近距离内射合集

How's this for a selling point for this year's two-member Albuquerque Professional Baseball Hall of Fame class?

Neither quite understand why they belong in it.

It's not that the pair of baseball lifers 鈥� Branch Rickey III, the former Pacific Coast League President who played an integral role in ensuring professional baseball returned to Albuquerque in 2003, and Lorenzo Bundy, the former Isotopes manager who won 226 games and orchestrated one of the most successful stretches in the franchise's history from 2011-13 鈥� aren't honored to be inducted ahead of Saturday's Isotopes game at Rio Grande Credit Union Field. In fact, both were almost giddy when talking to reporters earlier this month about how excited they are to be inducted. 

But neither ever realized their roles in the existence and success of baseball in the city was as important as did the man who chose them to join the exclusive club.

"These gentlemen have been not just friends to me personally, but people who I have admired in everything they've done in their careers," said John Traub, team President and longtime general manager of of the Isotopes.

"They are both just true gentlemen, so widely respected in our game, and it's just going to be amazing and awesome that they're both able to be here."

The pair will formally be introduced as new members of the HOF during an on-field ceremony at 6:10 p.m. Saturday, ahead of the annual Dukes Retro Night game 鈥� an ironic backdrop for this year's class considering Bundy was never part of the Dukes and Rickey's induction has everything to do with making sure Albuquerque still had professional baseball after the Los Angeles Dodgers and Albuquerque Dukes decided to leave the city.

"The roots that we had in Albuquerque were very much cherished by the members of the Pacific Coast League, and we wanted to have an ongoing franchise there," Rickey said of the period of time after the Dukes skipped town. "The problem was the facility (the old Sports Stadium). We just did not have a facility that was staying abreast of what was being expected of us by our Major League partners. ...

"It wasn't that it wasn't playable, it wasn't that the fans weren't coming out, but that our Major League partners were wanting things updated the way professional baseball was going, and we certainly understood that."

Interestingly enough, the reason baseball left 鈥� the city not investing in an adequate stadium/facility to the standard required to keep MLB teams happy enough to continue sending their developing star minor leaguers to 鈥� was three years later the reason baseball returned to Albuquerque 鈥� the city, along with the ownership group led by Ken Young and Mike Koldyke, and the PCL all working together to ensure a new stadium built on the site of the old one would suffice to bring a team back to Albuquerque.

The fact that baseball isn't just in the city today, but thriving, is something both Rickey and Bundy say has less to do with them, the facility or players themselves as it does with the people who run the show behind the scenes.

In fact, it was no surprise to Bundy when he learned recently that despite last time the Isotopes played a postseason game was when his 80-win 2012 team took the field and yet the Isotopes have led the PCL in attendance for several years in a row and have never dropped out of being one of the top handful of top attendances in all of Minor League Baseball.

"The credit to that part of it, you have to give to JT 鈥� John Traub," said Bundy, who joins Saturday's induction ceremony while taking a break from his current gig as manager of Mexico City's Diablos Rojos del Mexico.

"John Traub and his staff make the experience at Isotope Park. It's a family experience.It's a family get together, it's a family gathering... The experience that coming to the ballpark (is), I give 100% credit to JT, because he makes them want to come to that ballpark."

Added Rickey, the value of an experience at a baseball game has never been about a game won or lost, but the enjoyment of the time at the game. And that is the job not of the players on the field but of the people running things off it.

"Over time you come to see it not as who are the champions and who are the franchises that dominate in winning records, but in terms of how the franchise is run and how that causes people who come out to see the game to think that they've had the best experience they could possibly have, and they can't wait to bring their families," Rickey said.

"Certainly a game won, a game lost is not a significant factor in their experience. It's what goes on with them, and how much they enjoy being out, how well treated they are. And the quality, the quality, the quality of how the franchise is run. You want to know why Albuquerque is successful? I put it right (at the) word quality."

Reach Geoff Grammer at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) .