Jeff....I remember Wakamatsu, but didn't know him personally. My friend Romy Cucjen was a teammate of his and Barry Bonds. That's where I first found out how big of an asshat Barry Bonds was.
Godogs, that's one thing a guy could immediately see in pro ball. The outfielders were all fast, very fast, especially at AA and above. You really had to earn your hits. The best example I could ever cite was when the Giants drafted Will "the thrill" Clark in 1st round of 1985 draft. The Giants had hopes of sending him to Fresno (upper A ball) when MS State got through in the College World Series. IIRC a guy named Roger Clemens ended MS State's fun at the CWS. In the time between when they drafted Will and the CWS was over was a period of a couple of weeks I believe. The media was having fun in Fresno telling everybody to not expect great things out of Will at first as he would have to get used to using wood, and that wood was way different than aluminum. Well they were theoretically right about that, but Will put a clamp on that fun by going 4-5 with two HR's, and two doubles in his first game with us in Fresno. Absolutely amazing ability he had, but he was also the hardest worker by far. We hit it off pretty good becuase he was basically a good ol' boy from S Louisiana who loved to hunt and fish, which was right up my alley.
add, when Sosa and Pudge came out to Midland to look, at investment opportunities, Sosa was already "turning light" for lack of a better word. Pudge gave him a ration of crap for 3 days about him wanting to look like Michael Jackson. I laughed 'til my sides hurt at those two.
Since y'all like the stories. Here's one JG will love. He played with some of these guys.
About 1990, I went to Braves/Giants game at Fulton Co stadium with my best friend BIg Darrell. BD was a defensive end at MSU '82-'86. Darrell was 6'3 and 290 then, and most of it was a mouth. Since it was late in the season and the Braves were still terrible, there was nobody in the stands, maybe 3500 fans, so we got seats about 15 rows behind the Giants dug out.
Right when the Giants finished infield warm up, BG hitches up his britches and walked right down next to the dugout as the players ran in. In the loudest Darrell voice possible, he shouts so that everyone could hear him (and I mean everyone)! :
"WILL CLARK IS A PUSSY!!!"
Will Clark's head snapped up with a scowl on his face looking for the A-hole shouting at him and sees Darrell. Big grin breaks out on his face "I thought I felt the earth tilt to this side when your big ass sat down!"
Clark came over a stood around and chatted us up until literally the first pitch. Invited down to the clubhouse for the post game spread. Gave the clubhouse boy $50 just to make sure my hand always had a beer in it. Clark is going around introducing me to different players. I knew Brett Butler because he lived near me, so I suddenly had street cred. Next thing I know I'm drinking beer and eating off a mountain of cold boiled shrimp on ice. They had deli sandwiches, fried chicken etc for the post game spread. I'm talking with Kevin Mitchell, Terry Kennedy, Atlee Hammaker, etc. Jeff Brantley was on that team and played at Miss State, so he and BD and Clark were all big buddies.
Went clubbing afterwards. Man, the Big League life! It would have killed me, but it is everything you dream about, if you're good enough, long enough.
JG - I forgot Bedrock was on that team and he was my patient for years. He showed me around too.
