Royals Rumblings - News for March 3, 2021

Today’s date is three-three, which pleases me.

Andy McCullough wrote a joyous piece about the happy history of Salvador Pérez, which then takes a hard turn into this previously untold story:

Then Pérez tells another story. He says only a few people know it. When the Royals signed him, Pérez explains, he did not understand the business of baseball. He thought he was going to play in Kansas City right away. When the team sent him to their complex in the Dominican Republic, he grew despondent. He didn’t like the food. He couldn’t understand the Spanish spoken by non-Venezuelans. He missed his mother and grandmother. He decided he had made a mistake.

“I was about to retire,” he says. “I was about to go home.”

On his third day away from Valencia, Pérez called his mother, Yilda Diaz. He told her his troubles. He wanted to go back to school and find a job to support her. His mother said she would back him no matter what he decided. But she reminded him of his dream. He believed he could play baseball, she told him.

Also at The Athletic, Alec Lewis covered the rise and fall and (hopefully) second rise of prospect Seuly Matias.

On April 15, 2019, Matias had a 1.09 OPS. He was hit by a pitch that day and twice more in the two weeks that followed. One of them crushed his left hand, but Matias didn’t say anything. His numbers dipped, but he didn’t tell anybody.

“He hid the injury from us because he wanted to play,” Royals assistant general manager Rene Francisco said this summer. “He didn’t want to sit out for months.”

Why Matias chose that route may have been his sheer love for the game, the confidence he has in himself and/or how much he knows he can help his family. Francisco said Matias lives in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, near the northern part of the island. He was raised by a single mother. Grew up poor. Never had the opportunity to go to school, Francisco said.

A legend returns:

Let’s all celebrate by doing backflips!

Adalberto Mondesí is dealing with a sore foot, writes Anne Rogers:

Matheny said he’s hoping to have Mondesi in the lineup later this week after a few more running drills. The Royals want to make sure he’s running at full speed before putting him in a game.

“He got hit by a live pitch in the foot before he came here, when he was training at home,” Matheny said. “It was just sore, and obviously speed’s a big part of his game. ... We’ll just go day by day to make sure that he’s not starting off just trying to make up ground. But things are moving in a very good direction.”

To go along with previous news that Single- and Double-A seasons were going to be delayed, Jeff Passan reported for ESPN that the Triple-A season is also facing a delay. With that news, last year’s setup involving alternate sites will make a (hopefully temporary) comeback.

Teams are hopeful the delay allows for the vaccination of players before they are sent to their minor league affiliates, which came under the management of MLB this winter. Vaccinated players would allay concerns with teams about players arriving from minor league sites and immediately joining clubs without a quarantine period.

This Rumblings compiler is positively devastated. I was really looking forward to returning to Werner Park next month!

Old friend Jake Odorizzi is still in search of a team:

MLB Trade Rumors did some reporting on players whose option status is in question due to the shortened 2020 season.

At FanGraphs, a Yordan Álvarez appreciation post.

Mickey Callaway being a creepy pervert was the “worst-kept secret” around the teams he worked for. Further reporting strongly indicates that Cleveland team brass knew that their then-pitching coach was sending and soliciting graphic photos. Nick Francona, son of Terry Francona, went on the record saying his father knew and covered it up.

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Rapper Soulja Boy called the WWE fake, which did not go over well with WWE wrestlers.

How and when to plant a spring garden.

The demise and potential revival of the American chestnut.

A preview of restaurant architecture in a post-COVID world.

New EU “right to repair” laws will require companies to make their products, including TVs, fridges, and washing machines, to last for 10 years.

Many answers to this week’s Reddit question might make you very angry! “Doctors of Reddit, what was the worse thing you’ve seen for a patient that another Doctor overlooked?”

Do we need to do a Discourse about unpaid internships? There was a suggestion yesterday that I would, so here we go: Pay a fair wage to everyone who performs work for your company! Pay promptly and don’t try to renege on promised wages!

I did an unpaid internship in the Nebraska Attorney General’s office in 2009-2010, which required formal attire at the “skirts and pantyhose” level. Those clothes were expensive, especially on a wage of nothing. With the internship came a verbal promise there would be a paid part-time role that summer. There was not. I hope interns in that office today get paid, because my past suffering does not necessitate someone else being treated poorly.

Dolly Parton helped fund the Moderna vaccine. Now she has received her first dose!

Today’s Rumblings Dogs come from reader It’s Mr. Dunning Kruger to you. Thank you for blessing our page with Lizzy and Lilly; they are tremendous dogs. If you’d like to have your pet featured on a Wednesday Rumblings post, feel free to email me!

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Song of the Day: Cher - Just Like Jesse James