Give This Man a RAISE

I would like to introduce you to my current favorite member of the Cubs. His name is David Keller and he is either the recipient of very lucky timing or the most brilliant man in baseball.

University of Northern Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2006. Impressive ... I think.

Keller is the hitting coordinator for the Cubs minor league program, he rotates among the different minor league teams and works with a number of different players. Lou decided to bring him up today to work with Felix Pie to try and figure out what he's doing wrong. Pie had a respectable .301 BA when he was in the minors and in his last year with AAA Iowa he was hitting .362, so Keller came up to try and help get him back in that groove. Instead of starting today Pie took extra batting practice with Keller present and watched video of his swing. Whatever Keller told him must have worked, as he came in to pinch-hit in the eighth inning and went yard for a three run homer, turning a tense Cubs-Mets game into a more relaxed affair. Whether Keller has already made a difference this soon or if Pie just got lucky remains to be seen, but at least it's nice to know that we can beat teams besides the Pirates. By the way, without those six games against Pittsburgh we'd only be 7-6 instead of 13-6. Scary, I know.

A few years back the Northside Baseball forums had a Q&A session with Keller, which you can find here. Some interesting stuff. I just hope he doesn't have to stick around for too long and Pie gets his groove back.