Scotnik

PITCHER
B: Mar 18, 1969, Abilene, TX
H: 6’4″    W: 210    B:R    T:R
Selected in MLB Scouting Bureau Draft: Dec 17, 1991
Visalia 1992; Mesa 1992
Released: Apr 2, 1993

Of the four players signed on December 17, 1991, Marc Morris’ Rockies career was the briefest. Following a few sparse appearances with the unaffiliated rookie level Pocatello team in 1991, he split 25 games between Mesa and Visalia in 1992, but never found a groove on the mound. He was released in the spring of 1993.

That said, Morris’ career doesn’t look like much. But still, brief as it was, no matter how you look at it, HE WAS THERE. You gotta hand it to the guys who get spotted, drafted, signed, and utilized at any professional level. It’s a dream most of us would give our [name one of your favorite body parts] to experience. And it’s as good a reason as any for doing this blog and recognizing these overlooked ballplayers — as well as the more successful ones.

PITCHER
B: Oct 1, 1968, Queens, NY
H: 6’8″    W: 230    B:R    T:R
Selected in MLB Scouting Bureau Draft: Dec 17, 1991
Visalia 1992
Sent to Expos as PTBN in Travis Buckley trade: Dec 8, 1992

Matt Connolly is the answer to a somewhat obscure Colorado Rockies trivia question:  Who was the first Rockies player to be traded to another team? He was signed in the special draft of December 17, 1991, following an undistinguished season in Class A Erie, but who wouldn’t be interested in giving a 6’8″ right-hander a shot? He followed up with a fairly decent 5-1 record with Visalia in 1992, where he both started and relieved. It was enough to pique the interest of Montreal, who took him as the Player to be Named in a deal for Travis Buckley that fall.

Connolly only pitched in 6 games in the Expo organization, but kept his career going with Sioux City in the independent Northern League through 1993-1994. He caught on with the Cubs system for two more seasons, finishing with a solid 37-20 record in 6 years in the minors.

TODD HELTON

FIRST BASE
B: August 20, 1973, Knoxville, TN
H: 6’2″    W: 215    B:L    T:L
Drafted 1st Round (8th overall) in 1995 amateur draft
Asheville 1995; New Haven 1996; Colorado Springs 1996-97, 2005-06; Casper 2010; ROCKIES 1997-

Anybody mind if I jump ahead for a moment? I’m gonna introduce “the” Rockies player way ahead of continuity, if only to boost the likelihood of other fans and collectors googling the blog and adding their own two cents.

It was pretty exciting to see Helton selected in 1995.  When the Broncos traded for John Elway (just out of Stanford), I likened it to getting Mickey Mantle on their team.  When the Rox signed Helton, I wasn’t alone in comparing it to the Elway signing.  (In fact, there were many of us in 1993 who were hoping vaguely that Elway might actually play ball with the Rockies.)

From the minute he signed on, Todd has not disappointed.  Within two years, he had charged through the minor league chain. A lot of people beefed when Andres Galarraga was passed over as a free agent after 1997; however it was clear, then as now, that the Colorado ownership had made a solid choice in their first basemen.

The card above is Helton’s first, part of a Team USA series in the 1993 Topps Update set. The rest of these cards are from 1995, his first professional season. The missing links are the very obscure cards from the Tennessee Volunteers baseball sets from 1994-1995. Someday I’ll track them down, I swear!

TROY RICKER

OUTFIELDER
B: Aug 23, 1966, Sacramento, California
H: 6’4″    W: 245    B:R    T:R
Selected in MLB Scouting Bureau Draft: Dec 17, 1991
Visalia 1992; Central Valley 1993; Colorado Springs 1993
Released: Jun 26, 1994

One of the four players chosen by Colorado in the special draft of December 17, 1991, the 25-year-old Troy Ricker already had 7 years of minor league service on his resume. Unfortunately, he had been stuck in A ball in the Expos organization and was going nowhere when the Rockies signed him. 1992 was his standout season. Continue Reading →

RYAN TURNER

OUTFIELDER
B: Apr 24, 1969, Mountain View, California
H: 6’4″    W: 200    B:R    T:R
Selected in MLB Scouting Bureau Draft: Dec 17, 1991
Visalia 1992; Central Valley 1993; New Haven 1994
Retired: Jun 15, 1994

Someone had to be the first guy to be signed by the Rockies, and Ryan Turner was as ideal a choice as they could have asked for. General manager Bob Gebhard had made his first four player selections in a special closed bid process (on December 17, 1991) in no particular order, but decided afterward to tag Turner, a good-looking all-American kid, as the franchise’s first pick.

Turner had played outfield for the Twins’ Class A team in Bend, Oregon, as an undrafted signee out of Stanford, and had compiled some pretty fair numbers and a .315 batting average. Still, he wasn’t big in Minnesota’s plans and was left unprotected when the Rockies plucked him.  Overnight, he became the “face” of the franchise.  A poster sporting a stylized illustration (“It makes me look a lot more muscular than I am.”) was released, and Denver fans who were salivating over everything Rockies were delighted to have a player to latch onto, if only for a few months.

The Rockies sent seven young players to the Twins’ team in Visalia in 1992 (including eventual major leaguer Juan Acevedo), and Turner eked out a .266 average. By now, most Rockies fans were focused on their first full minor league squad (coincidentally located in Bend), which won a division title. Turner and his teammates were largely overlooked in Visalia.

In 1993, as the Rockies commenced with big league ball in Mile High Stadium, Turner played for their new full-time High-A team in Central Valley. He had a solid .294 campaign, but struggled in Double-A the next year. On June 15, 1994, he hung up his cleats for good.
So ended Ryan Turner’s brief professional career, but he did have a fair number of cards released, including a really outstanding one by Upper Deck. And, he’ll always be remembered as the Rockies’ first player.

Here’s Clay Latimer’s interesting article from the Rocky Mountain News, written as the Rockies entered their first World Series with the Red Sox.

Sharing an obsession.

For an obsessive/compulsive collector and cataloguer, it was a moment of incindiary foolishness when I decided to start collecting cards for Rockies players.  At first the idea was to get one card for each guy who ever put on the uniform. But the o/c collector in me took over immediately and I quickly went card-crazy.

So, along with assembling a vast checklist of items that I suddenly now “wanted”, it became additionally necessary to compile an o/c catalog of all the guys I “needed” cards for.  A seemingly endless cycle that finally reached a sense of near-completion.  It’s become clear that I could never get every card for every Rockie player, but the chronological catalog of players is complete and pretty accurate.  And that’s what I’m going to share in this blog.

I’ll start with the first group of guys selected in 1991 and move forward from there in a chronological fashion.  What that means is, I’ll never ever get to the current players; however, it also means that a lot of information will be posted about guys who are quickly disappearing into the mists of pre-internet history.  It would have been useful to have any kind of research available as I was developing my own databases, so perhaps this will be useful for others with similar interests.

Plus, I’m guessing that there will be many people who have snippets of information to add, trivia and substantia to relate, and interesting followups and anecdotes they are dying to share.  I hope I hear from you.

The fact is, I have great admiration for all of these athletes and ballplayers; to be chosen at all by any professional sports franchise is validation of a higher level of talent, so whether a guy vanishes in the Dominican League, flames out at Rookie Ball, or hangs fire in the Big Leagues, they are all worth noting and celebrating.

We’ll start back in December 1991, shortly after the Colorado Rockies were awarded a National League franchise, and they began selecting ballplayers to take the field.