The Boston Globe's Nick Cafardo has a nice little profile on Koby Clemens and his breakout season in Lancaster:
Ricky Bennett, on making apologies for the ballpark in Lancaster:
"From what our people told us and what I observed personally, he had huge hits. Clutch hits. When there were guys on base, Koby always seemed to come through. There’s no question, he can hit a baseball."
How did he learn to hit? By taking BP from Roger:
"I’m fortunate to be able to go up against Dad, and the sessions are just great. I’ve learned so much from his knowledge of pitching, and for me as a hitter, I get to think along with the pitcher. He’s always taught me what he’s thinking on this count or that count and what he’s trying to do to get me out. He’ll drop the forkball over and get me once in a while, but once in a while he’ll brush me back or I’ll take him deep and I give it right back to him because he loves that. It’s really taught me the game."
What will Koby's role be? (And this is interesting), from Ricky Bennett:
“I’ve talked a lot to him about (Brandon) Inge. He came up as a shortstop and then we moved him to catcher and then he got moved to third and the outfield. Our No. 1 pick [in 2008], Jason Castro, was going to get the bulk of the playing time, but I wanted to make sure we kept Koby’s bat in the lineup. So we played him at DH and then when Castro moved up, we caught him. He’s played third and left field and this year he’s going to play first base at Corpus Christi. But we still want him to catch some, maybe a couple of times a week."
It's really an excellent article. So excellent, in fact, that I'm almost ashamed that Houston media didn't write it.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
