Posted on 06/23/2002 2:14:37 AM PDT by BluesDuke
WO freshly minted Brooklyn Cyclones, members of this Class A baseball team that is more or less a wisp — less would be the key word here — of the late, loved and lamented Dodgers, were in this kaleidoscopic part of the universe for the first time yesterday, and feeling their way.
One, a 22-year-old pitcher named Eric Templet, is from Gonzalez, La. The other, Kevin Deaton, a 20-year-old, also a right-handed pitcher, is from Cocoa Beach, Fla.
They were sitting in a dugout at KeySpan Park, with the empty, swooping rides of the nearby Coney Island amusement park just beyond the outfield fences. The players were about to work out in preparation for their opening game tonight against the Staten Island Yankees, and home opener tomorrow — with 98 percent of this season's tickets already sold for the 7,500-seat stadium in baseball-starved Brooklyn.
Templet had extolled a popular Cajun restaurant in his hometown, named "Hymel's" (pronounced "e-mail"). "It's on the levee," he said. He cited as specialties of the house the crawfish étouffée as well as the Mississippi mud pie.
He was asked if he knew of any places to eat in Brooklyn. "Hmm," he said. "No. Just got here."
Deaton did. "Nathan's," he said, with just the slightest air of the gourmet. "It's the hot-dog-eating capital of the world. I saw a tape on television the other night of the hot-dog-eating contest they held last July 4. I saw a 97-pound Chinese woman eat 22 1/2 hot dogs" — that " 1/2" came in for emphasis — "in 12 minutes. It was pretty disgusting. And she only finished third! In fact, the Chinese swept."
The Cyclones, an instant hit last season, are a Mets farm team, and these players, as well as their manager, Howard Johnson, the former Mets infielder, and the pitching coach, Bob Ojeda, the one-time Mets pitcher, are hoping to find their way across the borough to the big stadium in Queens.
Johnson was the batting coach for the Cyclones last season, the first year of their existence. So he knows the ropes of the league and what the players can expect, though, he admits, he has something in common with his players. He still hasn't figured out the subway system.
And he doesn't wear his 1986 Mets World Series ring, the symbol of reaching the highest levels of the profession. Managers or coaches sometimes wear such jewelry as a spur, perhaps, to their young charges. HoJo doesn't wear it yet, anyway. "We've just moved from San Diego," he said, "it's still packed away." He is moving here with his wife, Kim, and their three children.
The Cyclones, one notch above the rookie leagues, were a good team last year and named co-champions of the league when the final series was halted after Sept. 11. Some players have advanced to higher levels, but none to the parent club. It would seem at first thought that, the way the Metsies have been playing this season, any team that wins anything in their organization should be able to send some help to Shea Stadium. Like tomorrow. Johnson was more restrained.
"We feel we've got some bona fide prospects here," he said, "and they might prove it out in a few years. This a developmental league, but we also want to teach winning."
Two of the standouts are Dominicans named Rodriguez. Andres Rodriguez, 21, is a lanky, slugging first baseman, and Edgar, 22, is a third baseman, from the small town of San Pedro de Macoris, where, improbably, scores of major leaguers have come from, from Sammy Sosa to Jose Offerman to Luis Castillo. Edgar says that to make the major leagues, he must work on his "concentration."
Johnson said that a major part of his job was to keep the players "relaxed."
"Most of them are straight out of college, and haven't played before big crowds," he said. "And tomorrow night there's going to be a full house — like 6,500 people in the ballpark in Staten Island."
An intense rivalry has developed between the teams from the two boroughs, and the Yankee and Mets organizations. "And there's going to be television," Johnson said. "Haven't told them about the television." Might get them too hyper.
And as one watched the players go through their drills, with Johnson and Ojeda watching closely, it was all like a dream. A little dream ballpark, the big dream of the future.
Tyler Beuerlein, a 23-year-old catcher who went to Cal and majored in economics and is in his second year with the Cyclones, was asked if he knew how to get to Shea Stadium.
"Literally or metaphorically?" he said.
The same was asked of pitcher Dave Lohrman. When told the old joke about the way to get to Carnegie Hall was "practice, practice, practice," Lohrman smiled wanly.
"That about sums it up," he said.
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