A taste of honey: All minor league ball players wait for 'the call'

TEMPE, Ariz. — Infielder Sean Rodriguez bounced up and down between the Angels and the Bees so many times last year his fans thought he was on a trampoline. Five trips to L.A.

Was it discouraging? Not at all.

"When you get a taste you say to yourself, 'Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can play up here,' " said Rodriguez. "It makes you work that much harder. Whether I'm in Los Angeles or in Salt Lake City, I try to keep the same approach, the same mentality."

For members of the Salt Lake Bees, any "taste" of the big leagues is always a taste of honey.

At the end of each season, Major League ball clubs call up dozens of players from their farm systems to give them a quick look. Coaches want to see how the youngsters handle the pressure of big league pitching and playing before thousands of fans, not to mention the pressures of the clubhouse and the media. They also bring them up because they know just one at-bat in the Major Leagues can be enough to motivate a young player for seasons to come. And every ballplayer finds that motivation in his own way.

"When you're brought up," said slugger Vladimir Guerrero, "you start to learn from the other players. It gives you more confidence."

Matt Brown, who played on the U.S. Olympic team last year and also got to spend a few weeks with the Angels after hitting 21 home runs for the Bees, learned this lesson. "I learned to enjoy it all — to have as much fun as I could," he said. "I got into a good situation with the Bejing Olympics. That really helped me out. Now, the idea is to just keep going. It's always motivating to get called up to the big leagues, no matter when you get the call. You want to show everybody you belong there."

And that first big league at-bat stays bright and fresh in the mind for a lifetime.

Shortstop Maicer Izturis, who's been in the Major Leagues for four years, remembers his first moment with the Angels as if it were yesterday.

And last year, Freddy Sandoval got called up from Salt Lake after leading the Pacific Coast League with 142 hits. He arrived just in time to suit up for a game with the New York Yankees. And though there was almost no chance he'd play that night, his father — Freddy Sandoval Sr. — still drove to Los Angeles from Tijuana, Mexico, and paced back and forth in front of the ticket window long before it opened.