two very same steps he had advanced, and continue spring training in the GCL, while higher affiliated teams began their regular seasons. It was the last thing any player wanted in his second summer of pro baseball. When he reported to rookie ball, the manager kept telling him he’d be the first guy promoted. Kyle thought that meant he’d be gone in a week, hours away from what he described as, “the worst place in professional baseball.”

p. Nearly a month later he was told to report to Jupiter, instead of Jamestown as he had envisioned. Upon arriving, Hammerhead’s manager Tim Cossins promptly inserted him into the lineup, and Kyle answered with a hit and a walk in his debut. The next two nights he watched the action from the bench, before being demoted to the GCL. “I was basically giving a guy a day off at shortstop,” Kyle said.

p. It was the first of nine times that he would bounce between the Marlin’s high-A and rookie ball affiliate during the summer of 2006, in which time he started to realize his role in the organization had morphed into a spot-filler.

p. Why was he trapped in a game of ping pong? Both the GCL Marlins and Hammerheads play at the Marlins spring training complex, permitting the organization to send a player over from the rookie ball team in a moment’s notice, instead of disrupting someone at another level.

p. “There’s a surplus of players in the GCL, and you have players come over to Jupiter a lot for injuries who can fill in. Kyle Padgett was that guy,” Cossins said.

p. Despite struggling offensively and seeing sporadic playing time, Kyle believed he would be back for spring training in 2007. He had little reason to think otherwise after a late season streak bumped his batting average up nearly 100 points to .214 at Jupiter. What no one knew at the time was that the Marlins had other plans.

__Miscues on offense, special teams prove costly in loss; College finishes with more passing yards, first downs__

Facing the fastest offense and most accomplished defense the Tribe will match up against all season, in front of the largest and most raucous crowd the team will battle this year, the College preformed valiantly against Virginia Tech Saturday. The Hokies struggled at times to move the ball against a motivated Tribe defensive unit, but Tech pulled away after three quick scores at the end of the first quarter, capitalizing on defensive and special teams plays to defeat the Tribe 44-3 in front of more than 66,000 fans in Blacksburg’s sold-out Lane Stadium.

p. “We played against a very, very good football team,” Head Coach Jimmye Laycock said. “I really hope its going to make us a better football team. I think it will, because we competed. That’s the biggest thing you look at when you come into a game like this and a situation like this. You are going to face adversity and you’re going to face things that are going to go against you here and there. I thought our guys hung in there and competed very well.”

p. It would have been easy for the College to lie down to one of the top teams in the nation, but the Tribe showed fight, especially on the defensive side of ball. The Tribe’s offense struggled to hit its stride early, resulting in excellent field position for the Hokies on their first few possessions, but the College’s defense held strong, forcing Tech to field goals on drives that started at the Tech 43 and Tribe 39 yard lines.

p. “In all phases, the defensive line played well, the linebackers played well, and the defensive backs played well,” sophomore safety David Caldwell said. “They weren’t able to throw the ball over our heads and they weren’t able to run the ball on us. We pretty much accomplished our goal for total yards. We still have a lot of work to do, but we’re getting better and better.”

p. When the Hokies did make their move, it was not through dominating drives against the Tribe’s defense, but instead through the College’s mistakes. Tech notched five touchdowns in a six-minute span at the end of the first quarter and start of the second off of a punt return for touchdown, interception return for touchdown and a muffed punt that gave Tech the ball within the Tribe’s five-yard-line.

p. “I told the players, you play a team like this and make mistakes and they get magnified,” Laycock said. “You make the same mistake against somebody else more on our level and you can overcome it. Here it’s going to turn into a big play or touchdown.”
The Tribe’s only score was the result of the game’s longest and most impressive drive. Following an excellent punt by Virginia Tech, the College started from their own two yard line.

p. Over the next nine plays, junior quarterback Jake Phillips showed why the Tribe’s offense is ranked among the best in the FCS. Phillips carved up the Tech defense, completing long passes to redshirt-freshman receiver Cameron Dohse and senior tight end Drew Atchison en route to the Tech four-yard-line, where the drive stalled. Redshirt-freshman kicker Brian Pate entered and booted a 22-yard field goal to put the Tribe on the board.

p. “That was fun,” Phillips said. “We were backed up in their student section and it was loud and everything was going on. I was looking in each of the guy’s eyes and everybody was calm, everybody was collected. We had already settled into the game and everything. It was great to move right down the field. We converted a couple of third downs and everything. Converted some big plays and guys stepped up. It was a sense of accomplishment, but we know we could do that more… but it was good, it was something positive we can take from the game.”

p. Over the last few years the College has scheduled games against larger schools as a way to give the team’s players a chance to square off against stronger competition. Last season the Tribe the University of Maryland. The team battled Marshall University the year before. Next season the Tribe will travel to Raleigh to face another ACC foe in North Carolina State University. Despite having yet to record a win over these bigger programs, the team relishes the chance to compete on a higher level.

p. “I hope a lot of guys enjoyed it out there,” Phillips said. “We think of it as an opportunity, a chance to see where we stack up against these guys and an opportunity to play on that level. It was fun out there. We were out there moving the ball and making good plays and making things happen. It really was tough, but we also think of it as an opportunity.”

p. The College will look to draw on their experiences at Tech to help prepare them for a tough conference schedule. The Tribe will close with seven games against Colonial Athletic Association foes, beginning with Towson University Saturday at 1 p.m. at Zable Stadium.

p. “The big thing is going back and watching tape and watching film and getting better at things we need to improve on,” Phillips said.

p. “But the game’s probably going to slow down a little bit, it’s definitely going to slow down from this level. We’re already looking forward to it.”

The Tribe enjoyed success at the U.Va. Fall Invitational, winning 17 of 25 matches over the weekend. Among the winners was junior Klaudyna Kasztelaniec, who overtook all three opponents to earn the title in the Flight C singles after defeating Marshall’s Thaddea Lock 6-0, 6-3.

p. Junior Katarina Zoricic, ranked 46th nationally, won two of three singles matches in Flight A, beating South Carolina’s 36th-ranked Gira Schofield 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 before dropping a match to no. 48 Kellie Schmitt of Marshall 6-2, 6-2. Several top Tribe players will head to the Riviera/ITA All-American Championships Oct. 2-7 in Pacific Palisades, Calif.

The College set a school-record 54-hole total of 856 strokes to finish at 8 under par in the Sea Trail Intercollegiate Sept. 21-23 and placing fourth out of 19 teams. Senior Jonas Miller spurred the Tribe’s strong performance, shooting three consecutive rounds of 70 for a share of 8th place and tying the 54-hole school record of six under, set last tournament by junior Brent Paladino.

p. Paladino continued his hot streak, shooting rounds of 71-70-70 to finish at five under, while sophomore Connor O’Brien, senior Jimmy Femino and junior Doug Hurson helped the College’s efforts, tying for 30th, 50th and 60th respectively in a field of 99 golfers. Elon University took the title this weekend with a staggering 36 under total of 828.

The 24th-ranked College fell to fourth-ranked University of Virginia 1-0 in double overtime Sunday. The Cavaliers’ Julia Falk netted the game-winning goal in the 106th minute of play after gathering a cross from teammate Caitlin Miskel. U.Va. outshot the Tribe 23-2 and earned 10 corner kicks, while the College managed only one. Junior goalkeeper Meghan Walker recorded seven saves for the Tribe before Falk’s golden goal ended the College’s shutout streak at four games. The loss drops the Tribe’s record to 5-3 while U.Va. improves 6-1-1.

Saturday night the men’s soccer team (2-3-2) battled the no. 15 Virginia Tech Hokies (5-1-1) at Albert-Daly field step-for-step, resulting in a 1-1 draw that ended Tech’s five-game winning streak. The College’s lone goal came in the third minute of the game off the foot of sophomore midfielder Price Thomas, while the Hokies’ forward Georg Zehender scored off a corner kick early in the second half. Neither team was able to score for the rest of the match, as the Tribe’s redshirt freshman goalie Andrew McAdams halted the best chances to pull ahead late in the second overtime on a series of game-saving stops.

p. “We played very, very well,” Head Coach Chris Norris said. “Even though we didn’t win, it was a statement game as who we are as a team and what we are capable of.”

p. The College is now 5-1-2 all-time against the Hokies when playing in Williamsburg.

p. Thomas’s goal was his first of the season, and occurred following a miscommunication between Hokies goalie Brandon Dunn and his defenseman. Junior Tribe defenseman Brock Jones sent the ball into the box off a free kick and redshirt freshman forward Alan Koger headed the ball toward Dunn. The ball squeezed past Dunn, allowing Thomas to flick it in for his first score of the year in the third minute of the first half.

p. “A play was called for Koger, my job was to run off of him. The goalie misplayed it. It will probably be the easiest goal of my college career, but they all count,” Thomas said. “It means the world for us to battle and come out with a good result.”

p. The Hokies came out strong in the second half, scoring quickly off a corner kick by midfielder James Gilson. The ball came in from the near side of the field, and Zehender headed it in off the far post behind McAdams in the 48th minute, making for his second goal of the season.

p. “They jumped out on us early in the second half,” McAdams said. “Their intensity level was above ours.”

p. “Virginia Tech outplayed us for about the opening 20 to 25 minutes of the second half. We played like a team that was afraid to lose,” said Norris. The Tribe regrouped on defense, but did not manage a shot in the second half.

p. The best chance for a decisive goal in overtime came off of a Hokie corner kick late in the second over time. Hokies’ preseason All-American forward Patrick Nyarko registered multiple shots on goal, but McAdams fought off the attempts and got some much-needed help from his defense to keep the game 1-1.

p. “We feel that we can compete against anyone in the country,” McAdams said after the last two games against ACC foes.

p. The Tribe returns to Albert-Daly Field Tuesday at 7 p.m. against American University, who are coming off a Saturday afternoon 5-0 loss to Virginia Commonwealth University.

Throughout the history of American sports, the media has played a crucial role in the evolution and development of every major professional and collegiate league. From the beginnings of baseball and football to the multi-billion dollar industry the National Football League is today, the inexorable rise of sport as a major part of the fabric of this country is due in large to the prevalence of media in its various forms. Without Red Barber, Frank Deford, ESPN or the recent growth of the sports blogosphere, the global superstars of today would be no more wealthy or famous than the local high school quarterback.

p. Along with that influence, however, comes a unique responsibility to help maintain and uphold the laws and codes of sport. While the respective head offices of each league are responsible for discipline, each commissioner can only do so much to police the respective sport. It then falls to the established media to act as an objective watchdog, both reporting and analyzing any possible transgressions. Without a doubt, journalistic pressure — specifically the ability to influence public opinion — is a leading arbiter of change in the sports world.

p Yet, in recent months, the media has been neglecting that duty with a glaring omission. In one of the most high-profile sports leagues in the world, one that receives more coverage than any other American sport, several of the game’s biggest stars have committed acts that run completely counter to the integrity of the national sporting scene. And the media has not raised a finger.

p. While the Michael Vick dogfighting case and the Bill Belichick Spygate affair have dominated national headlines, a much greater scourge has penetrated the NFL. The presence of performance-enhancing drugs among several of the league’s top stars should be enough to elicit scathing editorials from the press and harsh responses from the Commissioner’s office, much as it has in Major League Baseball and other sports, yet little has been said. Indeed, last year, even after being suspended for a steroid-related violation of the league’s substance abuse policy, San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman still finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting with six first place votes.

p. The panel of voters? A collection of Associated Press sportswriters, a similar body to the one that denied Baseball Hall of Fame entry to former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire for his performance-enhancing drug record. Hardly a consistent standard for what is possibly the biggest threat to the integrity of modern sports.

p. Merriman is not the only big name to test positive in recent years. In 2005, a 60 Minutes report revealed that three former Carolina Panthers players, including ex-Pro Bowlers Todd Steussie and Todd Sauerbrun, purchased testosterone and steroids from a South Carolina pharmacy. Later that year in a similar 60 Minutes segment, former NFL star linebacker Bill Romanowski admitted to purchasing and using steroids and Human Growth Hormone from the same Bay Area Laboratory Co-Op that was famously linked to a host of MLB players, including Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi.

p. Just this past month, the NFL suspended New England Patriots safety Rodney Harrison for four games for an unspecified violation of the league’s substance abuse policy. Clearly, these are not isolated cases, and while the NFL’s substance abuse policies are widely regarded as adequate, there is only so much the league can do to punish offenders while having to deal with the obstructionism of Gene Upshaw and the NFL Players Association.

p. In reality, the real punishment for known steroid offenders is not suspensions or fines, but being pilloried in the media. While a four-game suspension and a hefty fine (the NFL-mandated penalty for a first offense) represents a good deal of time lost for a star football player, it pales in comparison to the millions in lost endorsement deals that scornful newspaper reports and furious talk radio hosts can bring about, not to mention the eventual shutting of the gates of the NFL Hall of Fame. One need only look so far as the likes of Bonds, McGwire and Sammy Sosa for evidence of this.

p. The latter two were regarded, in their prime, to be among the greatest players ever to set foot on a field, putting up statistics that rank among the best of all time. Yet once evidence of their corruption emerged, nearly every one of their lucrative endorsement deals vanished, and their once-sterling records were regarded with derision and scorn. While the future reaction to the career of Barry Bonds remains to be seen, mainly due to the incredible magnitude of his accomplishments, it is doubtful that any of the three will ever be enshrined in Cooperstown.

p. The media continues to ignore the transgressions of the likes of Merriman and Harrison while simultaneously blasting the offenders of other sports. Consequently, as long as the penalties for cheating in the NFL remain relatively lenient, the benefits will far outweigh the consequences. For the sake of the NFL, the players and the fans, the media must end their tolerance of steroid cheats in football and send a clear message that any offenses will not be tolerated.

p. __E-mail Matt Poms at mbpoms@wm.edu.__