On The Road With Pat Neshek: Welcome

Whew...I'm glad to have that first game out of the way.  I've pitched in tons of pressure games before but this one had a little more meaning to me.  It seems like I have been asked a million questions about my arm since January and I would always say that I would know more when the first games start.  You can never really tell until you get out in a game situation where the hitter doesn't want to look bad and has a little on the line.  Granted this was the first game of spring training but deep down nobody wants to give up a HR or whiff on three pitches.  Usually in the spring in the past I have pitched the third or fourth game of the spring.  This year I stayed on the pitch, day off, pitch program since day one of the spring.  It's been a big test on my arm pitching all out for this ammount of time and to me my arm has responded better than I thought it would.  I have been getting sore in all the normal spots and even had some shoulder blade soreness this past week for the first time in years.  One teammate told me that after his TJ surgery it took him two years to feel the normal soreness and it was good for me and meant that my arm was getting extended.  Anyways, last night was a lot of fun.  I guess it wasn't too much fun sitting around all day waiting to get on the mound because I was pretty anxious.  We arrived at the field around 4:30 and got ready for BP.  The weather down here just isn't cooperating...it's been this way since November.  The temperature was around 49 degrees with a 10mph wind blowing out to right.  Batting practice wasn't too much fun trying to catch balls that would start out in center and end up in right.  Anyways the game started and most of the guys in the pen got a little cold and decided to move from the CVS bullpen tower we were in down to the ground and did anything we could to stay warm...sprints, squat jumps and stretching.  As I was warming up it was fun to get that adrenaline rushing in and then to hear my name called in to the game gave me a big rush.  As I was running in I noticed I was going to face Marco Scutaro, Jermey Hermida and Josh Reddick.  This was probably the best group of guys I have ever faced in a spring training game so I knew this would be a great test to see where I was at.  Usually in the spring most reliever's come in around the 6th inning and by that time the teams usually put in all the backups.  The backups are a pain to face by the way because they are the ones fighting to make the club while the Vets are just trying to track the ball coming in from the pitcher's hand.  I must add that I played a lot of fantasy baseball last year being out and I knew that Scutaro had a career year since he was on my team. Things felt great out there, after my initial pitch to Scutaro I felt that zone that you hear pitchers talk about.  For my second & third AB's I faced two lefties, during my batting practice sessions a couple weeks ago I talked a lot with Erik Lis and he gave me some great feedback about keeping the fastball low and how my slider was tough. For both of the ab's I threw a couple good fastballs, some nice sliders and even broke out a changeup that was taken for a strike.  As I walked off the mound I felt like a small 50lb weight was off my back.  I realize I have a long ways to go still but it was nice facing top of the game talent and doing well.  

Spring training keeps chugging along...I can't believe we are already into March and games start in 2 days.  Since we started last week we have pitched every other day at a really good pace.  It's always a tough part of the year because you will get sore and a little bit less rest but this is where you really get into that groove that prepares you to throw everyday.  My arm has responded better than I thought it would.  If you would have told me the workload a month ago I might have been a little uneasy about it.  But like I said my arm has responded really well.  As of today I'm scheduled to jump right into our first game on Thursday vs. the Red Sox.  I have to admit I have a lot of emotions going on right now because it's the first game and my first outing in a game setting since I got hurt.  You never know what you are going to get on the mound so it's really hard for me to pinpoint how I will do.  I've done great with bullpen sessions and batting practice & have received great comments from the coaches and players.  Either way I will be out there competing and giving it my best and it sure beats sitting on my butt and doing nothing.  It's going to be really fun to see how my slider moves and if I can get any K's...I'm going to focus on hitting my spots and keeping the ball low.  In the past I never liked pitching in the first game because, well...it's a spring training game and there is too much emphasis on that 1 game.  It's amazing the coverage of that first game...then that game goes by and you might find a story or two on each game that comes after. 

Yesterday we had photo and media day.  Basically it's a day when all the baseball card photos are shot and you do all the shots for the scoreboard for the regular season.  I also did an interview for Athletes Quarterly and was filmed by the legendary baseball photographer Tom DiPace.  The interview centered around sports names and websites.  It was a pretty cool photo shoot and I got to hear some great stories from Tom who has many huge photos to his credits including the Griffey UD RC and basically anything else that was on Beckett or Topps & Upper Deck cards.  Check out his website here, http://www.dipacefotos.com/

I got a box of 2010 Topps series 1 today not expecting much because well, these cards don't really have much value.  Basically I just wanted to check them out and try to pull one of my cards.  To my surprise Topps added a really cool promotion that might get me to go out and buy a couple more blaster boxes.  The newest innovation from Topps is called the Topps Million Card Giveaway.  Basically Topps put 1,000,000 of their cards from throughout their history starting from year 1952.  Every card that they produced for that year's Topps set can be had if you find the right redemption card, oh a Mantle rookie sounds so good.  Now for me I was quite curious to check this out and see how it worked.  Basically you buy a blaster box or hobby box or a pack of cards and you have the shot at getting a redemption card.  In hobby boxes there are 6 per boxs (seeded at 1 in 6 packs).  In blaster boxes for $9.99 at Target or Wal-Mart there are 2 per box.  Basically if you buy a blaster you will get 2 redemption cards where you go online at www.toppsmillion.com and enter your code after you register.  From there the card image will be revealed with name and year and most of the time it will be a let down but there's always the shot of getting something crazy.  From there the cards are placed in a virtual card collection where you can trade for cards you want from other collectors or ask Topps to send you the card(s).  I put in a bunch of trades for my own "Pat Neshek" cards, we'll see how many people are trading.  If anyone has any codes they don't want be sure to let me know.  If anyone wants to trade here's what I pulled.  1955 Willie Miranda - 1974 Larry Stahl - 1978 Francisco Barrios - 1979 Manny Mota - 1980 Bombo Rivera -   1980 Phillies Rookies.

I just wrapped up all the fan mail a little bit ago.  The total came out to 231 letters of all shapes & sizes.   Some of the mail had Metrodome addresses and was from last season that the Twins brought down.  Other mail was from the past month and sent to the right address.  I'm pretty easy with fan mail, if you need anything signed send a return stamped envelope and I will sign what you send, the address is right above this entry and is current.  Here are the highlights & oddities & I included pics so nobody can call BS on me. Click on the links to see the letters

- Out of all the letters 2 did not include SASE's, you have to remember those if you want the cards back.

- Most were straight to the point and included cards & a few 8x10's, didn't get 1 baseball/hat or jersey to sign. 

- 7 people sent me signed cards of other athletes for my collections, thank you very much, here's who I got

Aaron Harang, Ricky Bones, Wilson Alvarez, Deryk Booker, Dennis Boyd,  Mark Cohoon, Marian Gaborik, Greg Bullock, George Kell, Ramon Hernandez, Dave Gagner & Eddie Perez.

- Got a letter with a Dick Pole baseball card in it asking me to sign his card because his name was funny...had to pass, there's no way I'm signing another guy's card.

- One guy sent me a letter and made a huge deal about how he included an unsigned William VanLandingham 1994 Flair card for me to keep...Thanks, I just don't share in the excitement I guess:)

- Got a letter from a student at MIT saying if I signed a card for him he would try really hard to get my name on the moon one day since he works in lunar landing designs...I def signed that card.

- 1 USPS note saying I owed them .24cents or else my letter was being returned...hopefully it got returned ok

An awesome letter from Taiwan & even better one from my fan in Japan...I love getting Japan letters because the translation makes me laugh.

- Might want to straight up avoid this guy...he isn't referring to Bernie Madoff either

- I opened up back to back letters and just shook my head...I don't think he knows I sign whatever he puts in 1 envelope...could've saved 2 stamps

- Also got some artwork.

Day two of camp has already passed, it really doesn't surprise me after this past year at how quickly time goes by.  Not really much to report on, it's your basic spring training.  The daily plan is usually the same until games start.  We usually come out for stretch around 9am and do that and play catch for 30 minutes.  After that we break into three stations and work on signs, ground balls and throw bullpen sessions.  Right now we have half the pitchers in camp throwing pens on one day and the rest will throw the next day.  My first pen went well and I was pretty happy to hear Rick Anderson say that my stuff looked good.  With this injury it's really hard to tell where you are at because most of the time it feels good but you can't tell certain things like velo and how well the ball is moving.  I still have a lot of hurdles to get over in the next couple weeks.  Games are coming up quickly and I need to keep bouncing back from bullpen sessions like I have been...so far so good. 

There are tons of fans this year so be prepared if you are coming down here.  The best time to get autographs is after practice anytime (Walking to gym, back) and I will stop pretty much everytime if asked.  I hate turning people down when we are walking out to the field before we start but I need to get out there and stretch.

It's pretty funny to see this but I remember a couple years back when I was coming up (2004) and got a lot of crap for blogging from pretty much everyone.  Back then it seemed that only a handful of guys on the team had computers and they mostly had them from college.  I loved having access to all the stats and to look up whatever I wanted with my all access sprint card.  I couldn't imagine life without it and how my teammates survived the boredom of minor league ball.  That year though I would get the computer geek comments and things like that from the other guys.  Fast forward now to 2007 and it seems like the entire team has a laptop and was online.   I always thought it was funny seeing teammates coming up to me for help when they crashed their computer or had a problem with their ipod.   I had quotes back then saying that this wasn't going away and will only get more and more in depth (2005).  This year it seems that every media person has a blog or is tweeting or has basically made their coverage you could say "fan friendly".  It's pretty cool to see this happen in such a short time.  I envision the future of sports reporting going more and more all access, videos, sights, sounds.  But the biggest thing I think will center around the athelete themselves and the access they can give...interactive interviews with fans, photos & thoughts.  I think this has yet to really be explored and marketed by agents as well as big companies.  I think this is still a couple years away but it will be cool to see how this evolves into a major source of revenue for whoever has the coolest way to make this happen.  As for me I will go with the flow, I have no big plans although the thought of adding video might happen sometime down the raod.  

It's hard to believe that spring training starts in one week.  It's also hard to believe that I have been in Ft. Myers for 1 full year.  I've been in the same routine now for this entire time and it's great to take the next big step and rejoin the team as a guy that can help the team.  This past week I've thrown a lot off the mound.  On Tuesday I faced hitters for the first time and things went great.  One of the hitters I faced back in November, and I faced him again this time said that I had a lot more zip on the ball this time around.  I was happy with the outing but still wanted to see how my arm felt the next day and how I felt my next outing out.  On Friday I faced hitters again.  It took me a couple days to get over the soreness...normal soreness I should say from pitching a couple innings worth of hitters.  This time around I wanted to work on different arm angles and see where I felt better.  My velocity felt good but I felt like it still wasnt' where I was at during my peak.  On the other hand my slider was a ton better and got some remarks from the hitters.  I asked both guys what they thought my velo was and they said I was sitting most likely around 88-89 on my fastball.  Like I said in previous post with this injury you slowly get your velo back by doing more and more mound work and feeling comfortable with mechanics.  I was really happy because in November my fastball high speeds were 85 & 86.  The hitters also said that my fastball was pretty straight when I left it up in the zone (duh) but when it was down it was very hard to see and was a great pitch for me.  After hearing this I knew I had to concentrate now on hitting my spots and keeping the ball low.  Lately my mechanics have felt really good on the mound and just doing moundwork every other day is making me feel more and more comfortable out there.  So for the past week I have been going mound, toss, toss making sure I gave myself enough time to recover.  This week I wanted to focus on going mound, toss, mound since this is what we will be doing in spring training during the first week.  Yesterday I was the least sore I have been after doing a bullpen this year so today when I got off the mound everything felt great.  This week I'm going to face hitters again on Tuesday giving me 1 day of rest tomorrow.  After that I'm going to take 2 days from the mound and throw again on Friday.  After that it will be the start of spring training.  By doing all this I will be prepared for all the throwing that is to come and know that I will be fine with the workload.

So far down here there hasn't been too many guys that have shown up. Last week Mauer and Hardy were here but they both took a week off and flew back to MN.  Today I noticed Crain & Guerrier and a couple days ago Swarzak & Harris.  I'm guessing the bulk of the guys will be here this week, I can't wait to get going.  

Daily Arm Update: I had a great bullpen session today, mechanics are starting to come together finally...it's tough to replicate the motion...don't laugh! Velo was up, no gun but rehab master & catcher Lanning Tucker told me it was coming in fast and heavy. My confidence is going up:)

Just kidding, I'm just messing around, I haven't talked to Mauer at all...I needed to get some more hits and I figured Google's algorithm would put me on the top search!

I've made some huge strides in the last couple days with my mechanics and I have another bullpen tomorrow.  I'm probably the most excited for this one because I think I figured out what I wasn't doing and that I might have some mojo back...I'll tell you one thing though, it's been very hard to figure out how I threw that way...I think I have it down though.  I'll let you know how the bullpen session goes.  

I got back from Twinsfest late Sunday night and went right to bed...got in at 11:50 pm.  Yesterday I played catch and got back into the swing of things working out.  Today I threw another bullpen session and it went well but something mechanically still feels off.  I think today I was rushing my windup and when I do that things can get out of whack pretty easily.  My next bullpen is on Friday and I can't wait.  Right now at the field they are having Red Sox and Orioles fantasy camp.  I didn't recognize anyone but heard Rico Petrocelli and Steve Finley were in town, later in the week Jim Palmer is suppose to show up.  

Twinsfest Sunday went just as good as the previous couple days.  I signed with Jeff Manship and we signed non-stop for an hour then nobody came through the lines.  I picked up some sweet heavy metal cds, a Death Row Rap shirt and some more signed cards from fans.  After I got done signing I walked around the dealer tables and came across a sweet Burleigh Grimes signed baseball and added it to my collection, a nice way to end the weekend.

I thought I would include this pic of my interview on XM...I didn't know they updated it for every guest...pretty cool stuff. 

Last week was Twins caravan and I went on tour with Joe Vavra, Ron Gardenhire and Matt Tolbert...plus TC Bear.  This year was probably my favorite of the 3 caravans I have been on.  The weather wasn't bad cold wise...we did get an ice storm that cancelled a couple stops.  Highlights of the tour...our bus driver drove most of the participants in the MN Vikings boat scandal and had some funny stories.  The bus we drove was one of those party buses that had lights that lit up to the music, big screen TVs and everything else you could think of in a party bus...I did get some pretty incriminating pics of TC Bear haha.  The stops this year were fun, we went to some great schools, great nursing homes and had some great nighttime stops.  The least favorite stops on tour are usually the radio stations because most of the time there aren't too many fans and they make you read these things called liners...stuff like "Hey it's Pat Neshek of the Minnesota Twins and you are right at home at WAAA".  One of the stops the radio guy thought he was funny and made me say Mower County about 20 times...I was pretty sure I was saying it right but he disagreed.  In the end it was a great trip, got to see my friends at Wincraft in Winona again, picked up a nice signed Robin Yount ball from a guy in New Ulm and picked up some sweet autographs from fans in Winona including a Steve Liddle and Wayne Haddaway signed minor league card.  

Once caravan got over I flew back to Florida for the week to keep working out and threw another bullpen.  When I got back my dog Kirby must have thought I was gone a month because he went nuts when I came through the door.  My bullpen session went great.  I thought I was doing excellent the week before but that week of rest during caravan really helped my arm.  Throwing long toss I felt myself again...not to say I didn't feel like this before but man I really felt like the ball was doing things I wanted it to do.  Sure enough I threw my bullpen and it was my best one yet.  I was still doing something weird with my mechanics (not that my mechanics are great in the first place) like opening up my shoulder too quickly or popping up to quickly...I really can't wait for Rick Anderson to get down here so he can check it out.  I think in the meantime though it will iron itself out...a lot of pitching is doing things over and over again and that is where you will start seeing things do what you want.  All in all though last week was a pretty good one confidence wise knowing I can build off of this and I'm pretty close to game ready.

This week is Twinsfest...the Twins invite nearly everyone in the org...probably over 60 players to come sign autographs.  The players do not get paid but do get a hotel room and coach plane ticket to get up here and back.  Last night I got a ton of cool things from fans.  A Telsa (The band) signed photo, a sweet homemade patch card of myself that looks better than something Topps can produce and also picked up a Johnny Bench Rookie card in a trade on my message board.  Yesterday I signed for about 1.5 hours and it went by really quick.  At night I got a firsthand tour of Target Field from Twins Director of Public Affairs man Kevin Smith.  The place is pretty incredible; they didn't skimp in details on that place.  Today I sign later in the day and have to go in around 1pm for the yearly team physical...all the other guys go as well.  Give me a shout if you head out to Twinsfest.

I don't know what's going on but for the past week in FL it has been 30 degrees everynight...you're right though, that's nothing compared to up north.  I just find it unusual for South Florida.  Things are going great for me, I took a week off for the holidays and I'm at the point where I don't even think about my arm being hurt anymore.  For me the one big thing that is missing is facing hitters and getting that competitive fire inside...I can't wait because sitting here thinking about baseball and mentally wearing myself out got old about 14 months ago.

So far there are only a handful of guys working out down here.  There have been a couple guys from other teams here as well...5 total guys so far, pretty boring.  Next week I'm going to start throwing light bullpen sessions.

We put in a good charge but John Gordon just missed out being added to the HOF ballot for announcers.  I didn't see the final vote total but the 3rd place finisher Joe Nuxhall got 1,100 votes...I know we were close.  Hopefully tomorrow Bert will be added to the Hall, if not this year then next year for sure.  

Thanks to everyone who is following me on Twitter, I thought having a website, message board, myspace & facebook were enough but I was wrong...Since myspace isn't cool anymore I'm going with Twitter.

Once again be sure to get on the message board right above this and chat about anything baseball and collecting.

I just got back from the Colorado College - Cornell hockey game.  It was cool having ranked teams come to Ft. Myers and play a couple games...we don't get much hockey down here.  Colorado College was really good and controlled the entire game.  When I got home I was surprised to realize that tons of guys on the CC team were from Minnesota.  I really liked the play of Nate Prosser from Elk River, he nailed a bunch of guys and got in their faces after the play was over.  I can always remember the MN Gophers being the top college hockey team...what the heck happened...I can see that a CC team full of Minnesota guys might have something to do with it. 

Not much else is new, killing time down in Ft. M

The Baseball Hall of Fame is letting fans vote on the Ford C. Frick award this year to be a finalist on the ballot.     Please vote for JOHN GORDON by clicking here

Merry Christmas to everyone.  This year we stayed down in Florida and it really doesn't feel like Christmas at all...but at least we don't have to worry about feet of snow coming our way.  This is about the last week of relaxing in the offseason for most guys...once January 1st hits it is go time for most baseball players.  This is about the time of the year when guys will start getting into their throwing programs and eventually start to throw bullpens.  It's amazing to think how quickly the offseason has went by already. 

I last threw a couple days ago and am taking a couple days off to relax and enjoy the holidays.  My arm is getting closer and closer to feeling like I never had the surgery.   I can't wait for spring training to come along so I can get some of that adrenaline flowing...I think that's when I will really find out where I am at.  It's been nearly 2 years and I can't wait to get back on the mound and strike some guys out.

I decided to bring this back after a long time off.  This is a very rough list of stuff I've listened to in the past month.  For the most part these albums have all been released in the past month or so.  Of course this list is a lot of Metalcore and hard rock.  I'm not a big death/dark metal fan but if it has a catchy riff or sound to it I'm sure I'll be into it.  Be warned there's a lot of screaming and it's a strange genre that's not for everyone.  Here's the first installment, I'm hoping to make this at least a bi monthly deal.

 Top 20 - November 29th, 2009

20. Devildriver - Bitter Pill
19. Earth Crisis - So Others Live
18. Between The Buried & Me - Desert Of Song
17. Nile - Kafir
16. Scar Symmetry - Ascension Chamber
15. Texas Hippie Coalition - Pissed Off & Mad About It
14. Poison The Well - Are You Anywhere?
13. Converge - Damages
12. Scar Symmetry - Radient Strain
11. CKY - A#1 Roller Rager
10. Earth Crisis - So Others Live
9. The Red Chord - Hour Of Rats
8. Isis - Hall Of The Dead
7. Despised Icon - MVP
6. Skindred - Stand For Something
5. Gwen Stacy - A Dialogue
4. We Came As Romans - Roads That Don't End
3. Dredg - Pariah
2. Pelican - The Creeper
1. Texas Hippie Coalition - Leavin