Lewiston Sun Journal sportswriter Randy Whitehouse must know more about baseball than he showed in
his April 3 coverage of the Portland Sea Dogs media day event. Although, I have to wonder where in his head he was hiding all that knowledge when he wrote that in 2007, pitcher Clay Buchholz "wore a Sea Dogs uniform just a few weeks before tossing a no-hitter in his first start with the Red Sox."
In fact, Buchholz stayed with Boston's Double A minor-league team in Portland for over half the season, being promoted to Triple A Pawtucket in early July, after pitching in 15 games. He remained with the Paw Sox until September, except for a brief call-up to the big club in August, during which he made his first start in the majors. That no-hitter came in his second big-league start, after he was recalled to the parent team in September.
Whitehouse is also guilty of unreasonably boosting expectations for new Sea Dogs shortstop Ryan Khoury. Khoury hit a more-than-respectable .300 last season at Single A Lancaster. But that's still a few Hall of Fame ballots shy of the .330 batting average Whitehouse claimed for him.
I almost let Whitehouse slide for leading off his piece by calling Iggy Suarez "one of the smaller players on last year's roster." At an inch shy of six feet tall, Suarez may have been a bit below the 2007 team's average height. But on a roster that included six other players of his altitude or less - including 5-foot-7-inch David Bacani, 5-foot-8-inch Matt Van Der Bosch - that phrase just rubs a 5-foot-10-inch writer the wrong way.
Al Diamon is one of the tallest media critics in Maine. He can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net .