A new beginning for Agbayani
By Stacy Kaneshiro
Advertiser Staff Writer
New scenery, same old story.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
That's how it is for Hawai'i's resident major leaguer, Benny Agbayani. He left yesterday for spring training in Tucson, Ariz., to join his new employer: the Colorado Rockies.
Benny Agbayani is expected to vie for the starting left fielder position when he joins the Colorado Rockies this season.
Out are the orange and blue. In are the purple and white.
Agbayani, 30, is one of nine players with ties to Hawai'i who will be in big league spring camps. About 25 players with Hawai'i ties will be attending minor league camps soon.
After spending nine seasons in the New York Mets organization, which made him a 30th-round pick out of Hawai'i Pacific University in 1993, Agbayani was part of an 11-player, three-team trade that landed him with the National League West club. It came shortly after he signed a one-year contract with a base salary of $600,000 with incentives that could boost the deal to $950,000.
But as with the past eight spring trainings, Agbayani's objective hasn't changed.
"Going out and proving myself, proving that I can play," Agbayani said last week. "Just making sure the Rockies made the right decision."
He sees two sides to the trade.
On the positive side, Colorado is closer to Hawai'i, and as an NL West team, most of its road games will be in California and Arizona. Also, Coors Field is a home run haven. Agbayani's first career home run was hit at Coors.
"The negative could be you have to impress the management, you have to impress the coaches," he said. "You have to make a first good impression when you get out there."
After a storybook season in 2000, when he had career-highs in batting (.289, 19 doubles, 15 home runs and 60 RBIs) and had game-winning hits in postseason play, Agbayani was hampered by injuries that limited him to 91 games last year. A wrist injury kept him out the latter part of the season.
But the injury didn't totally sideline him. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York, Agbayani visited local hospitals to encourage patients. Four days after the attack, on his own and not as a team function, he was cleared to visit rescue workers at Ground Zero.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
"I felt for them because their fellow workers — their teammates —passed away," he said. "They were heroes."
After the past three seasons in New York, Benny Agbayani will move with his daughter, Aleia, and wife, Niela, to Colorado.
With the Mets out of postseason play, Agbayani returned home to rehabilitate his injured wrist. He credited former University of Hawai'i and professional baseball player Curt Watanabe, a physical therapist, in aiding his rehabilitation.
"He understood my injury and he was able to get it back to 100 percent," Agbayani said.
As part of trade formalities, Agbayani was to take a physical today, he said.
Agbayani is expected to battle for the starting left field position against Todd Hollandsworth. The right-handed hitting Agbayani might be in a platoon with the left-handed hitting Hollandsworth because center fielder Juan Pierre and right fielder Larry Walker are left-handed hitters. Pierre and Walker are proven everyday players.
Agbayani is excited about the change. Being closer geographically to home, more friends and family are expected to watch him play. But even that has some negatives.
"Now everybody's going to be calling me because we're going to be on the West Coast a lot." joked Agbayani. "I think the ticket amount (that I need) will be much greater now."
Agbayani added that the Rockies have already shown him "aloha." He said team representatives provided him information on suggested areas where he might live in the Denver area. They provided his wife, Niela, information she may need when they arrive to their new in-season home with their seven-month-old daughter, Aleia.
"The All-Star baby," Agbayani said in reference to her birth at the time of the major league baseball all-star break.
Agbayani is expecting a less hectic environment with the Rockies. For one thing, there are fewer media covering the Rockies than the Mets.
"After playing in New York I think I'll be lost at first because I won't have people coming up to me all the time," he said. "It's going to be great. They say if you play in New York, it's going to be much easier playing someplace else. Hopefully, it is. When I got traded I was pretty excited because I've been on the East Coast since '93. Things have a way of working out, so hopefully I have a great year."
With that, Agbayani said he has three goals for this season.
"My No. 1 goal is to stay healthy," he said. "My second goal is to put up some numbers. And my third goal is to try to get a long term contract (after the season)."
Other players with ties to Hawai'i attending big league camps are Houston Astros third baseman Chris Truby (Damien '92), Pittsburgh Pirates relief pitcher Mike Fetters (Iolani '83), Chicago White Sox relief pitcher Onan Masaoka (Waiakea '95), Cincinnati Reds catcher Dane Sardinha (Kamehameha '97) and New York Mets relief pitcher Tyler Yates (Kaua'i '95). They are all on their team's respective 40-man rosters.
Non-roster invitees are Montreal Expos pitcher Justin Wayne (Punahou '97), Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jay Spurgeon (UH '95-97) and San Diego Padres pitcher Brandon Villafuerte (Big Island-born).
