Phillip Wellman's latest baseball team has the lowest batting average, has scored the fewest amount of runs and has the highest ERA while posting the worst record in the Texas League.
But the three-decade veteran of minor league baseball hasn't complained once in his first season as manager of the Class AA San Antonio Missions.
Today’s game
ARKANSAS VS. SAN ANTONIO
WHEN 5:30 p.m.
WHERE Dickey-Stephens Park, North Little Rock
RADIO KARN-AM, 920, in central Arkansas
WEBSITE travs.com
PITCHERS Travelers: Alex Blackford (RHP, 2-2, 1.85 ERA); Missions: Michael Kelly (RHP, 2-3, 3.93)
TICKETS Gates open 1 hour before first pitch. Box $13, reserved $9 ($6 children), general admission $7 ($5 children)
PROMOTIONS Find a $3 off coupon at all Edward’s Food Giant locations, and get family admission for $10 with a church bulletin. Also, a kids clinic will begin at 3:40 p.m. and the first 200 kids will receive a free baseball. The park will remain open following the game for the Riverfest fireworks display. SHORT HOPS RHP Troy Scribner was assigned to the Angels’ spring training facility in Tempe, Ariz., on Saturday. Scribner was 3-3 with a 6.25 ERA in seven starts for the Travs.
THE WEEK AHEAD
TODAY San Antonio, 5:30 p.m.
MONDAY Off
TUESDAY at Springfield, 6:30 p.m.
WEDNESDAY at Springfield, 6:30 p.m.
THURSDAY at Springfield, 7:10 p.m.
FRIDAY at Springfield, 7:10 p.m.
SATURDAY NW Arkansas, 5:30 p.m.
"I can live with that," Wellman, 54, said before the start of a series with the Arkansas Travelers. "If they come here every day with a good attitude and have a good day's work."
Wellman appreciates the work, but he's really just happy to have a team again.
Wellman, returning to the home park of his last managerial job, is hoping to see signs of a turnaround from a team that has lost 13 of its past 17 games before Saturday's doubleheader. He also does so with a different outlook on a game in which spent his entire adult life until two months after the Travelers' season ended with a loss in the 2014 Texas League playoffs.
A year ago at this time, Wellman was in Chattanooga, Tenn., working in the operations division of a trucking company. His salary was the same as when he was in baseball, he said, but he worked normal hours for the first time in his life -- 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. -- and never stepped foot inside a ballpark.
Periodically, friends would call Wellman to see if he wanted to go watch the local Class AA team from the stands, but Wellman always declined.
"I couldn't do it," he said. "Plus, I had to go to bed at 10:15 so I could get up to work."
Wellman, who was a manager or coach at various minor-league stops between 1992-2014, said he holds no grudge against the Los Angeles Angels, who didn't renew his contract following the 2014 season in which he managed the Travelers to a 75-65 record. The Travs were eliminated from the playoffs by Tulsa on Sept. 6, and Wellman said he was informed in November that he wouldn't be returning to the organization.
Reasons why remain unclear, at least publicly.
"Someday I will get to tell the story, which I will never tell until I'm out of the game," he said. "It has nothing to do with me and it has nothing to do with the Angels. The person who is responsible for me not being employed by the Angels, he knows who he is, and I don't need to say another word about it."
Angels officials never announced a reason for Wellman's departure, and a Travs official declined comment this weekend.
"Someday, it will be appropriate, but the person who is responsible for it, he knows who he is," Wellman said. "I know who he is, and the Angels know who he is."
Wellman said his intentions were always to get back into the game, and that his year away allowed him to grow his appreciation for it.
"It's a very humbling experience," he said. "You wake up one morning in November and you don't have a job. It's kind of eye-opening. But, winners win and survivors survive. I made it through it, it wasn't always easy."
Wellman said a connection with San Diego Padres assistant general manager Fred Uhlman Jr. led to his being given the reins of their Class AA team. The Missions don't have the most talent in the Texas League -- no players on his team are ranked among baseball's top 100 prospects -- and while trailing Corpus Christi by 16 games in the South Division standings, they likely aren't going to the playoffs.
But Wellman rode the team bus to the ballpark Saturday, threw batting practice and hit ground balls before the start of a doubleheader. Today, he'll do it all again in preparation for a 5:30 p.m. series finale.
"God has a tremendous sense of humor," he said. "I remember for a year every day praying 'Dear God, help me find an opportunity, open somebody's hearts and eyes.' And he's like 'Are you sure you want to get back in it?'
"I tell my wife, 'We're 16-36, but I'm grateful and there's no place I'd rather be.' "
SATURDAY’S GAMES
MISSIONS 6-2, TRAVELERS 0-5
The Arkansas Travelers didn’t sweep the San Antonio Missions in a doubleheader Saturday, but considering how the week has gone, a split will have to do.
San Antonio beat Arkansas 6-0 in the first game before Adam Daniel’s RBI double and three-run single powered it to a 5-2 victory in the second game at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock. The victory snapped a five-game losing streak and Daniel’s double that scored Cal Towey in the first inning ended a string of 20 consecutive scoreless innings. Manager Mark Parent felt the victory was so necessary that he pulled starter Alex Blackford, who returned Saturday from the disabled list, even though he had given up only a Gabriel Quintana home run in four-plus innings.
“I know he wanted to stay out there and try to get his W, and I wanted him to,” Parent said. “But, you know, we needed a W ourselves for our own well being.” Blackford gave up the home run to Quintana, a walk to River Stevens and a single before being relieved by Tyler De-Loach, who gave up a double to Nelson Ward that scored Stevens. But DeLoach and D.J. Johnson didn’t allow any more runs as the Travs won for the first time since May 28.
Daniel had four hits in the two games, including a bases-loaded single to shallow right that scored three runs in the third inning. The single scored Anthony Phillips and Bo Way, then Towey scored when Daniel was caught in a run down between first and second base.
“He didn’t hit that ball very good but it sure paid off,” Parent said. “That’s the difference between striking out and just putting the ball in play, you never know what’s going to happen.”
Sports on 06/05/2016