In the summer of 2005, I took over as the Editor-In-Chief of my first College Newspaper, Scepter. During that time, I was preoccupied trying to revamp a paper that no one on that campus read. In the process, I snagged an interview with David Wright and slowly began to get readership back. Nonetheless, It was during that time that I was hearing so much about another baseball player every time I turned on the local news in Brooklyn, one Joe Holden. It seemed that this kid had the goods, particularly the speed [22 stolen bases in short season ball will give you that type of reputation] to be the next youngster to one day make the show. However, because of my busy schedule, I never got a chance to watch him in person that year.

Luckily for me and perhaps unlucky for Holden, the Cyclones got off to a horrible start in 2006 and after a while it was obvious that they needed help scoring runs., prompting him to be called down from Hagerstown, where he would spend the rest of the season. However, the Joe Holden the Clones got back, was almost a completely different player. After hitting .291 with no homers and 15 RBI in over 60 games with Brooklyn in 2005, Holden developed some pop in his bat and was hitting .300 with six homers and 25 RBI in only 38 games.

Many reporters expected Holden to be quite teed off that the team would send him down after he started off so strong, but he never voiced his opinion on the subject. Rather, he just went out there and did his job. I’m sure a few of the writers knew that he was obviously frustrated at times, but like I said, he was always the consummate professional. That above everything else was something I think he teammates learned from and rallied around.

But back to Super Joe…I remember asking him where he got all that power from that season and he told me that it was due to the fact that he was finally starting to get comfortable with wooden bats. At any rate, it looked like he was going to be the savior for what was looking to be a dismal season.

While it didn’t particularly turn out that way, Holden did marvel the crowd with amazing defense and smacked an additional six homers and 24 RBI in 65 games with Brooklyn, in addition to being completely adored by the fans there. The next season in Savannah, he hit .260 with another six homers, 19 steals and 29 RBI, which hurt his stock as a prospect a tad. Nevertheless, while some are quick to suggest his star isn’t as bright as it was before, chances are this will probably be the last season Holden will play in Single-A before moving on to tougher competition.

Just a quick side note, I have an interview set up with former Cyclone Brant Rustich on Friday and will have an interview with author Ross Bernstein, author of “The Code: Baseball’s Unwritten Rules and It’s Ignore-at-Your-Own-Risk Code of Conduct,” which should be an interesting read for all of you guys.

Photos by Conroy Walker