Daily Notes: Actual Quotes from the Actual Ryan Braun

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.

1. Actual Quotes from the Actual Ryan Braun
2. Status Update: All the Caribbean Leagues
3. Plagiarized Video: Johnny Monell Hitting Home Runs

Actual Quotes from the Actual Ryan Braun
By what is likely a result of some manner of oversight or clerical error on their part, the BBWAA recently admitted the present author into its membership. What that does is to provide him (i.e. me, the author) less-than-fettered access to major-league baseball players and personnel. Having only ever had entirely fettered access beforehand, this represents a considerable improvement.

Sunday afternoon’s Brewers On Deck fanfest situation at Milwaukee’s Delta Center provided the first opportunity for the author to exercise the rights of his credential.

By way of illustrating how he was not only allowed near ballplayers, but also managed to interact with them successfully, here’s a brief transcript of an actual exchange between the author and 2011 MVP Ryan Braun:

Q. With regard to the WBC, in terms of preparing for pitchers — from, for example, Cuba or the Netherlands, who you maybe haven’t seen before — what’s the process for that?

A. I don’t know that there necessarily is a process. You know, you try to find a scouting report. But if it’s somebody you haven’t faced, or there’s not much video on [him] — there aren’t really too many options.

[…]

Normally there’s some type of scouting report. I know that we don’t play Cuba or the Netherlands in the first round, so, assuming we’re fortunate enough to make it to the point where we’d play them, hopefully their pitchers would already have thrown, and we’ll get a chance to see some video of them.

Additionally, here’s a comment by Braun that was designed to, and did, elicit laughter among the gathered baseball media — regarding Brewers teammate Jonathan Lucroy’s inclusion on the USA’s WBC roster:

Q. How cool is it to have Luc on the team?

A. It’s amazing, yeah. It’s cool. I didn’t even know Team USA had a bullpen catcher…

“Oh, snap” appears to summarize beloved comedian Steve Harvey’s reaction to Braun’s comment:

Status Update: All the Caribbean Leagues
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — begins on February 1st. Three of the four leagues have finished their respective playoffs.

Here are the teams scheduled to appear in the forthcoming Caribbean Series and those teams’ most notable players:

League: Dominican Winter
Champion: Escogido (roster)
Notable Players: Young Pirates outfielder Starling Marte, Mets utilityman Jordany Valdespin, occasional Red Sox infielder Mauro Gomez, and excellent Rays closer Fernando Rodney.

League: Mexican Pacific
Champion: Obregon (roster)
Notable Players: One-time Braves minor-league slugger Barbaro Canizares, one-time Yankees minor-league slugger Juan Miranda, resurgent Orioles reliever Luis Ayala.

League: Puerto Rican
Champion: Caguas (roster)
Notable Players: Very enthusiastic Giants catching minor leaguer Johnny Monell, Red Sox relief prospect Jose De La Torre, still-talented retiree Javier Vazquez.

League: Venezuelan Winter
Champion: None: Magallanes and Lara tied at 2-2.
Notable Players: Lara’s most notable player is recent Toronto signing and DH-type Luis Jimenez. Magallanes, meanwhile features famous major leaguers Elvis Andrus and Pablo Sandoval — plus less famous, but still notable, offseason Oakland acquisition and infielder Darwin Perez.

Plagiarized Video: Johnny Monell Hitting Home Runs
The author is plagiarizing himself when he shares this video of Giants minor-league catcher Johnny Monell hitting a home run with what is known as “a flourish”:

And continues to plagiarize himself by sharing this other, very similar video: