WJPA, Wild Things end broadcast partnership

If you want to listen to Wild Things games this season, then you will have to switch to a different electronic device. For the first time since the Frontier League debuted in 2002, broadcasts will be available only online.

WJPA-FM (95.3) had been the home radio station for the Wild Things since their inaugural season, broadcasting home and away games. The station opted not to continue with the partnership.

“It has been a good relationship with the Wild Things and we enjoyed the 14 years,” WJPA sports director Bob Gregg said, “but we have baseball on the AM (1450) with the Pittsburgh Pirates. That’s a lot of baseball. It was decided that we should concentrate our summer evenings with music on the FM side. We put a lot of time and resources into developing our music and regular programming, and we felt that it was best to concentrate on that instead of baseball.”

To access the games this season, Wild Things fans will have to visit washingtonwildthings.com and click on a link that will be embedded on the website. According to Chris Blaine, the Wild Things’ director of marketing and communications, broadcasts of all home and away games will have audio and video. The video streaming feature is a first for Wild Things games. Washington opens the season May 13 in Sauget, Ill., against the Gateway Grizzlies.

“We decided that we wanted to be more cutting edge and utilize technology, and be a leader in the league in this area. So there will be live streaming of both home and away games,” Blaine said.

Washington will not be the first Frontier League or independent team to offer video streaming of games. The Southern Illinois Miners have been video streaming their home games for several years. The independent American Association and Can-Am Leagues offer webcasts of selected games.

The loss of WJPA and the move to internet broadcasting leaves uncertain the status of Randy Gore, who has been the voice of the Wild Things since 2005. When WJPA dropped the Wild Things from their programming plans, Gore hoped to remain involved in the team’s broadcasts. Gore owns the PAC Sports Network, which provides webcasts of Presidents’ Athletic Conference games in various sports, and had made an offer to the Wild Things for his company to stream Washington’s 96 regular-season games.

Gore said he had made an offer for webcasting to the Wild Things but the deadline he set for a deal has passed. The Wild Things said the production of the webcasts will be done in-house and they have not yet chosen a broadcaster for the 2016 season.

Roster update

Trevor Foss

Since our last roster update on April 1, the Wild Things have been busy signing players recently released from minor-league spring training camps. Most of those players have been pitchers who likely will play more than casual roles with Washington this summer. You would think that relying heavily on recently released minor leaguers can be a good thing for an independent team, but that's not always the case (more on this in an upcoming blog post).

The players signed by the Wild Things since April 1 include:

* Pitchers Tyler Bolton, Trevor Foss, Zac Grotz, Connor Kendrick and Andrew Woeck. These are players who bounced around the rookie and Class A leagues the last two years. An exception is Kendrick, who was a 9th-round draft pick of the New York Yankees in 2013 out of Auburn and won six games in the high-Class A Florida State League in 2014, then was organizational filler last year, pitching in 14 games in Class A, two in Class AA and one in Class AAA. Grotz has something going for him in that he's an R2, which makes him more valuable when talking roster limitations. The player whose numbers impressed me most is Foss. He had a very good senior year at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and won 13 games in three years in the L.A. Angeles' system.

* Catcher Kyle Pollock. He might have the biggest impact of any player signed this month. The only other catcher on the roster is Eddie Sorondo, who played in just four games with Washington last year after John Fidanza was placed on the disabled list. According to the transactions on the Frontier League website, Fidanza has not yet been re-signed for 2016. This means Pollock, who had a nice career at the University of Evansville and spent two years in the Kansas City Royals' system, has to considered the likely starter.

Meanwhile, pitcher Luke Wilkins, who led Washington with eight wins last year, was placed on the suspended list along with outfielder Ryan Mathews. Players on the suspended list can be activated but they are usually on that list simply to prevent them from signing with another Frontier League team. They rarely play again, which means it's unlikely that Wilkins will make it back to Washington from Australia.

Where are they now?

Stewart Ijames

Three notes about former Wild Things:

* Pitcher Vidal Nuno (2011) made the Seattle Mariners' opening day roster as a relief pitcher. The only former Wild Things player to appear in a major league game, Nuno had a 1-5 record with a 3.74 ERA last year in 35 outings with Seattle and Arizona. He did strike out 81 batters in 89 innings. Nuno has pitched in 71 major league games over three seasons.

* Outfielder Stewart Ijames has been assigned to the Reno Aces, the Class AAA affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks. I believe that when Ijames makes his Reno debut, he will be the first former Wild Things position player to play above Class AA. Ijames batted. 273 with 21 home runs and 56 RBI (talk about hitting a lot of solo homers) between Class A Visalia and Class AA Mobile last year. I find it interesting that Ijames will be the third former Washington player to appear on the Reno roster. Both Nuno and Troy Marks pitched briefly for the Aces last season.

* Former Wild Things manager Darin Everson is the manager of the Hartford Yard Goats, the Colorado Rockies' Class AA affiliate in the Eastern League. Hartford is the relocated New Britain Rock Cats. One of Everson's players last year at New Britain, Trevor Story, hit two home runs in his major league debut last night for Colorado against Arizona.

* UPDATE: Former Wild Things pitcher Chris Smith (2011-12) has been assigned to the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the Toronto Blue Jays' affiliate in the Eastern League.

UPDATE No. 2: Outfielder Quincy Latimore, the former Pittsburgh Pirates prospect who played for the Wild Things in 2013, is back in the Eastern League and Class AA for the sixth year in a row. Latimore is playing for the Bowie Baysox (Baltimore) for the second consecutive season.

Also, pitcher Michael Hepple, who played briefly for the Wild Things in 2013, is with the Binghampton Mets in the Eastern League. Hepple was very good (3-2, 2.51 2 saves) as in the Class A Florida State League last year and pitched in seven games last fall in the prestigious Arizona Fall League.

Signs you are a true Wild Things fan

Recently, I saw a Facebook post entitled "16 Signs You're a True Wild Things Fan." It came, of course, from the Wild Things, and it contained some uniquely Wild Things items such as "You know what the 5th inning means ... hot and fresh from the oven cookies and milk behind home plate." I don't know if that means the milk is fresh from the oven or not.

There are a lot of things that were left off the list. I thought the readers of this blog could add a few. I'll get it started:

* You remember when they would give away a used car before the Friday night fireworks.

* You hear "There goes another customer for ProTech Auto Glass" in your sleep.

* You figured out that former manager Darin Everson put on the hit-and-run about 95 percent of the time when the count was 2 and 2.

* You hosted a Wild Things player or two ... or four .. as a host family.

* You've been told 15 years in a row that this is the season the Wild Things will win the Frontier League championship ... and you still believe.

* You remember Trinity High School athletic director Ricci Rich as the original Wild Things on-field between-innings MC.

Now, it's your turn. Time to add your "Signs you're a Wild Things fan" ...

Two more added to roster

Davis

The Wild Things added an outfielder and a pitcher Thursday.

Washington signed lefty pitcher and Ohio native Devon Davis, and outfielder Brandon Rawe. Both players were recently released from minor-league spring training camps.

Davis spent two years in the Chicago White Sox organization after being signed as a nondrafted free agent out of the University of Montevallo (Ala.). He had a 5-6 career record with a 4.07 ERA. Davis pitched in 34 games last year with Chicago’s two Class A teams, in Kannapolis and Winston-Salem, and the Class AA affiliate in Birmingham.

Davis is a native of Mason, Ohio.

Rawe

Rawe was Miami’s 34th-round draft pick last spring out of Morehead State, where he holds the school record for hits in a season. Rawe, a former All-Ohio Valley Conference first team selection, batted .218 in his only year of professional baseball, playing for the Marlins’ affiliate in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League and Batavia of the short-season New York-Penn League.