First and foremost, let me apologize for my long hiatus from posting on Redleg Nation during the 2010 season. I discovered Twitter this year and it became much more convenient to make short, daily updates compared to lengthy personal summaries. If you have yet to try Twitter, I would highly recommend it for all Reds fans. There are several players who keep a steady stream of entertaining and candid tweets pumped into cyberspace. A few players you might be interested in following: Matt Maloney (@mo56maloney), Sam LeCure (@mrLeCure), Corky Miller (@Corky_Miller) and myself (@mattklinker). I also hear Mike Leake and Brandon Phillips are on board as well.
I was very pleased to meet some of the Redleg Nation followers at Redsfest in December. That was a great event and I really enjoyed being able to take part in it. On top of benefiting the Reds Community Fund, it allows fans to really interact with players (obviously some more than others), and just created a positive buzz around the city. And although most of the fans I met were still in the afterglow of the divisional championship, Redsfest was still a nice reminder to everyone, especially with the snow that weekend, that baseball is right around the corner.
Unlike the three previous years, I did not work a job this off-season, besides giving pitching instruction and working the occasional camp at Champions Baseball Academy in Milford. After making some fast cash playing winter ball in Mexico, I really wanted to try and focus more on my preparation for the upcoming season. There are too many stories from my short stay in Obregon to try and recount here, but hopefully when I sit down with Bill Lack before heading to Goodyear, I will have a chance to share a few tales from my time in the Liga Mexicana del Pacifico.
MAJOR NEWS UPDATE: Matt just let us know that he’s been invited to the big league camp. Redleg Nation shares his excitement and wishes him a great spring!!