Steve Rosenblatt, the son of Johnny Rosenblatt – the former mayor and city councilmember who also played a little baseball and was the namesake for Rosenblatt Stadium – was at Werner Park recently and he spoke with Omaha Baseball 360.
The Omaha Storm Chasers finished off their storybook season by sweeping the Sacramento River Cats in the PCL Championship Series, winning a league championship for the first time since 1990.
On Monday, before the Chasers worked out at Werner Park for the PCL Championship Series, Clint Robinson spoke with Omaha Baseball 360 about his season.
Kila Ka’aihue hit a two-run walkoff home run in the bottom of the tenth inning Saturday to give the Omaha Storm Chasers the Pacific Coast League American Conference Championship.
The moving trucks backed up to Rosenblatt Stadium early this morning, ready to transport office furniture, boxes full of desktop knickknacks and decades of memories.
“This is an unbelievable day,” said Rob Crain, assistant general manager of the Omaha Storm Chasers, while sitting in his now empty office. “I came in the office today beeping the horn – all excited because it’s moving day. We’re really excited. We made a lot of memories here over the past 42 years and we look forward to carrying those over into Werner Park and having a great, long term relationship there.”As the Omaha Storm Chasers’ office staff packed for the move to Werner Park in Sarpy County some 15 miles away, they ran across quite a few surprises.
All 1,500 players who are drafted each year out of high school or college dream about making it to the major leagues. Sandwiched between the dream and the possible realization of it are injuries, slumps, hot steaks, adjustments or a lack thereof, the mental aspect of the game and low pay. And then there are the uncontrollables – the personnel moves, playing time and timing.
Tony Okun, who grew up in Omaha watching the Omaha Royals play and now lives in Idaho, gives us a glimpse of the entire journey through the eyes of two players who come from different perspectives in his “Time in the Minors” documentary distributed by Landmark Media.
Tony Schrager, a 28-year-old infielder who was born in Omaha, played for Omaha Westside, and went on to play at Rosenblatt Stadium in the 1997 College World Series for Stanford. The Chicago Cubs drafted him in the 6th round in 1998 and sent him to play in A-ball. Schrager got an $87,500 signing bonus, plus $20,000 to finish school and he was paid $850.00 a month in A-ball, minus expenses.
John Drennen, an 18-year-old highly touted outfielder, received a $1 million signing bonus out of high school with the Cleveland Indians after being selected as a sandwich pick in the 2005 draft. He started in rookie ball, making $1,175 per month.
The documentary weaves back and forth as their stories progress during the 2005 and 2006 seasons, taking viewers into the locker room, weight room and family room of each player. Okun interviews their current and former coaches, scouts and teammates. As you watch, the tension builds, making you wonder if either of them will see their dream realized.
“This isn’t a glamorous story,” Okun said in a phone interview. “It’s hard. It shows the challenge that they go through and that’s exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to just go from A to B and show you what these guys go through. And I hope you walk away from it with a newfound perspective or respect for these kids playing in the minor leagues.”
Okun shows how important timing can be as minor leaguers chase their dream. At one point, just as Schrager is positioned to get a call to the major leagues, he goes into a slump. In another scene, Drennen gets a chance to face Roger Clemens in a minor league game, shortly after Clemens came out of retirement in 2006 to pitch for the Houston Astros. Clemens hung a 2-2 splitter that Drennen hammered over the right field wall.
Eventually, Schrager found himself out of affiliated baseball in an independent league, and you can feel the feel the pressure he is under as he talks about it.
“I wasn’t ready to say that my career was over in affiliated baseball,” Schrager says in the film. “This is really the only way for me to get back in it. Even if I go out here and have a great year, there’s no guarantee. I could have the best year of my career here and there’s no guarantee that somebody’s going to pick me up.”
The DVD is available in two lengths – a 60 minute version or an 85-minute version, the latter of which includes footage Okun shot in Omaha at Rosenblatt Stadium when Albuquerque visited Omaha for a series in 2006. Schrager played for Albuquerque at the time
“It was real special, walking up on those old, slick, metal risers again,” Okun said. “It was bringing back memories from my childhood. I thought it was very special – Tony coming back to his hometown.
“It was great. It was nothing but a wonderful experience. I really enjoyed it. I actually caught a foul ball. I was up with the other videographers and a ball comes screaming up toward me and I caught it. I got a nice ovation from the crowd. It was really funny and I have the ball in a box of stuff I collected while shooting the film.”
The longer version of the film contains portions of a radio interview Schrager did with Mark Nasser, who has been calling Omaha Royals’, now Storm Chasers’, games since 2001. Schrager says during the interview that one of the first things he did after he learned he’d be playing for Albuquerque was to look at the schedule to see if they would be playing in Omaha.
If you are interested in picking up a copy of the DVD, you can find out more by going to the Oh! Show Productions website. Here’s a trailer of the film:
Various Minor League Baseball teams, including the Omaha Storm Chasers, send Omaha Baseball 360 (as well as other media outlets), game summaries. Those summaries are sometimes tweaked, re-written or published as-is. Other times, game summaries are written from scratch.
