Jack Roeder blog: What we learned at spring training

All good things must come to an end, and with a 7:00 am flight in the morning it's back to Cedar Rapids spring training will be over for us. It's been 20 years since I've been down here, but it was well worth the wait. It's been a great trip, and Wally and I have enjoyed every minute of it. It was great to see so many of the people that have made the past 20 years so rewarding. It has also been beneficial on a number of other fronts including seeing how the Angels run a clubhouse. We will be able to take back some of the things we saw and learned, to our clubhouse to help our equipment manager Ron "Roady" Plein. Speaking of Roady, it is was birthday number 66 for him and we just got back from taking him out to dinner. Ruby Tuesday's no less, his favorite. Eric Blum runs the clubhouse down here and does a terrific job with the help of the other clubhouse attendants from all of the Angels affiliates. Keeping everything moving for over 150 players is not an easy task. Eric is the last to leave each night and back by 4:00 am. He made sure everyone knew it was Roady's birthday by awarding him a birthday cap to wear all day.

We went to watch the minor leagues practice this morning before they played games this afternoon. By the way, the Kernels won again, this time it was 8-5. Get your tickets now, this is going to be an exciting team to watch. Each day you see more and more people from Cedar Rapids coming to spring training. We had a chance to visit with Mark and Inez Mattke who were in town with their son Mack, and his friend Jon Keller. Both Mack and Jon, are outstanding  young baseball players at Xavier high school, and were taking in all that spring training offers. Something tells me both of them will see more spring trainings, and they may well be participating in the future and not spectators. Let's hope that happens down the road. We also had a chance to see an old friend Marcus Knight. Fans will remember Marcus as he played for the Kernels in 1998 and 1999. He was at the Angels game with Mark and Inez, who served as his Host Family while he played in Cedar Rapids. He's living in the Phoenix area and doing just great with two beautiful daughters.

We also had two other special guests at the game. Two of Wally's grandchildren, Jenna and Parker, who live in the area were able to attend the game. Parker got a lot of autographs including Arte Moreno, the Owner of the Angels and his favorite player, Jeff Mathis. So it was a great day for him.

Ex Kernels were all over the field again today as the Angles topped the Rangers, and many of them were the stars of the game. I picked a great day to wear my Kernels 2007 Midwest League Play-off shirt as our ace on that team, Sean O'Sullivan, was the starting pitcher. Every game that we saw this week had at least one former Kernel on the visiting team too. Today is was Matt Brown playing for the Rangers.

I've enjoyed writing these blogs during the week, and would like to thank the Gazette for making all of this possible. Hopefully, we will have others writing some blogs during the upcoming season which is right around the corner.

See you back in Cedar Rapids...