Column: ‘Fletch’ set for next chapter of baseball life
As Major League Baseball gears up for Opening Day, it's a good time to give the floor to the Glacier Range Riders' newest skipper, Paul Fletcher.
The first thing you should know is that he rarely gets called Paul.
"Most people call me 'Fletch,' " he said. "And that's fine."
The next most important thing, if you're a Kansas City Royals fan like me, is that after he was taken in the 24th round of the 1992 amateur draft out of the University of Tennessee, he pitched on a Eugene (Ore.) Emeralds squad that included Mike Sweeney and Jon Lieber.
"That was a pretty good team," he said Wednesday, ticking off names of teammates like Larry Sutton and Sherard Clinkscales.
Eight of those 1992 Emeralds eventually played in the majors, but the left-handed Fletcher did not (there is another Paul Fletcher, a righthander drafted by the Phillies in 1998, who did pitch 15 innings in The Show).
After he went 2-6 with the Emeralds, the Royals released Fletcher in the spring of 1993. In 1994 he pitched well enough for Ohio Valley in the Frontier League to get picked up by the White Sox for 1995, and he pitched well for Class A South Bend that season — but was released again.
His last season pitching professionally was in Springfield, Ill. The Capitals were managed by Mal Fichman, who six years earlier had memorably been ejected from a Northwest League game, but put on Humphrey the Hawk's mascot costume to get back on the field.
The team? The Boise Hawks, now a Pioneer League rival of the Range Riders.
This article was originally published by Fritz Neighbor in the Daily Inter Lake, to read the full aritcle please visit https://dailyinterlake.com/news/2024/mar/28/column-fletch-set-for-next-chapter-of-baseball-life/