Baseball in Fort Wayne

Posts Tagged ‘Burlington Bees’

Ambiorix Burgos

Back in 2004, I snapped this shot of future New York Mets pitcher, Ambiorix Burgos while he was visiting with the Burlington Bees (a Kansas City affiliate).

In 2006, he was traded by Royals to Mets for Brian Bannister and later resigned by the Mets, but spent all of 2008 on the disabled list.

Unfortunately, Burgos has run into mucho trouble as of late.

In September, the reliever was arrested on assault and harassment charges after being accused of throwing his girlfriend to the ground.

Not long after that, the 24-year-old Dominican native was allegedly driving an SUV when it slammed into two women who later died of their injuries. A search for the pitcher began after the hit-and-run incident. A week later, he turned himself in to Dominican authorities. The mother of one of the victims is accusing Burgos of intentionally running her daughter over because she refused to go out with him.

Update (10/09): Looks like Burgos will spend the next three months in jail until his trial for the hit and run “out of concern for his safety.” Although, he seems to think he’ll make his October 23rd hearing in New York for the assault charge. He and his family are claiming his innocence and assert that he is being singled out by his jealous countrymen.

Here’s a new feature I’m adding to the blog.

It’s called “I Saw Them in Fort Wayne.” I’ve been taking pictures of players in Fort Wayne for a few years now. Some of them have made it to MLB, so I figured this would be a good way to share those photos with you

First up is Mitch Maier.  I chose him becuase he’d been in the news recenlty for suffering three facial fractures when struck by a pitch during the Royals 8-5 loss to the Indians on Wednesday night (watch it here). It’s too bad too, because the kid was putting together a pretty solid season.

In 19 MLB games, he’s hitting .339 with 19 hits, 4 RBI’s and 5 runs scored. He was placed on the DL shortly after the incident.

This photo was taken in 2004 at Memorial Stadium when Maier came through as a member of the Burlington Bees when they sported one of the worst uniforms in MWL history.