Off-Season Link Report - Latest, Inner-city RBI program

[slamotto]

Rottino moving forward

By Pete Jackel

 

By now, it's been well documented how Vinny Rottino quit the University of Wisconsin Pharmaceutical School, where he was an honor student, to pursue his passion of playing professional baseball.

 

It's all well known how he lived in an apartment on the seedy side of town last summer, sleeping on a mattress on the living-room floor, while playing for the Beloit Snappers, which was then Milwaukee Brewers' Class A farm affiliate.

 

And now that Rottino has finally made the grade - he was named the Brewers' Minor League Player of the Year last season after driving in a team-record 124 runs for the Snappers - he can finally relax a little, right? Well, not exactly. The 24-year-old Rottino wants to play major league baseball so badly that he hired a personal trainer this winter. And he paid for the trainer with money he earned working odd jobs at the Sienna Center.

 

That's how badly Rottino wants to succeed.

 

And others are noticing.

 

Another major award will be coming his way Sunday when Rottino is among those honored at the 59th annual Pitch and Hit Annual Awards Baseball Dinner at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill. The Club will award Rottino, a 1998 St. Catherine's High School graduate, with the "Milwaukee Brewers Minor League Player of the Year Award."

 

"Being a former president of the Pitch and Hit Club, I still recommend players from the Milwaukee Brewers who deserve the best honors,'' said Dennis Backis, a Brewers scout who is based in Holland, Mich. "He's got potential. I mean, you just don't come in and do 124 RBIs in one season. That's why he's so deserving of the award.'' Harvey Kuenn Jr., another Brewers' scout, feels Rottino is particularly deserving.

 

"You take a kid from Racine who played at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, goes undrafted his senior year and then to go out basically your first full season and put up the kind of statistics he put up, that's almost phenomenal.

 

"I think he's got a bright future. Obviously, he's going to be a guy who has to go to the next level like everybody.'' Rottino is hoping that next step will be at the Brewers' Class AA farm club in Huntsville, Ala., this season. But before he goes back to work, he will take time out for one last reward from his memorable 2004 season.

 

"It's a pretty big honor,'' Rottino said. "They're giving it to a guy who's not a big-name, big-money ballplayer, so it's pretty much a honor. It feels pretty good.'' A number of other players at the major- and minor-league level will be honored at Sunday's banquet, including Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, White Sox outfielder Aaron Rowand and Chicago Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee.

 

For more information or to order tickets, call Chip Sobek at (219) 365-6236 (work) or the Pitch and Hit Club at (847) 781-8039.

[lend d money]

So, can I safely assume that he is being honored in Illinois only because of the proximity of his hometown to the state border?

[MassBrew]

Seems fitting that on his 21st birthday, we tip the cap to OF Hasan Rasheed -- a beneficiary of Major League Baseball's "RBI Program -- Reviving Baseball in Inner-cities", mentioned briefly here regarding Nashville's RBI program:

 

www.tennessean.com/sports...D=64595546

 

Link to MLB.com's "RBI" page, where it's noted that seven RBI alumni were drafted in the first 15 rounds of the 2004 draft, including the Brewers' 2nd round RHP, Yovani Gallardo.

 

mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/ml...ty/rbi.jsp