Dragons Hitting Coach Returns to West Michigan
Posted on 07. Jul, 2009 by Corey in All, Dayton Dragons Baseball, General Baseball.
For most of the Dayton Dragons, this current road trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a new one. Less than a handful of players have ever been to Fifth Third Ballpark to take on the West Michigan Whitecaps. But for one Dragon, he is returning to the place where he got his start in professional coaching.
Dragons hitting coach Tony Jaramillo finished his playing career in 2003, and the next season accepted a job as the hitting coach for the Whitecaps, a Single-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. That first season in 2004, under manager and former big league player Matt Walbeck, Jaramillo and the West Michigan won the Midwest League Championship, something Jaramillo hopes will happen with the Dragons.
“I have great memories from my years in West Michigan,” Jaramillo, who joined the Reds organization in 2008, said. “The fans and the booster club were great.”
As far as any tips for his current players, Jaramillo could only caution that the park was more of a pitcher’s paradise. Because colder air moves in at night, baseballs don’t fly as well as they would normally during a hot summer day “The air is really heavy there,” Jaramillo added. “You can have a player hit a ball as well as you can hit it, and it might not even reach the warning track in Fifth Third Ballpark. It’s tough to console a hitter as a coach after that one.”
This trip back to Grand Rapids is also special for Jaramillo because his eight-year-old son Anthony is by his side. He is excited for Anthony to once again roam the ballpark he did when he was just three years old and his dad was starting out in coaching. “Anthony was signing autographs there at three years old and just loving it. This will be good for him,” Jaramillo said.
Jaramillo hopes one day to be able to join his uncle, Rudy Jaramillo, as a Major League hitting coach. Rudy is currently the hitting coach for the Texas Rangers. Tony says he owes all he knows to his uncle, and that the philosophies that the Rangers teach are all being used in the Reds system today.
“My Uncle Rudy is a huge influence on me in baseball and in my life. It is great to also be able to go home to Texas in the off-season and get to work with him giving lessons and learning more about the game.”
As the Dragons take on the Whitecaps in this four game series, let’s hope Jaramillo remembers to go to the visitor’s dugout between innings.
