March 2010

Darren Ford’s Excellent Spring

At 1 p.m. today in Vineland, N.J., home-health-care aide Carla Ford received a call from her mother, who had received a text from California.
Darren Ford, Carla’s 24-year-old son, had been named the winner this morning of the annual award given to a player in his first big-league camp “whose performance and dedication in Spring Training best exemplifies the San Francisco Giants spirit.”
The Harry S. Jordan Award is a big deal because it’s voted on by the Giants’ players, coaches and training staff. Tim Lincecum won it in 2007, Brian Bocock in 2008 and Joe Martinez last year. All three made it to the majors in the year they won.
“Darren’s very humble, so he didn’t let me know, but I’m sure he would have told me about it later,” Carla Ford said by phone a few hours after she had heard the news. (Ford’s host family from the San Jose Giants had texted Carla’s mother with the news.)
Ford has batted .500 (10-for-20) with two doubles, one triple, four RBI and four stolen bases in 17 games this spring for the Giants. Last year Ford played for Single-A San Jose. He batted 300 in 101 games and helped the team to its highest regular season win total in franchise history (93 wins) and the California League Championship.
No one in Vineland seems surprised by Ford’s success. He was a star not only in baseball but football, basketball and track in the city of about 55,000 people in Southern Jersey.
“He was always the fastest of the fast,” says Ford’s 24-year-old cousin, Kevin Ford, who said he thought Darren would end up in professional football. 
Darren, too, thought he might pursue football. His mother watched him one day in high school as he sifted through letters from football, baseball and track coaches from different colleges.
“Oh my god, Darren, how are going to decide what to do?”
“Mom, I’m leaving it in God’s hands.”
“You’re right,” she said.
Soon afterward, Darren attended a baseball tryout at a local college where he caught the eye of a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers. After a year at Chipola College in Florida, the Brewers drafted Ford in the 18th round of the 2004 draft. He came to the Giants in the 2007 trade that sent Ray Durham to the Brewers.
But it’s no surprise, really, that Ford ended up in baseball instead of football. It’s in his blood. His grandfather, Ted Ford, played in the majors for four years for the Cleveland Indians and Texas Rangers, from 1970 to 1973. Ted Ford has lived in Texas since Darren was born and has had little interaction with his grandson beyond the occasional phone call. So Darren was raised and shaped by women – his mother, her five sisters and their mother – plus Darren’s own two sisters.
Carla Ford, a single parent, born and raised in Vineland, worked from 10:30 at night until 7 in the morning as an aide at a residential facility for mentally handicapped women. (Two years ago, she took on a second job, working days as a home health care aide from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.) She raised her children in a three-bedroom apartment, pushing them to play sports. She attended every game she could. 
“I would always tell Darren, ‘Don’t come home (after school). Too much stuff to get into here,’ ” Carla says.
If Ford begins the season with the Giants’ Double A team in Richmond, VA, about 35 family members from Vineland are planning to attend Opening Day. 
“We’re such a close-knit family,” says Darren’s grandmother, Beverly Ann Borden. “I know Darren gets very homesick, so we try to visit him every place he plays. We were in San Jose last year and everybody there treated us so well.”
Perhaps, before the year is out, San Francisco will be on the travel schedule for the Ford family from Vineland, N.J.

A Game Within A Game

When Mark DeRosa’s bunt rolled past the yellow-lined target a few yards from home plate, he huffed out of the batting cage to a hail of trash talk.
“They didn’t bring me over here to bunt!” he shot back, laughing.
DeRosa was competing in the team bunting contest this afternoon, a little competition that served mostly as an opportunity to try out new insults on each other.
There were two teams: Starting pitchers vs. position players. Five players on each team. Closer Brian Wilson boycotted the whole thing, watching from a good distance with his arms crossed..
“Not worth watching if there are no relievers,” he said.
DeRosa was joined by Kevin Frandsen, Andres Torres, Pablo Sandoval and Eugenio Velez. Freddy Sanchez was offering tips to his fellow position players.
“You want to hit it right here,” Sanchez said to DeRosa and Sandoval, pointing to the fattest part of the bat. “Right here.”
By the end of the first round -the vague rules were devised and enforced by third-base coach Tim Flannery – DeRosa and Sandoval were out as were most of the pitchers. 
“You got to use ash!” Sanchez was now advising Frandsen and Torres. “Maple’s too hard.”
By the end, Frandsen was the last man standing. Not sure what he won, other than the lasting respect of Freddy Sanchez.

The Clubbies Speak

So I showed up in the clubhouse this morning after being away for almost a month. I stopped in the players’ dining room to get my morning cup of coffee. Three of the “clubbies” – the men who take care of the players’ uniforms, food, equipment, everything — were cleaning up from breakfast.
I asked how spring camp was going so far. 
“Best in a long time,” one said. All three clubbies had been around for many years.
“This team,” he said, “something special about them.”
“Don’t you think that every spring?” I asked.
“I haven’t seen this since 2002,” he said.
All three talked about a sense of maturity and confidence they saw in clubhouse. The young guys who came up together in the minor-leagues – Lincecum, Cain, Romo, Sandoval, etc. – had now had time to mesh as big-leaguers. And among the biggest stars, there was no jockeying for power, no ego-driven attempts to establish their importance. 
“Do you know which player has been with the Giants longest?” one clubbie asked me.
I thought about it. No Randy Winn. No Rich Aurilia. Barry Zito?
“Matt Cain,” he said. “Four-and-a-half years.”
I wondered what that meant for a club — to have an entire roster of guys who were fairly new to the team. In the clubhouse, Aubrey Huff was sitting in front of his locker after workouts, reading a magazine. Did he, as a veteran player new to the Giants this spring, think the relative newness of the players have an impact on team chemistry?
“I think so,” he said. “I’ve been on teams where you walk into a clubhouse and it just doesn’t feel right. I walked in here and everyone’s ragging on each other. Everybody here seems to dish it out. And everybody takes it.”
In other words, everyone seems on pretty much equal footing. 
“You look at a guy like Lincecum,” Huff said. “He doesn’t have that ‘I’m in the paper everyday’ attitude. There are a lot of guys who are self-promoters, but he hasn’t let anything go to his head. So that sets a tone right there.
“I’m a big believer in chemistry. Sure, you can spend $300 million and probably win. But for most teams, chemistry is one of the things you have to have in order to win.”
That’s the buzz from here. Yes, it’s spring. All this optimism might be nothing more than a byproduct of 82-degree weather and a 14-6 record. 
But when the clubbies are waxing poetic, you can’t help but wonder.

A Glimpse of Spring

If you can’t make it to Scottsdale this year, set your DVR to Comcast SportsNet Bay Area at 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon. (See other times and dates below.)
You’ll get an hour of spring ball like you have never seen it. 
“Inside the Clubhouse: Spring Training 2010 Part 1” takes you into the clubhouse in Scottsdale, where the cameras first follow longtime clubhouse manager Mike Murphy  (and his dog, Bella) as he dotes on the players like a favorite uncle. 
“Everybody’s here early,” he says on the first day of camp. “First time I’ve seen that in a long time.”
You’ll hear from Bengie Molina about how much it means to him to be back with the Giants after an uncertain off-season. New players Mark DeRosa and Aubrey Huff weigh in on their expectations for the 2010 club. You’ll see Manny Burriss and top prospects Thomas Neal and Darren Ford hold hands in prayer before digging into breakfast at their favorite spot, Lo-Lo’s Chicken and Waffles. 
The cameras also followed Tim Lincecum on the day in November he found out he had won a second consecutive Cy Young, and they follow him to New York for the awards ceremony in January. 
And you also get to see Pablo Sandoval’s famous hike to the top of Camelback Mountain during Operation Panda.
Tune in. It’s an insider’s experience of the sights and sounds of Giants baseball in the desert (plus Tim and his Cy Young).
Air dates on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area:
Sunday March 21 @ 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.; Tuesday March 23 @ 6:30 p.m.; Friday March 26 @ 1:30 a.m..
Then look for the debut of “Spring Training 2010: Part II” on Tuesday March 30 at 6:30 p.m.
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