Though he doesn't wear the shoes that share his name anymore, Chuck Taylor is still playing like an All Star for the Arkansas Travelers.
He used to wear "all the colors" of Converses back at Mansfield Timberview High School in Arlington, Texas, where he was selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the fourth round of the 2012 MLB Draft.
Travelers win
with 1 in 9th
Center fielder Ian Miller singled in the winning run as the Arkansas Travelers beat the Springfield Cardinals to earn a split of the four-game series before an announced crowd of 3,234.
Miller went 3 for 6 and scored 2 runs for the Travs in a game that included 9 total pitchers, 15 walks and 5 errors.
The Cardinals scored two in the top of the the first, but their left-handed starter Austin Gomber didn’t get out of the bottom of the first inning.
Gomber walked in the Travs’ first run with the bases loaded and gave up three more runs when Travs catcher Marcus Littlewood doubled and shortstop Joey Wong singled, and the Travs led 4-2.
Wong went 4 for 4 and hit a 376-foot home run to right field in the third inning.
The Cardinals tied the game in eighth, when right fielder Adolis Garcia stole home on a delayed play.
Travs left-hander Ryan Hortsman (2-0, 5.56) earned the victory, striking out two while pitching the ninth inning.
Springfield scored 4 runs off 4 Travs errors, 3 by Travs third baseman Justin Seager.
Taylor left the reds and blues and greens behind, stacked up in his old closet, for the cleats of minor league baseball.
"I don't worry about them anymore," said Taylor, 23, who extended his hitting streak to 16 games with a single in the Travs' 8-7 victory against the Springfield Cardinals Sunday afternoon at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock.
The switch-hitting outfielder is first in the Texas League in on base percentage (.461), third in batting average (.340) and sixth in slugging (.511). Taylor has walked (19) more than he's struck out (18) and leads the Travs with 12 extra-base hits.
"I've just been trying to stay with what I'm working on, not trying to do too much," said Taylor, who is 5 feet, 9 inches, and 190 pounds. "I just do what I can do and just put the bat on the ball."
Taylor is hitting 49 percentage points higher than at any other point in his six-year career.
Taylor last season played 41 games for Mobile, Ala., Arizona's Class AA affiliate, and was hitting .238, before finishing the season at High Class A Visalia, Calif., where he hit .273.
The .238 mark in the Southern League was his lowest since hitting .234 as an 18-year-old in the Arizona Rookie League.
During the offseason, the Diamondbacks organization essentially didn't rank Taylor as one of its top 78 players.
That left him open to be taken away by other clubs in December's Rule 5 Draft -- a draft system that prevents clubs from hoarding potential major leaguers in the minors.
The Seattle Mariners selected Taylor in the minor-league portion of the draft and assigned him to Class-AA Arkansas.
"Obviously someone saw something in him in the organization somewhere," Travs Manager Daren Brown said. "He takes good at bats every single day. ... You know what you're going to see from him, and that hasn't changed."
Mariners pitching prospects have shifted in and out of Arkansas because of mass injuries at the position in Seattle, but Taylor has been the Class AA team's mainstay. His 16-game hit streak endured an eight-game losing streak, and he scored twice after he singled and walked during the Travs' 9-1 streak-breaking victory over Springfield on Saturday.
So far, Taylor has validated the Mariners' selection.
"I feel like they saw something in me, and right now, I'm just blessed to be doing what I'm doing, and it's kind of paying off," Taylor said. "But I got to keep it going."
As for the closeted Converses, they may come in handy for future use.
"I'm going to keep 'em," Taylor said. "Got to keep them because of the name. Maybe sign them, make some bread with them."
Sports on 05/15/2017