Thursday, June 5, 2008

More on Battle Creek and the draft

You have to give the Battle Creek Bombers credit. Whatever they did last season just didn't work. So they cleaned house and started over. In came a new manager in Matt Fonteno, who's an assistant at UNLV, along with a new coaching staff. And in came an entirely new group of players.

“Just kind of get a breath of fresh air with everything and a whole new attitude," Fonteno said of his approach to taking over the Bombers. "My coaching staff and the new players – there isn’t any returners from last year’s squad. We’re just kind of starting over and developing a whole new atmosphere.”

* On an unrelated note, we're now about an hour into the 2008 Major League Baseball first-year player draft. I'll try to keep you posted throughout the day on any Express-related picks. I would imagine the first player with Eau Claire connections to come off the board would be UC-Davis catcher Jacob Jefferies, who's expected to go in the first four or five rounds. There's been a mini run on catchers early in the first round, so Jefferies might climb up a few boards. Jake was a big, big part of the Express' run to the Northwoods League championship series last summer and is a real nice kid.

A few current Express players also should come off the board -- whether it be today or tomorrow, when the draft concludes. I'll have my draft tracker up during batting practice and tonight's game against Waterloo. So stay tuned.

- Joe Ziemer

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