Barstow Sports Blog

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Barstow had its own place at the Home Run Derby on Monday night. Angels slugger Valdimir Guerrero selected Barstow’s own Dino Ebel as his designated pitcher for the evening. Ebel set him up pretty well as the duo took the title and Vlad teed off with several homers topping the 450-foot mark.

Dino didn’t get much face time on ESPN. Every once in a while you could see the back of his head as he prepared to pitch. The announcers talked about Vlad’s pitcher a few times but never mentioned Dino by name or said anything about him. Apparently there are more people interested in that Vlad guy than Dino — go figure. At least we’ll be able to see brief shots of Dino throughout the next year when ESPN inevitably replays the derby over and over again.

As Vlad blasted the derby-winner out of the park, he started to make his way toward Dino before being mobbed by his entourage. The two eventually met halfway and exchanged a quick hug before Dino departed and Vlad received his reward.

Dino was interviewed over the phone on ESPN’s First Take, formerly Cold Pizza, Tuesday morning. Dino briefly talked about the normally aggressive hitter’s patience at the plate for one night and also deflected the credit for the win. The anchor, however, said it was a team win. Dino also go some press in a Q&A with the Sporting News’ Stan McNeal.

Vlad often sent hand signals to Dino indicating where he wanted his pitches. Vlad seemed to tire by the final round, but you’ve got to wonder how Dino’s arm was doing. If you guess that Vlad swung at one out of every four pitches Dino, 42, threw, his total would be around 176 (17 homers + 27 outs multiplied by four) for the night, and that doesn’t include the batting practice that players were taking before the derby and in between rounds.

Swinging the bat that many times isn’t easy either. News reporter Aaron Aupperlee and I went to the batting cages at the Sportspark on Saturday and took 60 pitches. Our performance didn’t quite match up to Vald’s, but we were still tired. We did OK on slow-pitch softball, but when we kicked it up a notch to medium-pitch softball, we were out of our league.

I can relate with Vald on some level, though. Anyone who watched the derby saw Vlad re-taping his hands from blisters. A Band-Aid was stuck to my left thumb for the last two days as a reminder of Saturday’s swings.

— Matthew Peters, sports editor

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