Exile on Main Street

 Clare told me she got a tweet earlier in the week from Micah Johnson, who recommended a great place for a calzone in Syracuse; Johnson and his Charlotte Knights were in Syracuse to play the Chiefs.  I take this as a sign Johnson hasn’t been moping since his demotion last month..  In fact, he’s hitting .302 with 12 stolen bases.  More important are the three errors; Leury Garcia, Charlotte’s other second baseman, has 12, so either Johnson is playing better defense, or he’s booted the three balls to come his way.  I’m more of a glass-half-full kind of guy.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  Johnson is personable, articulate and wise in the way of social media; you want him to succeed almost as much as his family must.  If he can play for the big team the way he’s playing now, a whole lot of changes could be set in motion culminating in Alexi Ramirez going bye-bye.  That would be a good thing for all parties involved.

One last thing:  Southern towns used to be hard on and for black ballplayers; Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson among far too many other black players have their horror stories of toiling away south of the Mason-Dixon Line; now, players can tweet in their spare time as they wait for a calzone along with the hoped-for call up.  But it’s still the South, as the people of Charlotte found last week.