Plenty of energy

One would think after four full days of ice hockey camp, with all of the skating, passing and shooting drills as well as daily off-ice conditioning sessions, that Colin might not have enough energy to sit through nine innings of Florida State League baseball, let alone work a team ball.

Well, nothing could be further than the truth. Not only did Colin make it through all nine innings, but he loaded up his fifth team ball of the 2010 Summer of Baseball, getting 19 autographs from the Daytona Cubs before last Thursday's game against the Dunedin Blue Jays.

Chris Siegfried, Matt Matulia (coach), Rebel Ridling, Kyler Burke, David Macias and Luis Flores; and

Smaily Borges, Brett Jackson, Christopher Archer and Dae-Eun Rhee; and

Tom Pratt (pitching coach), Mark Reed, DJ LeMahieu (shown above, signing the ball), Jose Valdez and Mike Perconte; and

Jake Opitz, James Leverton, Ryan Flaherty and Junior Lake (we believe).

David Macias was also kind enough to give Colin this broken bat, even returning to the Cubs' locker room to find the souvenir.

Funny moment

Beyond the team balls, broken bats and baseballs we pick up at Florida State League games, there's often a moment that makes our outings much more memorable. Last week's came when the Daytona Cubs visited Dunedin for a Florida State League game.

Brett Jackson, Chicago's No. 1 pick in 2009, drew a lot of attention from the handful of autograph hounds at Dunedin Stadium. Of course, Colin was among the group, working his fifth FSL team ball of the season. He made sure, too, to add Jackson's autograph to his effort.

It wasn't that, though, that provided the memory. It was Jackson's farewell, so to speak, that drew chuckles as he handed the ball back to Colin.

"Here you go, stud," he said.

We'll be busy

With three games scheduled for this week -- actually, three within four days -- you'd think we'd be busy enough. Ha! I wish that was the case. No, we're not content enough to take in two Florida State League games as well as a Tampa Bay Rays game.

Starting in about an hour, Colin hits the ice, taking part in his first-ever summer hockey camp. For the next five days, he'll work on his skating, stickhandling, shooting, passing and conditioning at the Pinellas Police Athletic League camp in Clearwater.

On Wednesday and Thursday, after spending nearly four hours on the ice, we'll head north to Dunedin to watch and hopefully get team balls from the Tampa Yankees and Daytona Cubs of the Advanced-A Florida State League. On Saturday, a day after Colin's hockey camp ends, we'll watch the Arizona Diamondbacks play the Rays. After that game, the Barenaked Ladies (one of my favorite bands) will perform.

Sounds like a full week to me.

Let's try this again

Earlier this season, I had the bright idea of using a foul ball, one of many that Colin has collected over our Summer of Baseball, to create a team ball of players named to the Florida State League All Star Game.

Though it got off to a decent start, my lack of attention led to a few non-All Stars signing the ball. Then, thanks to Brett, one of Baseball Mondays correspondents, I got my grubby mitts on a souvenir ball from the FSL All Star Game. The idea was that I'd use it for Daytona's Starlin Castro, the game's MVP. Well, Castro got promoted before I could have him sign the ball.

Rather than have it sit on some box, destined to be forgotten well beyond its usefulness, we brought it along last Wednesday to the Brevard County Manatees-Dunedin Blue Jays game. Though it's unlikely that we'll get the ball filled, we did add these players to it:

Brevard County's Eric Ferris, top and Dunedin's Raul Barron; and

Brevard County's Caleb Gindl.

On Saturday, we'll look to add Dunedin's Moises Sierra to the ball. And, if we can somehow fit in a trip over to Tampa before season's end, we might add signatures from Austin Romine and Jonathan Ortiz.

This took two trips

I don't know what it is, but Mother Nature, mainly in the form of thunderstorms, nearly derailed Colin's efforts to get a team-signed ball from the Daytona Cubs, the Florida State League Advanced-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.

We got the first batch of signatures -- nine in total -- before a rained-out game against the Tampa Yankees on July 9. Then, last Saturday in Dunedin, we had to dodge intermittent raindrops to add another seven signatures to the ball.

Perseverance paid off, though, as Colin completed the 11th team ball during our Summer of Baseball. The only FSL team he missed? The Palm Beach Cardinals. Still, it's a pretty remarkable feat.

Here are the 16 players and coaches to sign the Cubs' team ball:

Manager Buddy Bailey on the sweet spot;

Jonathan Wyatt, Josh Vitters, Craig Muschko and an unidentified player;

Robinson Chirinos, the since-traded Josh Harrison, Brandon Guyer and Mark Reed;

Ryan Searle, Tony Campana and Nate Sampson; and

Pitching coach Tom Pratt, James Leverton, Mike Perconte and Jericho Jones.

We had hoped to add an autograph from former big-leaguer Richie Zisk, now serving as Daytona's batting coach, but he declined multiple requests to sign before Saturday's game.

Not a total washout

Just because Mother Nature decided to go deep before last Thursday's Florida State League game between the Daytona Cubs and the Tampa Yankees, it didn't mean we didn't score a few autographs.

In fact, one of them came from Daytona third baseman Josh Vitters, a highly touted first-rounder, who's drawing rave reviews not just as a Chicago Cubs prospect but as a top 10 in Major League Baseball as well.

We also started a Daytona Cubs team ball, but the rainout kept us from completing the project. Weather permitting, we'll finish it Aug. 8, when the Cubs play the Dunedin Blue Jays.

Brett's FSL Report No. 2: Fan Fest

When the Florida State League All-Star Game rosters were released a few weeks ago, it looked as if it would be a great event with many future stars on hand. But, one by one the so-called stars began to get promoted to AA.

From Sarasota's Yonder Alonso, Fort Myers' Carlos Gutierrez, St. Lucie's Brad Holt, Jupiter's Michael Stanton, Clearwater's Dominic Brown and Kyle Drabek, and Tampa's Jesus Montero, the FSL has lost a ton of talent in the past few weeks. All in all, there have been 21 players named to the original roster who either were injured or promoted.

With what was left on the original roster, and the replacements, I made out better than I expected during the FSL's All-Star Game Fan Fest. The event, held at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers, was well-organized by the host team Miracle, with many games for children to play, live music, food and player autographs.

For most of the event, players were just hanging around, mingling with fans, playing games with children and signing just about anything. Most everyone signed next to their player bio in the program and I got plenty of cards and other miscellaneous items signed. In total, I was able to get 206 autographs (editor's note: Jeezum crow!) altogether from this year’s All-Stars.

Among the players signing cards , shown above, were Tampa’s Austin Romine, Fort Myers' David Bromberg and Ben Revere, Palm Beach’s Adam Reifer and Shane Peterson, Jupiter’s Jeff Allison and Matt Dominguez, and Daytona’s Starlin Castro and Jody Davis.