Bill Mitchell's Minor League Ramblings

Minor League Ramblings

For the week of :
August 4, 2003

Minor League Ramblings is produced by Bill Mitchell for Minor League Watch.

Harvey biding his time in Arizona until he can hit the field again
August 9, 2003

Ryan Harvey

The first thing one notices about Ryan Harvey is his size. The Chicago Cubs' five-tool outfield prospect is a big guy.

At 6'5" and a solid 220 pounds, the 19-year-old native of Dunedin, Florida just plain looks like a baseball player.

The recent draft choice is spending his first summer as a professional baseball player rehabilitating an injured knee at the Cubs' minor league complex in Mesa, Arizona. What Harvey isn't getting to do much of right now is play baseball ... and he doesn't like it one bit.

"It's not making me any better (as a player)," said Harvey. "I need to get out there and start playing."

The Cubs are taking the cautious approach with their investment in Harvey, who they drafted with the sixth overall pick in the recent free agent draft. Harvey had knee surgery to repair a torn ACL last November, then came back and played 14 games during his senior season at Dunedin High School. A subsequent x-ray gave the Cubs reason to be concerned, and the club made the decision to keep Harvey inactive until the Fall Instructional League.

While he doesn't like not being out on the field with the Cubs' rookie level Arizona League team, Harvey understands why the decision was made.

Ryan Harvey

"Once I'm on the field, I stop worrying about the knee and I go full bore," Harvey stated. "That's one of the reasons they're concerned ... they said I'm one of the kind of people that won't back down on anything, so they just wanted me to take it easy."

Harvey instead spends his time in Arizona working with the Cubs' trainers, occasionally taking a few swings in the batting cage, and watching the Arizona League team in action.

True to his nature as an outfielder, his favorite player on the rookie league team is centerfielder Ryan Fitzgerald, a non-drafted free agent from Creighton University, who is among the top hitters in the Arizona League. "He's one of THE best hitters on the team, "said Harvey, "and he's just an all-around good athlete."

Harvey leads a pretty boring life away from the Cubs' complex.

"There's not much to do ... we either call a cab and go to the mall, or one of the players on the team will take us out to the lake or out to a theme park or something," said Harvey.

The only completive baseball action for Harvey is with his Xbox game set, which he bought to help pass the time. In addition to playing baseball on the XBox, he also favors Splinter Cell. "It's kind of like a stealth, shoot 'em up game," remarked Harvey.

--- Bill Mitchell