Bowker gets some national press

Buster Olney's lead in his daily MLB blog is about Johnny Blaze. I think you have to be an "insider" to view the whole thing. What if you're an outsider?

Here you go:

As John Bowker rode into his first day in the major leagues Saturday, he kept doing a mental equipment check, double-checking in his mind that he had, indeed, packed everything he would need. Rookies who show up in the big leagues without their gloves or bats or spikes are a cliché. "I can definitely see how that can happen," Bowker said Monday afternoon, from San Francisco.

 

There was so much to do and so little time to do it. Bowker had been in Fresno Friday night, playing for the Giants' Triple-A affiliate, and just after the Grizzlies completed a wild comeback victory, Fresno manager Dan Rohn summoned Bowker into his office. Bowker had seen other players make this trip before, and he knew what that had to mean: He was being called up to the big leagues.

He needed to be at the Fresno ballpark the next morning at 7:30 a.m., Rohn told him, to meet a car service that would take him to San Francisco for the Giants' afternoon game. Bowker went to dinner, packed, got to sleep at 3 a.m. and was up at 5 a.m., throwing together his stuff before meeting the car; he got another hour of sleep during the drive.

He arrived at the ballpark at 10:30 a.m., and 10 minutes later, he took batting practice. The anxiety and nervousness that he felt was overwhelmed by the requirements of his job: He had to get his work done. Carney Lansford, the Giants' hitting coach, pulled him aside and mentioned that he had some videotape of Todd Wellemeyer, the starting pitcher for the Cardinals that day; Bowker learned what he needed -- that Wellemeyer was a fastball-slider type of guy, and that he threw a changeup as well -- and before Bowker knew it, he was standing in the box against the St. Louis right-hander. "I think with everything going on, it didn't give me any time to be really nervous," said Bowker.

 

He singled in his first at-bat, later homered, and then, on Sunday, slammed another homer. In Bowker's first six at-bats in the big leagues, he has seven RBIs and two homers among his four hits. "Now you probably think it's pretty easy," Aaron Rowand joked to him.

 

Bowker has been besieged by e-mails and text messages and phone messages -- "non-stop," he said -- including one from former college teammate Troy Tulowitzki. Within this notebook, there is word that Bowker is working out at first base.

If Bowker isn't starting today, where are we meeting to riot?