By By Tony Krausz/assistant sports editor
June 19, 2004
If Van Pope is dreaming, he doesn't want to wake up.
The former Meridian Community College third baseman has settled into Danville, Va., and the Atlanta Braves organization.
Pope, who was drafted with the 161st pick overall in the Major League Baseball amateur draft on June 7, has been assigned to Atlanta's rookie-league affiliate Danville Braves of the Appalachian League.
The corner infielder signed with the Braves organization earlier this week. He spent the first couple of days of his professional baseball career at the Braves' Gulf Coast training facility in Orlando, Fla. before making his way to Virginia with the rest of the team on Thursday.
Pope received a $200,000 signing bonus, $15,000 for school, and he will make $850 a month with the Danville Braves. He will be given a $100-a-month raise for every level he rises in the Braves' minor league system.
One of the biggest experiences Pope has had in his one-week professional career has been getting used to a number of different cultures quickly.
Pope said his new team has a large contingent of players from the Dominican Republic on the squad.
Pope is also adjusting to a new bat in his hands.
The third baseman, who slugged 31 home runs at MCC, has left his aluminum bat behind for the professional wooden bat.
Pope already has some experience playing out a season with a wooden bat. He played in a wood-bat league in the summer of 2003, but it is still an adjustment.
Pope's sojourn into professional baseball something he says he has always dreamed of doing has brought your friendly neighborhood assistant sports editor to an odd segue.
Russell Robert Krausz, aka Dad and sometimes Pop, is a man who loves a good game of catch.
I think one of the happiest moments in my dad's life was when I was finally old enough to throw the baseball back and forth with him.
We would toss the ball in the backyard, and the first thing we did when we arrived at each of the three annual summer picnics Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day was bust out the gloves of baseball and play catch.
My father may be one of the only dads in recorded history who wore out his son playing catch before he got tired of it.
But, alas, another sport called Russ Krausz's son away from baseball soccer.
Dad never played soccer growing up it just wasn't very popular or possibly not introduced to the United States at that time.
Still, my father was more than willing to kick the soccer ball back and forth with his futbol-crazed son on any patch of grass that would work.
Dad wasn't very deft with the soccer ball hey, it was new to him. He would send the ball back with various toe-balls and settled it with a combination of knee and shin that was highly frowned on by all soccer coaches.
But he still got out there in the backyard, on the soccer field or open land at the annual picnics to work on his aspiring Pele's game.
The baseball was still brought out on occasion, but less and less frequently.
But my father's sporting influence didn't end with a game of catch or kicking around the soccer ball, he was also watcher and reader of sports.
We would sit in the living room or often in the basement when the television was taken over by my mother or sister upstairs and watch sports.
It was the Cardinals in the summer and the Blues in the winter this was before the Rams came to St. Louis and after the football Cardinals left for the desert in Arizona.
He would explain the game to me, and he would answer various questions (some often repeated), but mainly, he would just watch the games. Even basketball, a sport he was not a big fan of.
My father helped me form my dream of doing what I'm presently doing, and he helped inform me of various things you need to know about sports if you want to make a profession out of it.
So while Pope will live his dream on the diamond, I will live mine in the press boxes behind a computer keyboard, and I just wanted to take this time to thank my Dad for helping me get to where I am.
Happy Father's Day, Pop, all the way from Mississippi to Missouri.