Mitchell: Hello, Goodbye

The long and winding road that Kelvin De La Cruz has taken over the past several weeks seems to have led him to Erie, PA. De La Cruz has been claimed off of waivers and optioned to Double-A by the Detroit Tigers after being designated for assignment by the Cleveland Indians after being traded to Cleveland by the Texas Rangers for cash after being traded to Texas for cash (which later turned out to be a trade for infielder Davis Stoneburner) by the Indians after being DFA’s by Cleveland to make room for Casey Kotchman on the 40-man roster. That may well be the longest sentence ever written in English starting with the word De.

The most recent DFA of De La Cruz was made necessary because the Indians claimed relief pitcher Henricus van den Hurk, formerly Rick VandenHurk (insert Carmona joke here) off of waivers from Toronto.

Thursday, the Indians made another round of roster cuts and the Clippers roster seems to be taking shape. RHP Zach McAllister was optioned to Triple-A along with IF Cord Phelps, OF Trevor Crowe and RHP Chen Chang Lee. All of these men are expected to make significant contributions to the Clippers effort to win another championship.

Phelps will likely be the everyday 2B for Columbus. Lee may well slot into the closer or set-up roll and Crowe can play all 3 outfield spots well. McAllister will be in the Clippers starting rotation, where he was an All-Star last season in a great bounce-back campaign.

The Clippers grounds crew is hard at work prepping the field. I’ve never seen a field look so good in Ohio in the month of March. We are less than two weeks away from Opening Day at Huntington Park!

Speaking of Opening Day, the park will open at 5:00 pm on Thursday, April 5th for Happy Hour specials in the ballpark prior to the ballgame. The first 3000 fans through the gates will get a Clippers National Championship hat on opening day as well.

For those of you immersed in social media, Opening Day presents a unique opportunity. The Clippers will feature the first “Tansky Bullpen Hashtag Suite.” For $10, you can watch the ballgame from the Tansky Suite and tweet, update status, check-in and tumbl to your heart’s content. I made that last one up because I don’t know what tumblr is nor do I know the proper verb to use to describe its use. Log on to clippersbaseball.com to get tickets.

If you are like me and love day baseball, do yourself a favor and use the above link or call 462-2757 to get tickets for the 1st Business Day Special of 2012 on April 12th vs. the Indianapolis Indians. With an 11:35 1st pitch, you can enjoy a full afternoon of baseball, or sneak out of the office for a few innings. You’ll be glad you did.

Another exciting offer from the Clippers- Spring Break Me Out to the Ballgame Clippers Social Media Diva Stefanie Olejniczak can give you all the info you need on that, so give her a call, you score major points if you can pronounce her last name correctly.

Minor league baseball’s MiLB.TV is back for 2012 and it is the best way to follow your favorite team when you can’t be at the ballpark. For just $39.99 you can see over 2500 minor league games, including every Clippers game home and away.

Scott and I depart next week for Goodyear, AZ to get the lay of the land in Indians Spring Training. We will have blog entries, pictures, interviews and hopefully some video of the goings-on in the desert. Don’t forget that on March 31st at noon, we will bring you the Clippers Preview Show on AM920 WMNI.

Questions and comments to rmitchell@clippersbaseball.com