Hey everyone, sorry I have been slacking on my blog.. no excuse I just didn’t do it..I hope to make up for it. It’s deffinately coming to an end here, I believe we have one more week and no better way to end it than playing for first place and hoping to make it to the championship.

On the ball field things have slowed down a bit. We’ll win some and lose some but that’s how the game goes. I was able to have my family and my girlfriend, now fiance, come out and get to see me play. It’s always good to see family when you have been away from home for so long. Back to baseball, for those who want to know how John Raynor is doing, I don’t know much, he did have a fracture of his hand and I would believe he is home and probably doing some hunting. When you near the end of a season you find out what your teammates are really made of. Whether or not they are ready to go home or want to stay and play for a championship.

Myself, I have been doing well. I did get hit in the face by a baseball playing catch with Tim Wood but I’m ok. I’ve seen the Doctor and had X-Rays. So far so good. I’m hoping to get a couple more innings while I’m here and I want to finish a strong as I can. I know this isn’t much of a report but it’s all I have at the time. Feel free to ask questions. Thanks, Todd

We are closing out the month of October and I have to say it is flying by out here. To wake up everyday and it be so beautiful out here is a blessing. I’m having the best time playing for the Mesa Solar Sox even if things don’t go your way. It’s a learning experience for me, learning to throw and trust my slider and changeup and to lay off throwing the curveball in bad situations. One of the more positive notes is I’ve been healthy every outing I’ve thrown and that’s a plus. I’m out here to learn how to get better hitters out and to sharpen up all my pitches and I believe it’s working. I had one of my better days today locating my pitches even though the box score didn’t show, I believe I had a breakthrough. Sometimes the score keepers aren’t nice and they don’t play in your favor, but oh well.

Over the past few weeks we’ve had a lot of the guys on the team come over to the house and have dinner, watch a ballgame, or just to hang out with myself, Aaron Thompson and his girlfriend Brittany, and Timothy Wood. There are no “I” guys on the team and we have some of the best team chemistry I’ve witnessed on a baseball team. Well that’s about it for this week, I do have my girlfriend,mom, and step-dad coming into town this Saturday for my birthday on Nov.1 so maybe they’ll get to see me throw a couple of times while they are here. Like always if you have any questions feel free to ask and please no rude comments. Thank you, Todd Doolittle 

Well another week has gone by so quickly and this time it was a much better week. I have seen some amazing things since coming out to the AFL one being we scored 28 runs in a game. Never had a game like that, that I can remember. We have also found ourselves tied for 1st place so I believe we have turned that corner and are on the right track. It’s amazing how things work and fall into place. One person can make a game changing play and then someone else does something great. Like a trickle down effect, and the next thing you know everyone is playing together and we win games and it has been so much fun this week.

Though I only threw 1 inning this past week I am happy with the outcome. It was a perfect inning. I can say I deffinately bounced back from my last 1/3 of an inning and put that behind me and moved on. I’m sorry I don’t have alot to say my days are mostly the same. Wake up go to the field, eat breakfast, stretch, throw, shag batting practice, run, eat lunch, game, eat after the game, come home and nap, eat dinner, then go to bed and do it all over again.

 

If you have any questions feel free to ask. Thanks Todd Doolittle

Well hello again everyone from Mesa,AZ. If I were to describe how our week has gone I would have to say it’s been a roller coaster ride. We all know the game of baseball has it’s ups and downs; that it’s fun when we’re winning and not so fun when we lose. We’re doing a little bit of both here in Mesa,AZ , but I know there are plenty more games to be played so no worries, things will turn the corner for us cause I’ve seen how good we can be.

My second outing couldn’t have gone better and couldn’t have been at a better time. The Marlins GM, the Assisstant GM, our major league manager and the major league bench coach were in attendance to witness me throw my longest outing of the year. I threw 2 1/3 scoreless innings and I haven’t done that since 2006 in Greensboro,NC with the Grasshoppers. Well lets just go ahead and say that we as pitchers don’t really remember the good outings but we never forget the bad ones. Having said that lets take a sec to talk about my third outing. Like I said before it can be a roller coaster, but we have to find that happy medium to play on. Ok 1/3 inning 4hits, 3earned runs. Not good for the stats ,but with the Marlins wanting me to focus more on my slider and not so much on my curveball because they believe my curveball is not a big league pitch I can walk away from this outing knowing that my slider is developing well and that I did throw some good sliders. Bouncing back from this outing will not be a problem, that’s what baseball players have to do and learn from their mistakes.

Well I think I’ve said all I can say for this week and lets just hope that things will go great for all of us that play for the Mesa Solar Sox. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and if you have any questions feel free to ask.   

Greetings everyone, my name is Todd Doolittle currently playing for the Mesa Solar Sox here in the Arizona Fall League. Let me start off by telling you a few things about myself and how I got here. I just finished up my fourth professional season of minor league baseball for the Florida Marlins. I’m from Meridian,MS where I was born and raised. I attended West Lauderdale High School where I lettered in baseball and soccer for 4 years winning 3 State Championships in Baseball and 1 in Soccer. I then proceeded to play at Meridian Community College for 2 years leading our team to the Juco World Series in Grand Junction Colorado in 2003. I continued my career playing under one of the best head baseball coaches in college baseball, Ron Polk, at Mississippi State University for 2 years going on to win the SEC Championship in 2005. Going undrafted in 2005 the Marlins gave me an opportunity to futher my career and I signed. Well here I am, playing in the AFL with so many big prospects and all-star players.

         Moving on we have been here for about a little over a week now and me being from Mississippi, I do like Arizona. Everyday has just been beautiful. We practiced for the first few days we were here, running drills and going over every play in the book. So I can say it hasn’t exactly been laid back for us. I have made many new friends already and I’m sure to learn a little bit about each individual player as the season continues. One of the first things we had to do when we got here is stand up in front of everyone and say our name, where we were from, what position we played, and where we finished up our 2008 season. For me standing up in front ot people and speaking gets me a little nervous, but getting that out of the way helped to get to know the guys on the team.

          We have played 3 games so far and so far we have won 1 and lost 2. Watching this team play I know we are much better than that and with time hopefully we can prove it. Today was the first time for all the Marlins to throw and we all did well. I know I was a little nervous being it was my first AFL apperance, lots of scouts in the stands and I had not thown since mid September when we were playing for the Southern League Championship that we ended up losing to the Mississippi Braves in game 5 of the series. Getting my first outing out of the way and not giving up any runs, I would say I’m happy with it.

          Closing out all I can say is “WoW”, I mean I’ve had alot of great coaches, but Ryan Sandberg, Hall of Famer as my coach. If that’s not exciting then I don’t know what is. I know I grew up watching him play nad now I have the opportunity to play under him. Hopefully one day that can be me in his shoes. Well that’s all I have for now, so I’ll be back next week to tell you how week 2 goes.