Adam Loewen … revisited.

A while ago I had a baseball blog that didn’t really go too far.  But one post that was quite popular was what I wrote about Adam Loewen.  You may remember him as a Canadian top prospect pitcher, who after being drafted by Baltimore, appeared to have a good career ahead of him.  But injuries slowed down his progress, and he made the brave decision to end his pitching career in order to prevent any more surgeries.  He was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays and has been working his way through their farm system as a position player.

Here is my original post …

Now Pitching … Not Adam Loewen

It takes a lot of courage to quit a job that you have been successful at and start over at a new one.  It also takes a great deal of intelligence to understand the long term risks to your health and put yourself first instead of money, fame, and a major league career.

But that’s exactly what Adam Loewen did this week when he announced that he was done with elbow surgeries and would restart his career as a position player.  He refused the suggestion of yet another surgery and decided to start over by picking up a bat and changing his career.  I can’t say I believe his would be the preferred choice of most MLB players, given the amounts they are paid in the majors versus the minors.  Loewen showed that money is not at at the top of his priority list.

Now, we’ve seen this happen before, with the notable case being that of St. Louis Cardinals’ Rick Ankiel.  Not too many people have forgotten his post-season pitching performance where he continually tested the strength of the screen behind home plate to the dismay of the catcher.  Most thought his baseball career was done, but he stuck with it, moving through the Cardinals’ farm system and eventually making it back to the majors last year where he’s had great success and is one of the reasons the Cardinals are still in contention.  Most had written the team off before spring training.

So now we get to see if Loewen can be as successful.  Let’s hope that the percervearavnce that got him to the majors continues, and we can once again head to Camden Yards to cheer on the Canadian.  Now that would be a great story.